David Sirota has a thoughtful and provocative column in Salon in which he argues that access to college has become so important that college should be funded like high school.
In other words, public institutions of higher education should be paid for by taxes so that higher education is accessible and does not burden students with a mountain of debt.
Citing Matt Taibbi, Sirota writes:
“…economic and political trends are now converging to force an entire generation into a truly no-win situation: either don’t get a post-secondary education and severely harm your ability to get a job in an already weak economy, or get a post-secondary education and condemn yourself to a lifetime paying off debt that you may never be able to pay off because the economy is so weak and your job prospects are still not guaranteed.”
It was once the case that a high school diploma was prestigious because most people didn’t have one. Once high school became universal (90% of those between 18 and 24 now have a high school diploma), then the high school diploma carried no prestige but became essential for all but the most menial, low-skills job. Now, college diplomas have become entry-level requirements for many jobs. They are not yet as commonplace as high school diplomas, but certainly we are seeing credential inflation, where some employers demand a college diploma for jobs that could be done by a high school graduate.
So the crux of the dilemma is this: How can students pay for college as costs balloon out of sight?
President Obama’s answer was to implement something like No Child Left Behind or Race to the Top for higher education and make federal aid dependent on “value-added” by various measurements.
But measuring the various outcomes of higher education won’t reduce its cost; they might even increase the costs by increasing administrative burdens.
Sirota’s answer: Make public higher education as free as public high school.
When I was in Finland two years ago, the one thing I learned that impressed me most was that all higher education was cost-free to students. The Finns view education as a basic human right and do not believe that people should have to pay for a human right. That would be like paying for the right to vote.
There was a time in the not so distant past when most community colleges were free. They should be tuition-free now. That would be a good place to start.
Given that students must typically pass the ylioppilastutkinto to matriculate at a university, I don’t think that the Finns view education as a human right.
ylioppilastutkinto to you too!!!
I’m not entirely convinced that the Finns aren’t making words up just to see if we’ll cut-and-paste them.
The French also have it figured out. Vive la difference . . .
What would this cost? Would this plan endanger our ability to double spending on K-12, or would we have to prioritize?
Is there any risk that having government pay for all college costs might create even stronger incentives for government to meddle with colleges?
Finland has figured it out.
“Would this plan endanger our ability to double spending on K-12, or would we have to prioritize?”
Maybe, just maybe it would endanger our ability to grossly overspend on the death and destruction machine that is the current military and homeland (sic) security industrial complex.
Right, but I thought the plan was to use that money to double K-12 spending.
Exactly who has committed to transferring funds earmarked for the military industrial complex to the education industrial complex?
Why Americans do not continually push for equity and instead ignore our most viable untapped resource is beyond me, our nation’s billionaires. We need to close tax loopholes, penalize companies that outsource jobs to workers in foreign countries (and hide their assets overseas) and raise their tax rates considerably.
This holds true for the non-profit fronts for political lobbyists and billionaires, too, such as ALEC, as well as the foundations of venture philanthropists like Gates.
See TechRights on the Gates Foundation: http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gates_Foundation_CritiqueIt has been reported that for every
Would you cut off trade with the outside world as well? That would ensure that US citizens could only buy goods and services produced in the United States.
Sorry for the incomplete sentence at the end of my post above. It should have said,
it has been reported that “For every $10 given by the Gates Foundation, $4 is lost from the public wealth in taxes.” p. 43 (as cited in Saltman, 2010.).
References
Saltman, K. J. (2010). The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0230615155
Sorry, TE, but I will no longer be responding to your straw men and red herrings.
No problem. I don’t understand why causing unemployment in the United States by buying an imported good is fine but causing unemployment in the United States by buying goods made abroad by United States based companies is terrible, but I often find folks here trying to make arbitrary distinctions.
Here’s how the Germans do it. . . . France and Spain also have public colleges that are low or nominal cost:
And here in the United States, we plunge our young adults into debt and make money off of them with loans so that when they graduate, their debt is equal to a home or a down payment on a home.
And I guess that gives them such a great start in their young adult life.
No wonder Americans are far more likely to think about themselvers instead of the collective good. It’s a major reason that explains why we are where we are today as a society. It also explains where we could be going and the paths that could be created.
The American Government in collusion with the United Corporations of America are succeeding brilliantly . . .
It’s also why over half of all of the people in the US today who are college graduates –not just the new graduates– are working in low paying jobs that don’t require a college degree. It’s an employer’s market. There just aren’t enough decent paying jobs out there for college grads. People need to pay the rent, eat and try to pay off those college loans, so they take what work they can get. Less than half of US workers have full time jobs today, too, so many have resorted to piecing together part time jobs.
What do you think is going to happen when standardized testing in college becomes mandatory eventually? All those years of hard work, mounting debt and no degree just because you can’t pass a single test?
And here comes the beginning of standardized testing in higher ed:
“Not enough to graduate college: Now there’s an exit exam”
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/not-enough-graduate-college-now-theres-exit-exam-8C11006596
CT:
This is just another way to sqeeze the middle class and pamper and bloat the overclass. Whether it’s money, policy, incentivization or all three, a shift in wealth and power is a shift in wealth and power.
There will no doubt be backlash (of varied kinds, I think) because people, regardless of their mentality, are discovering that there’s nothing left in their wallet at the end of the day . . . . and at the end of their life . . . .
“Not enough to graduate college: Now there’s an exit exam”
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/not-enough-graduate-college-now-theres-exit-exam-8C11006596
So now, you can not only put yourself into serious debt, but you can do it for no pay off! A new industry is born…college review classes! I wonder how long it will be before Pearson buys the test?
= Even more debt and no assurances of actually passing and getting that degree.
And how soon before employers want to see those test results and start ranking potential employees based on their scores? i.e., It won’t be enough to provide college transcripts demonstrating grades and completion. I believe this differs considerably from today, as I have yet to hear of employers requesting copies of test scores, such as SAT/ACTs or GREs.
That will be tantamount to “rank and yank” based on standardized test scores before anyone has even got the job!
No major life decisions should be based on a single test score.
“No major life decisions should be based on a single test score.”
Agree.
And according to our friend Duane, and his friend Wilson…the tests are basically crap anyway.
I think Wilson and Duane are on to something.