@dfbdfb, South Asian immigrants don’t look racially white, yet they are the most successful immigrant group in the US and are far more successful than the native US population. They have nearly the highest educational attainment and are disproportionately employed in the sciences, engineering and medicine. Many were educated abroad as well. Their children have been even more successful. I think a lot of it has to do with intelligence, adaptability and motivation.
@NeoDymium , those same people were not very successful in their home countries because the government their was both protectionist and socialist and they were unable to succeed even with their educational advantages. It is a combination of free (er) markets and education that produces great results. “Free College” won’t have anywhere near the positive effect Bernie is touting because the taxes necessary to pay for such a system adds a brake on the economy. In addition, inefficient allocation of already overpriced educational resources will place a further drain on the economy. For example, if college is free and we product 50% more lawyers, it follows that 50% more lawsuits will be filed with no corresponding benefit. If a highly skilled student decides to study English instead of engineering because it is free, our country looses the benefit of his/her skill and a new product won’t be designed. Without an associated price their is no market signal of the relative worth of an education and no barrier to entry.
If you read through my posts, this is exactly what I have been saying. The education was very beneficial but a society that stops adult workers from pursuing the best opportunities was a huge issue.
Agreed. In the short term, any “free college for all” system will lead to a tax hike and will weaken the economy. In the long run, crippling debt will do much more harm than a managed tax increase.
I won’t comment on Sanders’ plan specifically, because there is a whole lot I do and don’t agree with about how he structures his system.
Free markets don’t really work for education. They violate a lot of the assumptions of a good “free market” good - the system is shrouded in misinformation (e.g. what college is better, what will you learn, how much will it really cost), the switching costs are enormous (transferring won’t happen except under extreme circumstances), the rationality assumption doesn’t hold, and education is a positive externality to society. It very closely fits the idea of what a public good should be.
The not-so-simple solution is to avoid producing more lawyers than are needed. This involves a lot of prediction about how the economy will look within the next decade, which is very difficult. But it’s a better alternative than letting people chase “the next hot thing in town” on public money. Or on their own money for that matter.
Maybe they will write a culturally significant novel. Maybe they will inspire another generation of students to reach new heights. Maybe they will negotiate historic deals with our political adversaries. Maybe they will do one of the very many other things that intelligent people who don’t have an engineering degree do for society.
As long as there aren’t too many English majors, there isn’t a problem here. And the best way to deal with that is to have reasonable caps on enrollment, and have the universities/colleges take responsibility for making sure that they make a good faith effort to train students into a market that is reasonably favorable for them.
@NeoDymium I am totally on point with you on market failures with misinformation. The huge disservice we have to young adults right out of high school is there is no easy way to compare colleges and their worth. Everyone has their own definition and thus have their own value tied to said education and place. To me college is a direct ROI in human capital: I want to become an engineer so I need an education I can get at college. The college selection was mainly on me because my counselors were clueless (just go anywhere and take the loans) and my parents are old enough that the college selection game has changed since then. Before I picked my college, I remembered the endless hours searching through different websites on colleges and their arbitrary rankings. I guess internally I was going more for a gut feeling than actual logical sense of why a college is numerically better instead of its direct input (my savings and work) to output (education gained/employment chances/salary). It took me months and an eventual cool head to figure out that ABET accreditation was what I need first and foremost and if I went where the scholarship money flow so I wouldn’t be drowning in debt, I would be better off for it. Again, I was lucky I put off choosing till the end. So many people have their hearts chosen on places from the get go and only after enrolling or going to their first classes that they realize they can’t afford their dreams and are stubborn to change it out of avoiding disappointment. If we want to address fixing the college cost problem and thus the college selection process, we need to resolve that shroud of misinformation and stop treating college as simply a kid walking through a candy store. The Obama tool that was recently released was a good start but needs a lot of improvement. Nothing is more dangerous than 18 yo’s with starry eyed dreams and without a cool head to sign themselves and their parents into a non-tangible asset that cannot be repossessed or discharged of debt if they screw up. We will make it a little better if we can quell emotions with a more objective tool on inputs and their resultant outputs.
There is no question that education is a positive externality on the public. The premise of a good with a positive externality is to provide as much as people are willing to pay for it. Especially a public good no less. This comes down to the essential piece of the puzzle: how much education does society want for people AND how much are they willing to pay for it? The main problem with public goods is that they inherently cause the freerider dilemma that not everyone pays their fair share. Now I doubt anyone will want to say that a kid from a low income family should haul up $20,000 a yr working 60 hr/week to pay for tuition and living. However it’s all about proportionality. At what level do those making more will have to not only front more for higher cost of attendance but also have to pay higher taxes so those making less can go to school? And what about the students (like me) who worked hard and got a huge scholarship to go to college where I do not have to pay tuition and now I have to pay higher taxes forward because I was “privileged” to get my grades and test scores to get it and thus I should help everyone else who wants it, even if their own merits and abilities are questionable? This is already a big problem for middle class families. We all want “free” education but at some arbitrary level there will be people paying more disproportionally so everyone else can benefit. The main issue with that is that it is usually the middle class that gets that shaft with those taxes, even with the intention of putting it on “the rich”.
Look, I am all for more people going to college but only certain people with the merit and ability to complete it with focus and determination. Nothing makes me sicker when I took a year off to work a full-time job because I did not expect the government to help me with living costs and that one of my best friends wasted $5,000 in pell grants to go to school because “he felt he needed to”. As much as I love and respect him, he has no desire. They has zero motivation for school. He even said that he hatttttteeeeed education because “it’s boring” for the homework teachers assign. I told one him to go to a cc and avoid loans but instead he chased the state university he couldn’t afford or deserved to go to and now his single income dad is $10,000 in debt to bail him out and now—at my pleading to him–he is enrolled in cc but still failing EVERYTHING while still getting pell grants. Why in god’s name is “free tuition for all” a solution for those who are willing to work hard for scholarships and a higher income only to have it taken and slapped in the face with more taxes when more and more people did not work as hard in school get to go “free”??? Until we move towards a system of reasonable states intervention and a merit evaluation of the student, simply subsidizing our current college model is a total waste and does not solve the problem of why so many people out of college can’t get jobs.
People have taken, it appears, my comment about race and immigrants as a flat statement that the presence or lack of success among immigrant communities can be chalked up to racial discrimination and nothing else.
Wrong.
If you actually read what I posted, I said that there are a multiplicity of reasons a community might or might not be successful, and therefore any attempt to come up with simple explanations based on just a few characteristics is doomed to failure.
But I thank y’all for effectively proving my point, so there’s that.
@atomicPACMAN07
In every policy question I’ve ever seen with the issue of debt elimination in exchange for future wealth reduction, there is a pretty huge divide between those who have their debt well-managed and those who don’t. Those who have debt troubles are willing to do what needs to be done to get rid of it, while those who don’t feel that they did their fair share and they are being punished for it. The answer is almost always some nontrivial form of compromise with the understanding that that policy is good in the long term.
Part of the solution has to be a more exclusionary and rigid system about who gets to use certain resources. I personally believe that universities waste a fair share of money on unnecessary expenses, but also that a university education is still pretty expensive and that it really may cost something like $100k for the university to train a very smart student. No one doubts that $100k is a pittance compared to what a very smart and talented person will provide over a lifetime in tax revenue, public contributions, advancement, etc., so that isn’t an issue. But if it costs $100k to educate someone who will party for 2 years then drop out and work in a fast food joint? That is a pretty stupid waste of taxpayer money.
So the solution is that there needs to be a sort of tiered education system, where those who are worth a “university grade” investment based on their earlier achievements will get that investment on public money. Those who haven’t proven that they are worth that investment will be placed into trade schools, vocational schools, and community colleges, where they will still receive a quality education but that education will be a much cheaper public expense. Also, since as I mention many times, “a straight inflexible path to success favors the socioeconomically privileged,” people need to be able to go from CC to university if they prove that they really do have what it takes to succeed.
Public money should fund those who put in a good faith effort to get a solid education. It should also offer a higher grade of investment in those who can prove that they are not only hard-working, but also naturally talented enough to learn science, engineering, history, or other high-value subjects at a deeper level. Those who have no work ethic should not be wasting public money.
I’m on board with you @NeoDymium . Tiered education can at least separate those like my friend who jump into a university when they graduated with a 2.4 GPA. They need to start out from the bottom at cc. If they prove their worth, they should be reimbursed and rewarded. The better they do and show improvement that they actually care about their education, then they should deserve support on their journey to the 4 year degree. It is all about proving worth and not wasting money as much as we can. Will it always work? There is always cases but at least we weed out the cases of students wasting subsidies in place of those who could use it ten times more efficiently by actually doing well in school and graduate in 4 years.
So is it about making sure that the maximum students possible attend college, or that the ones that do (which is limited) get paid for and succeed? If it’s about maximum students getting through college overall with low cost to those should can’t afford it, then maybe a purely socialistic model is what you might want? Imagine if colleges were like taxes - if someone makes a million dollars, a socialist might say they owe more to society than someone who makes 10k, so they should be taxed at higher rate. Imagine if college was like that - if you make above x dollars, you pay y amount, graduated based on income. Granted it does work like that to some extent already, but take out the federal loans and aid to the student part and just have them pay what they can. Cut out all the fancy trimmings and just do the bare minimum for college to make up for the decreased income. Of course, it wouldn’t be popular for the wealthy families.
Or tax everyone more so that education is free. No matter how you slice it, those on the upper scale of the income bracket will be paying for others. Granted, that already happens to an extent. But how much will the taxes be? Will it reach the point that there’s no reason to move up in society because all it means is more getting taken away? That’s the main problem here, and with socialistic policies in general. It’s all free… until you start work and the government takes 50%+ of what you make. (The tax rate in Sweden is that high.) If we encourage people to want-want-want and take-take-take, why are they going to turn around and give-give-give once they have something of their own that they’ve earned?
Students of average abilities learn important career skills in a pretty average environment like trade school, vocational school, or CC (which might make sense to be a 3 yr program at a slower pace than university). These programs will be done on the cheap, but will still be pretty effective.
Students of above average means are given an above average education in a university setting, where in addition to learning basic skills, they learn advanced skills in their field and spend time under the tutelage of actual experts. This is a lot more expensive, but exclusionary.
Good question. Tax policies are a tricky thing, but a rather substantial tax hike would be necessary to subsidize education for all. A tiered system does a lot to reduce the costs but it’s still a hefty program. I’d say that a reasonable way to do it would be in the form of a progressive income tax on the working population (because they directly benefit from this program) and a capital gains tax on businesses (because they benefit from trained workers).
The benefit to the working class is obvious - they get an education if they’re willing to work for it. For businesses, they get hit on two sides: the direct taxes on them, and the decline in real wages of their employees because they’re being taxed. In return, they should be offered a few incentives to make it beneficial for them as well:
Input into the academic program of each of the institutions of higher learning. This saves them months of training.
A more effective and honest system of matching graduating students to job openings. The savings in recruitment costs would be significant.
Taxes are a hard sell in all cases, but sometimes they’re necessary. In the short term, the economy will take a hit in adjusting to higher tax rates. In the long run, a program like this will do a lot to eliminate poverty and crippling debt, which are much more distortionary in nature than well-implemented taxes.
@dfbdfb, #166. These ideas are dangerous because they imply that all people are not created equal and this goes against our constitution. Everyone deserves to go to college to have football on Saturday night.
I fully agree with WaPo that merit scholarships are un-American.
in my kids senior year they took college level courses. it would be easy to increase this. an associates degree is only 60? credits? Cape Cod Community College tuition is only Tuition: $576 finding a way to provide this for 2 years wouldn’t be that hard ($7,000 room and board, $1,200 for books and supplies and $3,636 for other fees) but covering the tuition should be easy enough. then there’s online courses which can cost even less. lets put our smartest people to work on this and I’m sure we can do this. too many nay-sayers out there.
Here’s the thing with “free” college. Taxpayers would pay for it during the entire span of their working career. In the system that exists now (which is far from perfect, to be sure), people can spend 4-5 years paying for college or as long as decades depending on how much debt they have. With “free” college, EVERYONE would end up paying for it for years on end. Some of the people might have anyway, if they were the type of people that would take out massive loans to attend elite schools or simply lived in a state with a ridiculous tuition rate at the state flagship. But some find other ways - being born rich, getting scholarships, using what federal aid already exists in combination with work and reasonable loans, starting at cc, getting education through the military…
Is it right to force the fate of some college grads (massive debt, either by choice or bad luck) to be solved by simply charging everyone more throughout their lifetime, even those who could (or did) make it through college without massive debt?
Also, and this was referenced somewhere up thread - military spending vs. education. While yes, not everyone can or should be in the military, seeing it as separate from education is quite frankly outrageous. The military has the service academies, countless ROTC scholarships that people use to get through college, college funding for enlisted personnel, not to mention the amount of training in various areas for national defense that give people jobs and valuable skills even without a college degree. A strong military is great thing for our society and is not inversely related to education. The fact that people may put their lives in danger as a result of their service just goes to show that there really might be some people left who want to do something for their country, not just have their country do everything for them.
We pay for police, fire, flood, military protection, roads, air traffic control, public schools, etc., our whole working lives, and beyond. We can add anything to the list we collectively want to.
So maybe we should just have the government control all the money and provide everything? Everyone is paid the same regardless of what job they do, so no unfairness there, all education is paid for, all housing, all food, etc.? I’m sure that would work.
I’m not sure that comparing getting a college degree to fire protection is comparing apples to apples. There is really no practical way for thousands of ordinary people to put out a huge forest fire - the large airplanes and heavy equipment are needed. On the other hand, approximately 69% of college graduates have debt when they graduate according to http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data-2015. That means that approximately 31% don’t, and that surely can’t be just the kids of a few billionaires. It is possible and practical for around a third of college graduates, which probably a considerable segment of society. Does that mean that 69% with debt is good? Of course not, that’s ridiculous and a solution is in order. Perhaps limiting the loans, as someone suggested. What made it so that colleges are more expensive than several decades ago, beyond just inflation? That trend is what needs to be reversed.
Straw man arguments are not useful; very few of us want to add everything to the list (I sure don’t). As I said, we collectively decide what we want to add. Countries which have successfully added college to the list limit the number of students accepted; we have historically encouraged everyone to attend college, at least at the AA level.
College expenses have increased beyond inflation because college (like other services) is locally labor intensive; if the majority of our goods were still manufactured here inflation would be way higher; the oil glut is also holding down inflation. College seems expensive partially because other prices have NOT risen or have fallen. Comparing to US core inflation ignores the flattening of the world.
@vonlost, that may explain a small portion of the increase, but the cost of a haircut hasn’t risen 3-4x in real dollar terms in the past 40 years and that is a service too. Public colleges are more expensive partly because of lower state support, but some of the the major reasons for the increase at all colleges are virtually no cap on demand due to federal loan availability (no price control incentives) , price stratification where wealthier families pay more than poorer ones, under utilization of fixed assets like buildings and labs, more student services, higher salaries and benefits, and a larger percentage of non-instructional employees.
Is the cost of college too high? Or is it an issue concerning planning early? In the conversations that I have with many families, their real problem is not a need for money but a lack of understanding of what should have been done long before getting the bill. Remember, college is one of the few things in life that we all get 18 years to plan for.
Of course, not everyone was in the same financial situation 18 years ago as they are now, either. I mean, when my oldest was born one of us was in grad school and the other was in an entry-level job—not the sort of thing that gave much room for college savings, really…
@“The College Sage” I agree with you to an extent. Yes in an ideal setting we have 18 years to plan carefully for college costs but sometimes things come up like @dfbdfb said…when the great recession hit my dad lost his job to outsourcing and downsizing at IBM. Basically did part-time contracting for a few years afterwards. With my mother in the hospital for 2 years, my dad was desperate for money and swallowed the entire college funds of my brother and I to keep us in the house…so for some the luxury of college savings is nice but not possible. When I was a junior in high school I only had $1,000 and I needed to sit down with my parents to make a game plan because college wasn’t in their mind yet. My situation was bad at the time but others have it worse.
However I do believe there needs to be–at least for a start–better guidance and information provided from schools and counselors. I still remember the senior meeting where they just got everyone in an auditorium and told us to borrow as much as their first year’s salary. With that little info I thought it was OK to borrow $50-60k for a “prestigious” engineering school I got accepted to that’s down the street from my high school. Coming here on cc tho and I realize how bad of an idea that was. I decided to cast a wide net for college and in the end I picked a college where I am not paying a dime for tuition, fees, and books all the while not going into debt. I did a lot more research into college than most peers in my high school. Most just jumped on the big debt wagon because they got the affirmation from their counselors…if we can make students look more into different colleges that may not be most ideal–community college or a less recognized college somewhere that is affordable–then maybe we can avoid these debt nightmare stories.
Again to reiterate life happens and savings are a blessing for some that wasn’t destroyed by economic downturns.