Ryan Miller
Active member
Hello there
Should college be free?
- Thread starter Ryan Miller
- Start date
Bernard Sandcastle
Active member
My education should not be someone else's profit
Bernard Sandcastle
Active member
In the US it's so expensive that most people get loans that they likely won't be able to pay back for a long time. It's either be crippled by debt or stress your brain to insanity in high school to try to get enough scholarships to pay for it.
Micchan
Forum Fighter Guru
I know, and it's shit
The most expensive Italian university is the Politecnico di Milano €1627 a year, but it's also considered the best, the average cost for one year of university in Italy is €527
Kazimierz the Great
Oathkeeper
Private schools here in BC cost in the $70 thousands for 2 years, for animation, as well as other artistic things.
Gov funded schools are cheaper of course, but still end up costing you around $30-50 for 3-4 years(ish).
Some schools charge you $30K for just 2 years alone. Fun times :|
Gov funded schools are cheaper of course, but still end up costing you around $30-50 for 3-4 years(ish).
Some schools charge you $30K for just 2 years alone. Fun times :|
Ryan Miller
Active member
Maybe the government could just pay for majors in science, health, etc. Basically, making education for those majors much cheaper and thus more students would be enrolled in those fields.
Rin
Oathkeeper
Cheap? Yes. Free? No.
Whenever it's free, everyone just goes into college because there's nothing to lose. They don't appreciate it because they don't bleed for it. They end up taking something like 5 years of engineering and then selling cakes, just because their parents forced them to do a degree that they didn't want.
It costs the government a lot. It wastes time (years!) for these graduates. It creates a shitty workforce that doesn't care enough about their career path. It locks out late bloomers who are sincerely interested in a major but didn't have good enough grades.
It also has a detrimental effect on the college itself. They are limited in how much they can charge and thus how much they can pay the staff. Free colleges usually can't pay the insane super genius rates something like Harvard or Cambridge would.
Whenever it's free, everyone just goes into college because there's nothing to lose. They don't appreciate it because they don't bleed for it. They end up taking something like 5 years of engineering and then selling cakes, just because their parents forced them to do a degree that they didn't want.
It costs the government a lot. It wastes time (years!) for these graduates. It creates a shitty workforce that doesn't care enough about their career path. It locks out late bloomers who are sincerely interested in a major but didn't have good enough grades.
It also has a detrimental effect on the college itself. They are limited in how much they can charge and thus how much they can pay the staff. Free colleges usually can't pay the insane super genius rates something like Harvard or Cambridge would.
RedFive
Herald of the People
I believe it is acceptable to subsidize the very best, those who have fantastic grades and test exceedingly high. This should drive the top portion of students to push themselves and make for a better student population in college by allowing more top students to pull normal students up in the classroom, or that would be the idea in theory. Not sure if that occurs in practice though. My experience indicates the very brightest grade and test wise are often introverts and rarely speak up... just my two cents... so theory and reality don't always line up, but it gives high school students some goals, focus, and something to strive for making for better students and citizens in the long term anyway, so there is something to be said for rewarding the very best, again in theory.
I for one never had college paid for, despite being a very good student grade-wise with a higher ACT score than almost everyone, but I wasn't a student that apparently was worthy of grants for some reason (My parents, despite us being lower middle class, somehow made too much). I had to "bleed" literally for it. I went in to the military to find a tuition solution and it took me until I was 25 to graduate with my undergrad degree due to military commitments. But, I graduated at 25, with no debt, 30k in the bank, and more experience and education than most other 25 year old business majors in the workplace. I choose to pay for it in that manner, many of my friends choose to take out a loan and stretch it out over ten years, or twenty years, or whatever they did... but I would hope that parents, and educators are real with students and advise them of the costs and lay out all the options they have so this sort of "I deserve to go to college for free" talk goes away. It shouldn't be free, it is already subsidized greatly if you go to a state school (look at where they get their operating budget!). If you go to a private school, you are paying for the perception of a better education and often a superior network (in the business world at least) and probably are going to get a S load of grants based on some huge endowments that many private schools have that likely put it on par with a comparable state school anyway.
Also, add on top the whole conversation Rin shared about having to pay for a bunch of people to attend school, diluting the classroom experience, requiring huge overhead costs with additional schools, buildings, professors, etc... why would we want to raise everyone's taxes to pay for all of this when much of those people care little for what they are doing in the classroom during their "college experience"? Make them pay for at least a part of it and they will take it serious or not attend. One of my roommates was going to college only because his mom was an administrator at the school. He dropped one class and flunked out of the other three classes the first semester. Second semester, he dropped one and flunked out again from every other class... one year, 8 classes started, 2 dropped classes, 6 Fs. Do I want a bunch of students like that at every university who are going to college for free because some new government policy allows them to? ...and we all get to pay for that with our taxes!? Wii wood awl bee jeaniouses!
- Red
I for one never had college paid for, despite being a very good student grade-wise with a higher ACT score than almost everyone, but I wasn't a student that apparently was worthy of grants for some reason (My parents, despite us being lower middle class, somehow made too much). I had to "bleed" literally for it. I went in to the military to find a tuition solution and it took me until I was 25 to graduate with my undergrad degree due to military commitments. But, I graduated at 25, with no debt, 30k in the bank, and more experience and education than most other 25 year old business majors in the workplace. I choose to pay for it in that manner, many of my friends choose to take out a loan and stretch it out over ten years, or twenty years, or whatever they did... but I would hope that parents, and educators are real with students and advise them of the costs and lay out all the options they have so this sort of "I deserve to go to college for free" talk goes away. It shouldn't be free, it is already subsidized greatly if you go to a state school (look at where they get their operating budget!). If you go to a private school, you are paying for the perception of a better education and often a superior network (in the business world at least) and probably are going to get a S load of grants based on some huge endowments that many private schools have that likely put it on par with a comparable state school anyway.
Also, add on top the whole conversation Rin shared about having to pay for a bunch of people to attend school, diluting the classroom experience, requiring huge overhead costs with additional schools, buildings, professors, etc... why would we want to raise everyone's taxes to pay for all of this when much of those people care little for what they are doing in the classroom during their "college experience"? Make them pay for at least a part of it and they will take it serious or not attend. One of my roommates was going to college only because his mom was an administrator at the school. He dropped one class and flunked out of the other three classes the first semester. Second semester, he dropped one and flunked out again from every other class... one year, 8 classes started, 2 dropped classes, 6 Fs. Do I want a bunch of students like that at every university who are going to college for free because some new government policy allows them to? ...and we all get to pay for that with our taxes!? Wii wood awl bee jeaniouses!
- Red
RedFive
Herald of the People
Don't go to a school that is 70k a year. Problem solved. There are plenty of engineering schools out there that are far less costly and will provide the same level of education. why are you wanting to go to school that it comes to be 70k / year!? Seems silly to spend 300k over 4 years to get a degree. Take your money, buy a cheap 140k house in the middle of America, and work at the gas station and you will have a similar standard of living because you won't have the tuition payment... No one pays 70k unless your family is rich, you are well below expected test scores, and you are going to a top school... is that you?
japan77
High Prince of Growth
Going to a top school, and my parents make too much to get any kind of need based aid, sort of like how there is a medicare and obamacare gap, there's a gap of people who "Make too much" to get any financial aid, but not enough to the point that it's a drop in the bucket. While I did get some merit, it's still going 50k a year, which is still pretty excessive. It just happens that the kind of school I am looking for( small class sizes, good CS programs, good math programs) tends to be private schools that would cost 70k with no scholarships.
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Rin
Oathkeeper
I'll vouch that the elite and ivy leagues are well worth what you pay for. But it depends on what you want to do with your life.
Want to get married, make lots of money, live happily with a spouse and kids? Don't bother with the expensive colleges.
Want to look cool and show off? Don't need a good degree either. Just sell kebabs then buy a BMW with the money.
Want to work for Google or NASA? You can get a six figure job with just a typical good degree. Great degrees help, but only by like 10%-30% faster in getting accepted. It makes the job easier but you can always bleed on the job as well.
As an employer, I'd say GPA and school is just a couple lines on your CV. Of course we take someone who barely passed a MIT engineering degree over someone with 4.0 on a shitty engineering degree. But if you somewhere mid range, like RIT, a 2.8 gpa might qualify for interview. But after 5 years working experience, people aren't really going to look at that. It's more like, "Hey this guy is from MIT, let's just call him for interview despite these typos."
Where it matters a lot is if you want a job with a solid foundation. If you fancy a career designing really hard things - satellites, weird looking skyscrapers, killer drones... that's where you want an elite degree.
It's more for those who are literally obsessed with a narrow field. Not for those who want to be the best, but more the crazy ones like Newton who would dedicate their life to researching alchemy or theology without knowing whether it goes anywhere.
Want to get married, make lots of money, live happily with a spouse and kids? Don't bother with the expensive colleges.
Want to look cool and show off? Don't need a good degree either. Just sell kebabs then buy a BMW with the money.
Want to work for Google or NASA? You can get a six figure job with just a typical good degree. Great degrees help, but only by like 10%-30% faster in getting accepted. It makes the job easier but you can always bleed on the job as well.
As an employer, I'd say GPA and school is just a couple lines on your CV. Of course we take someone who barely passed a MIT engineering degree over someone with 4.0 on a shitty engineering degree. But if you somewhere mid range, like RIT, a 2.8 gpa might qualify for interview. But after 5 years working experience, people aren't really going to look at that. It's more like, "Hey this guy is from MIT, let's just call him for interview despite these typos."
Where it matters a lot is if you want a job with a solid foundation. If you fancy a career designing really hard things - satellites, weird looking skyscrapers, killer drones... that's where you want an elite degree.
It's more for those who are literally obsessed with a narrow field. Not for those who want to be the best, but more the crazy ones like Newton who would dedicate their life to researching alchemy or theology without knowing whether it goes anywhere.
White Death
Member
College in U.S should be free like here in Finland we pay college from taxes