Shouldn't university be free for some students?

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04/23/2023 08:22

Subject: Shouldn't university be free for some students?

Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reparations is probably one of the dumbest ideas out there. Where does it end? Any identity group that was harmed by government policy at some point in the distant past now effectively gets to confiscate the wealth of other identity groups for their own enrichment? You know who also got screwed by the “system”- families who lost their fathers, brothers and sons in various wars? Why don’t we send those families reparations?

We are on a path to civil war if we persist with this illogical mode of thought where the descendants of one group owe something to the descendants of another. I don’t owe black people anything and they need to keep their hands out of my pocket. And they owe me nothing.

I kind of agree with this. What about all women? Women have been institutionally marginalized and discriminated against for centuries. Where’s my free education and reparations?

Ideally nobody would have to pay for state public universities.

There is no such thing as “nobody would have to pay.” Somebody has to pay. Doesn’t it make sense that it should be the person receiving the goods and services?

I think it’s weird to think of college as a commodity. Do we think of a primary education as a “good or service”?

Students earn degrees by doing the work. What you are paying for is an opportunity, if you pay for college and don’t work, you don’t get a degree.

It makes sense for us to collectively pay for public college education, as we pay for k-12, because we as society benefit from people studying to become teachers, engineers, nurses, etc. The individual invests their sweat equity.

People who wanted to pay for the prestige of a private university could still do so.

We could have a discussion about college being subsidized by the state but it should not be based on skin color. The point is though, nothing is free, if the student doesn’t pay tuition, workers will be taxed.

But free public college for all would address all the problems with OP’s proposal (and there are many, already cited in the thread).

Someone pays for everything. We pay for roads and bridges, for much of the telecom system (a lot of it is publicly funded), to maintain the financial system, for the military, for parks and public lands, etc. They are public goods. In virtually all other developed countries, university education is also viewed as a public good. In fact, it used to be viewed that way in the US, until we stopped adequately funding public colleges and started both shifting the cost onto individuals AND making college into something more than just an education. It used to be possible in the US to go to a state flagship for about what you could make at a summer job waiting tables. Now it’s hard even to afford community college via self funding, and community colleges don’t offer the degrees needed for most jobs (we’ve also started requiring college degrees for everything from managing a clothing store to being an executive assistant).