College Should be Free

[elscorcho768]

On the point of college should be free, what about when you either fail a class or don't get credit towards your major for a bad grade. Since you are paying for that class, shouldn't you at least get credit for taking it even if you fail. Or if you don't, then maybe you should get your money back or something. I'm only saying this cuz I got a D in a class and didnt get credit towards my major and feel like I just paid a decent chunk of money to not get credit and actually hurt my gpa and chances of getting into a really good grad school.

[mmbt0ne]

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Even in college, you spend two hours working on your own for every one in class.

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Seriously?

[TomCollins]

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Since you are paying for that class, shouldn't you at least get credit for taking it even if you fail.

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This thread gets better and better.

[DVaut1]

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One can read books and learn about culture outside a $40k/year classroom setting. I always thought I learned more outside of class then inside. Even in college, you spend two hours working on your own for every one in class.

Now that I've graduated, I have to work my ass off to pay of loans, which really cuts into my reading a growth time.

I'd rather learn my job skills in a more economically efficient way, and then be able to spend the extra free time I gain from that to learn on my own.

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That may be, but I'm not claiming college is appropriate for everyone. In fact, I'm more than willing to concede the classroom setting isn't the best setting for learning marketable job skills. I'm claiming that higher education has an intrinsic value which exists outside of that.

There are benefits to an environment where top scholars, renowned researchers, and best minds in the field are available to learn from; and I think it's very difficult to claim high-level intellectual growth, particularly in liberal arts subjects like philosophy, politics, sociology, etc. are possible through even the most intense, directed self-study -- at least, I would argue, there's a depth of knowledge that can only be acquired surrounded by experts and similarly-interested peers, in conjuction with studying the best texts availavle, is demonstrably better than merely reading the best texts available. I don't think I would have ever fully appreciated the works of Kant, or Locke, for instance -- nor gained experience at concentrated social research -- nor a whole host of other capabilities (which probably aren't very marketable for potential employers but I would claim are extremely valuable nonetheless) -- had I not had at least some level of personal access to my professors, along with interested peers.

For instance, I myself attended the University of Michigan, and I was a political science major. I was fortunate enough to take courses with the likes of Ken Lieberthal (former senior member of the National Security Counsel), Lynn Rivers (former three-term Congresswoman), Ronald Inglehart (director of the World Values Survey) -- and to be an intern at the ISR and specifically, work on the National Election Study..

These kinds of opportunities weren't available to me with just some free time and a library card. Yes, it's true, those opportunities frequently cost students a ton of money, and I think (particularly when costs approach $40k/yr) it's a legitimate question to ask whether or not most students are truly getting a good value; but I maintain there's a value to higher education that exists outside of learning a trade or preparing for post-degree employment -- and that the state has interest in funding higher education, because it benefits from the value provided. And yes, I concede that libertarians and ACists won't find such claims compelling and never will, and that the 'intrinsic value' I've made references to is extremely hard to quantify, hence why I'm also conceding that I'm not making much of an argument as much as I'm merely conjecturing. But I suspect even most ardent ACists and libertarians will agree higher education has an inherent value, but that they just don't want to be mandated to fund it.

[elscorcho768]

I like how you picked up on the basic humor of my post. I hope you figured out that I was being sarcastic, although I do believe in it a little i supposed in some flawed logic kinda way.

[benfranklin]

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College Should be Free, they can pay for it with the money they would save on welfare and prisons and people would also make more and then pay more taxes also

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Assuming that you went to high school, it is apparent that you did not benefit from any English or Economics that you may have studied. There is no evidence that college would be any more beneficial to those for whom high school was a waste.

In general, you get no credit for social studies knowledge of any kind for assuming that:

1. sending someone to college at no cost would result in a more productive member of society, and

2. that any such person would be less likely to require the social serivces of welfare or penal institutions.

In the immortal words of former Minnesota Governor Jessie Ventura, if you are smart enough to go to college, you are smart enough to figure out how to pay for it.

[lehighguy]

Well, in real classes if you get good grades.

My senior year when I totally slacked off, totally 1 hour of work a day (including class).

[mmcd]

Most people that are on welfare or in prison didn't graduate high school with a normal 12th grade-level education, then go down the tubes because they couldn't afford college.

[hmkpoker]

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Most people that are on welfare or in prison didn't graduate high school with a normal 12th grade-level education, then go down the tubes because they couldn't afford college.

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Most college graduates can't afford college.

[hmkpoker]

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That may be, but I'm not claiming college is appropriate for everyone. In fact, I'm more than willing to concede the classroom setting isn't the best setting for learning marketable job skills. I'm claiming that higher education has an intrinsic value which exists outside of that.

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I agree that there are a lot of benefits to the college experience, primarily the fact that it's the easiest place to find other similarly-minded people and share meaningful discussions, activities, and experiences with them. College can provide one of the greatest social experiences ever. (I wasn't too wild about the classes tbh; if I want to learn about something, I'll just find some books and hang with other people who are interested in the subject.)

However, are all these lovey-dovey "intrinsic" benefits actually worth the cost, which can be (as you said) 40k/year in loans, plus eight or more semesters of lost time in actual productivity? I was lucky, my dad covered my college; but if he didn't, I'd have been utterly screwed. The first thing I realized when I came out of college was "holy crap...I'm not qualified to do anything!" Most of my friends are noticing the same thing. Unfortunately, most of them had to take out loans, and it breaks my heart to watch them struggle to pay off loans that they took out during their impressionable years.

We spend twelve school years scaring kids in our public schools into thinking that they *have* to go to a good college or else they'll be losers for the rest of their lives, only to have the majority come out into the real world four years behind and eighty grand in the hole.

But they know Kant.