> For example, I think free college for everyone is a terrible idea. Most people consider that heresy.
A terrible idea from what perspective? I'd love to hear more! (I'm on the other side of the spectrum)
A terrible idea from what perspective? I'd love to hear more! (I'm on the other side of the spectrum)
I think the idea that someone can get straight C's in highschool and get $50k a year to study art in college is not a good use of my tax dollars.
I also don't think it's a good idea to give someone like me a free college education. I make $400k a year. I can pay for it my fucking self if I want to. The idea someone else should pay for it seems absurd.
Further, some of the most expensive schools are some of the worst schools. I don't think we should be paying an unlimited amount of money for the same education. If the University of Pittsburgh can deliver results much better than USC (I'm not saying it can, this is a hypothetical) -- I don't think you should be able to get $70k a year to go to USC when you can study the same thing with better results at Pittsburgh for $20k.
All that being said, I think it's a phenomenal use of my tax dollars to train someone to be a doctor or an engineer or a lawyer (etc), who's demonstrated an interest in medicine (or something relevant) and has done well in high school -- especially if that person wouldn't otherwise be able to afford going to medical school (or law school or whatever). Especially if the tuition at that school isn't excessive, and people who graduate from it actually go on to get jobs as doctors and not baristas at Starbucks.
There's a lot of other things to consider as well -- is it just tuition we're covering? In Europe, most of the universities dorms and cafeterias aren't exactly 5-star hotels. Stanford's dorms can cost $2.5k per month for a swanky broom closet. I'm not sure it makes sense to pay for that. But I also think it's important to pay for room & board, because some people might really not be able to afford it, or will probably do worse in school if they have to work a full-time job to pay for room & board. I don't think it's a good investment to pay to put people in school and then set them up for failure.
Additionally, I think students should have SOME Skin in the Game. If college is 100% free, I'm not sure that creates the best incentives for the students. Maybe the government should pay for 80% and give you a low-interest loan for the other 20%. And maybe the max you can get is the minimum tuition of schools in the top 5% in your field of study. And maybe you get a stipend for room & board that is reasonable. That, I think would prevent a lot of potential abuses.
What if that person ends up being successful in that field ? Should we only have the kids of the rich do arts ? That seems to be what's going on in the US and you see the devastating cultural result.
> Additionally, I think students should have SOME Skin in the Game
You have skin in the game, because you need to feed yourself. The government paid for my studies, that doesn't mean I wasn't thinking "how will I have a roof over my head" afterwards.
> Stanford's dorms can cost $2.5k per month for a swanky broom closet. I'm not sure it makes sense to pay for that
Trust me, if they're focused on reducing costs, they won't cost 2.5k a month. French public (individual) dorms cost like 120e a month.
They don't cost 2.5k a month, and they aren't swanky broom closets. The average is ~1k, cheaper if you live with more people; this is below Palo Alto rent, mind you.
I believe the Stanford dorm experience is way better than that of most American institutions. For starters, every undergrad is basically guaranteed housing for the entirety of their college education, so no one is unwillingly ejected from university housing and forced to rent elsewhere (which is more expensive, as I already pointed out).
Not sure why gp decided to throw some random defamation at Stanford (might have been exaggerating to make a point, but it's not at all clear from the writing).
Disclosure: Stanford alum.
Why Art is not a good use of tax dollars? Who decides what is good or bad to study? Should only be the free market? I believe a cost of $50k/year/student is not optimal. I also think cost for education per student/year is much cheaper in Europe.
> I also don't think it's a good idea to give someone like me a free college education. I make $400k a year. I can pay for it my fucking self if I want to. The idea someone else should pay for it seems absurd.
It's hard to tell "a priori" if someone studying certain degree will make X amount of money. Because of that, I believe the balance is better adjusted after the fact of someone studying (meaning: paying taxes on salary once they get a job) than before (when studying).
> I don't think you should be able to get $70k a year to go to USC when you can study the same thing with better results at Pittsburgh for $20k
Completely agree. One of the issues that I see on the current system is that perhaps people start paying more for the connections that studying there will entail than for the education per-se.
> Additionally, I think students should have SOME Skin in the Game
Students should always have skin in the game. The question here is: should be mainly economical? There are a lot of other factors that can affect the status of someone that are not just about money. However I agree with you that perhaps a formula like 80%/20% might make sense. I believe that model is much closer to the one applied in Europe... and that model is actually closer to the concept of "free education" than anything else :) (at least, when viewed from the US prism)
The only lender that has benefitted from federal guarantees/subsidies for a number of years is...the US Department of Education. Whose lending is directed by the same laws that provide the guarantees and subsidies, and so are not incentivized by them.
With experience in both US and French universities, the only point I can agree with is "skin in the game." To me, the French students didn't seem to value the university experience as much because the cost wasn't explicit to them. Certainly, they were aware of the social contract whereby they worked hard and crammed for entrance exams, and then they would have high taxes in life and lower salaries than in liberal economies (the European term for US/UK freer markets). But in the everyday work I felt they didn't appreciate the effort and structure that they were benefitting from.
At the time I wondered if some symbolic 1000 Euro annual fee would make it more explicit. But if it were need based, it would just be another invisible subsidy to poorer students and just as invisible to richer students whose parents would pay it. And otherwise, it would just take away from the poorer students' housing and food budget, so I don't know the answer. It seemed to be more of a perception that needed adjusting, perhaps with a different attitude given by professors and administrators.
As a side effect it would almost certainly make American universities much leaner than the zero-risk loan-glutted monstrosities they are now, which also means more people could afford to go without a loan.
Education is the cement of the society, allowing anyone to have a chance to succeed in life whatever their social origin.
This is the European model. And when I see the current status of USA/UK student debt and USA Universities entrance fees: I tend to think it is a much more sane model than the American one.... even when I see my taxe bill.
Actually, I am not sure what its like in the United States. Are only the rich allowed to study art or theater?
It seems like a fantastic way to continue the income hardships your parents endured, even if college (and dorm) is free.
I am against an heavy discrimination of pricing/subsidizing based on major/area, but not because of the argument 'poor people wouldn't study art', that's a weak argument.
I know a few that are studying art or music and are definitly not wealthy. A former roommate studies music and her parents are old-school lower working-class. They know they're not going to make much money. They are doing it anyway. It's their life. Also, nobody knows whether they're a genius or not, it's harder to quantify than mathmatical abilities, at least in some areas. A lot of the art-students I know are fully aware of their prospects. I am currently taking some philosophy-seminars and the philosophy-majors are also not ignorant of the situation they're in.
An art-student I know recently married and it's going to be hard to raise kids because she's the only one that is going to make some money, at least consistenly. And she's a teacher, so it's also not much. We talked about it, it's not that he doesn't know.
Most of my friends are not doing something technical, or business-realted (art, music, literature) and I always feel lucky (or undeserving?) because I just don't have those existential problems while still doing something that I chose because I really wanted to. I have always chosen stuff because I had the inner drive to do it.
> but not because of the argument 'poor people wouldn't study art', that's a weak argument.
I think that's still a perfectly valid arguments, especially with art.
To finish my argument, I don't know how most of the would finance themselfs if they would have to heavily borrow money to study their subject. And I think society benefits heavily from them. They tour around giving concerts, organizing art-installations etc.
But in France all the good universities are the public ones, and they are all roughly the same price (e.g. the Bordeaux one is roughly 250€ per year for undegrads and 500€ per year for graduates -- or 15€ if you have a scolarship).
> I also don't think it's a good idea to give someone like me a free college education. I make $400k a year. I can pay for it my fucking self if I want to.
50% of the people in france make under the median salary which is around 20150€ post-tax per year. Most people "couldn't pay it for their fucking self" (and were you making 400k$ when you were 16 y.o. which is the age you could start university if you're quite good and skipped a class or two ?)
Let me add another point: There is a class of people who will never go to university - the real underclass whom 99% of people here have never met - instead they quit school at 15/16 to start working. The fact that these people then pay for some middle class yuppie's B.Art degree is outrageous.
Point 3 I think is a given, social aids should be given proportionally to the financial needs of each student. The fact that I paid almost the same as a child from a poor family as some of my friends did while being bankrolled by their parents is not normal.
Point 1 I agree but with caveats. The issue is that ROI is hard to estimate. If you just use "money" as the metric then you end up with only shallow education system where only the rich can afford to study the classics and everybody else has to be a good little drone. Money doesn't quantify social good, and an educated population is a good thing to have even if not everybody is an engineer. Maybe a set of scholarships should be set aside for the students willing to sacrifice themselves to fill that need, and the rest of the available funds be divided among people who have a career plan? It might cut down on the number of kids going into biology, psychology or business administration as a place holder until they figured out their life.
Point 2 is even harder because I was a barely passing high school student, but I now have a PhD in computer science and I teach in a Russell Group university in England - high school performance is a piss poor indicator of academic ambition, and should not be used as a proxy for it. My personal opinion is that conditioning funding on effort, rather than results, would be a better thing - show up to classes and do the work and the funding will keep coming even if you have a few setbacks here and there. That's already in place in our current funding system in France, but the administrative cost means that there is often a one year lag between the student completely slacking off and the CROUS cutting off their stipend.