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That's right, poor people shouldn't have an education!
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That's what you are advocating with "Government shouldn't be involved in education." Is that really what you mean?
That's what you are advocating with "Government shouldn't be involved in education." Is that really what you mean?
The "voucher" sort of scheme will inevitably result in the State giving everyone enough money to buy a Nissan Micra, with rich parents "topping-up" to get a Mercedes, Porsche or Ferrari. Which is not much different from what you get now, just a bit worse.
For example, higher education IS currently on a loan-integrated voucher system, and it is common knowledge that private colleges are a money pit these days.
Do you think that you get good nutritious food by paying bottom dollar? You think those nitrates and high fructose sugar and other junk are really good for your health? You think that a low cost diet that lacks "expensive" fruits and vegetables has no impact on your health?
The problem with a cheaper second tier education is that it perpetuates the affordability problem from generation to generation. The poor parents who could not afford to send their kid to the rich school will have a son or daughter with a second tier education who will only be qualified for low paying second tier jobs. This system creates a stratified society with low mobility and represents a waste of human potential -- the brilliant kid whose parents couldn't give him a first rate education cannot reach his full potential, while the lazy dumb kid with rich parents takes up a spot in a class in which he simply does not deserve to be (from an academic perspective).
Thinking that the market is a solution to everything is a popular fallacy nowadays. There are places where the market does not produce good outcomes -- education is one of them. You cannot trade human intelligence and aptitude. You cannot have different high standards for different prices -- there are no low tier high standards and top tier high standards. People who are motivated by greed do not make good educators.
Keeping the government monopoly in place only serves the interests of the employees and unions of the public schools and no one else. Certainly not the students.
"Thinking that the market is a solution to everything is a popular fallacy nowadays."
Yeah because it works.
>> How much better is a $1,000,000 car vs a $1,000 car? They both get you from A to B. in terms of function they both perform at roughly the same base
$1,000 gets me a beat up car from the 1980s that barely works, breaks down all the time and surrounds me in noxious fumes. $2,250,000 gets me a Bugatti Veyron that has a top speed of 250 mph and does 0-60 in under 3 seconds. No difference there at all -- they're quite comparable!
Since school, education, economic potential, etc., are so tightly tied to social status, this is hardly surprising. It's also present in other goods: I'm sure you can think of luxury cars, foods, clothes, clubs, etc., whose appeal and cache is largely their exclusivity and the fact that the great unwashed masses can't access them. No, this doesn't apply to all goods, but for a class of them, yes. (That this is also tied to price discrimination behavior on the part of producers also has something to do with this).
What is the term used for the highest ranked colleges in the US? Oh yeah: "highly selective".