FREE college, college for EVERYONE!!!

One of the more consensus issues all the Democrat candidates are espousing. Of course at a huge taxpayer expense which will only feed the tuition cost increase treadmill. The problem is it has been tried before and as the WSJ notes was a total failure and had to be reversed. Sorta like a wealth tax and guarantied incomes, sounds good on the campaign stump but fails in reality.

‘Free College for All’ Is an Experiment That Has Already Failed
In 1970 New York’s City College had the best of intentions. It tried ‘open admissions.’ It was a bust.

.... When students realize that they will get into college no matter what they learn in grade school or high school, they will have no incentive to forgo activities that are more fun than attending school, listening to teachers, and doing homework.

As Albert Shanker, the late president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote in 1993, “Kids are just like adults: they will work to get what they want. If they know they have to work hard, listen in class, and come to school every day with their homework done to get into college, they’ll do that. If they know they can get by with less and still get into college, that is what they’ll do.”......

...Remedial education was to be the solution. By 1978 the New York Times reported that “two out of three students entering City College now require remedial work in writing, mathematics or reading, and one in five needs it in all three.”

....Mr. Traub’s 1994 book, “City on a Hill,” revealed students with academic handicaps too severe to be repaired by their efforts or the efforts of their teachers. His anecdotal accounts were confirmed by statistics. A City College study of 155 students placed in its remedial English program found, Mr. Traub reported, that only seven had graduated after six years, and another half-dozen or so after seven years. Only 15% were projected to complete college after a decade. They weren’t flunked out; they gave up and dropped out.

In 1998 the City University’s board of trustees voted to end the open-admissions policy at four-year colleges, requiring applicants to pass proficiency tests in reading, writing and mathematics to gain entry. The experiment had revealed the limits of good intentions and remedial education alike.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/free-c...eady-failed-11575672814?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

 

It sounds like people only tend to better themselves when they have to. Sure there's the odd exception, but for the most part, adversity drives excellence.

I wonder how many times we'll keep trying to disprove this with social experiments before accepting reality...

 

The American education system from top to bottom is an obsolete, very expensive boondoggle.
It should have been dismantled and replaced decades ago.

 

Send idiots to college to learn jack squat.
Perfect use of time and money

 

Hey it's not just higher education where we waste time and money

Head Start Doesn't Work
In the late 1990s, Congress finally mandated a national evaluation to measure its effectiveness. This year, the results were finally released: Former Head Start participants were no better off than their non-Head Start peers by the end of first grade.

Using random assignment, the national evaluation placed almost 5,000 children eligible for Head Start into two treatment conditions based on a lottery. The children who won the lottery were awarded "free" (taxpayer paid) access to pre-kindergarten Head Start services; the others either didn't attend preschool or sought out other alternatives.

The national evaluation tracked the progress of 3- and 4-year-olds entering Head Start through the first grade. Compared to similarly situated children, access to the program failed to raise the cognitive abilities of Head Start participants on 41 measures. The language, literacy, math skills and school performance of participating children all failed to improve.

Alarmingly, access to Head Start for the 3-year-old group actually had a harmful effect on the teacher-assessed math ability of these children once they entered kindergarten. Teachers reported that non-participating children were more prepared in math skills than those who participated in Head Start.

Ineffectiveness is bad enough. But new information reveals rampant fraud within the program.

A recently released Government Accountability Office study found several cases of underreporting of income and falsification of addresses by Head Start employees to "qualify" children for the program. The GAO also found these employees encouraged families to misrepresent or falsify income on enrollment forms and make claims that a working parent was unemployed.
https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/head-start-doesnt-work

But just try to be the politician that says enough is enough let's end this boondoggle.

 

Why aren't we using data from New York's free college run? It's been in place since 2016.

The way I see it the idea that students will slack off is totally not a problem. It's a non-issue.

 

Sorry, I was incorrect it wasn't implemented in 2016. Bernie Sanders talked to the New York governor Cuomo and Cuomo implemented free college. It may be too soon for information to come out of it, but it does exist and I even think it's too strict in its application requirements.

 

Bloomberg will fix it for us.

"The signature Bloomberg administration reform of shutting down failing schools and replacing them with new schools has — itself — failed thousands of city students, a Daily News analysis finds.

The new schools opened under the mayor were supposed to have better teachers, better principals, and, ultimately, better test scores than the dysfunctional failure mills they were replacing.

But when The News examined 2012 state reading test scores for 154 public elementary and middle schools that have opened since Mayor Bloomberg took office, nearly 60% had passing rates that were lower than older schools with similar poverty rates."
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Bloomberg's new schools have failed thousands of city students, RACHEL MONAHAN, Updated: Sunday, July 22, 2012.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...led-thousands-city-students-article-1.1119406

 

What is your objection to the previous data? You have 28 years of data up into the 1990's

 

handing money to businesses (colleges), creating a government enforced market, is an issue.

 

It's an opinion piece that a program from an ancient of days program of failure is any indication that we can't do free college. Since free college is already implemented in New York, using a new way, going back to the old data is not a fair view of things.

 

Perhaps.

 

It is a piece citing the OFFICIAL US GOVERNMENT COMPREHENSIVE STUDY. What is your objection to the data it produced? What's the "new way" compared to then?

 

Students "College cost too much"
Government " Oh here is some money"
Colleges " HEY more money out there in the pool raise tuitions"
Students "College cost too much"

Rinse and repeat

 

Yup. A wise man once said "Adversity makes men. Prosperity makes monsters."

 

There's not even enough of the "college level" jobs for everyone that already went to college.
And we've already seen how, with so many college level applicants in the job market, many jobs began requiring college degrees that did not used to before.

Just take a look at the horrendous student loan crisis and how many people are already struggling under the weight of tremendous student loan debt.

Older Americans who struggle with student loan debt

 

Funny, someone always has to pay for things to be free.

 

Why don't we try a dozen test projects in various parts of the country, give it 5 years and see what happens?
I don't know if it will work or not - but we're having serious issues with education expenses, so it would be interesting to find out.

This idea of the perfect being the enemy of the good is something we need to keep in mind.

 

It might be interesting to give it a try.
Personally I don't see an issue with education expenses. When looking at the average cost of a year of college in the US it should be within reach of any who desire it.

 

And the people who want the free things always want that someone to be someone else

 

With today's left wing indoctrination in these colleges, free is still over priced.

 

All I know is I busted my ass working never less than two jobs at once and for a while 3 jobs until I crashed from exhaustion, and I managed to pay my own way thought college. Now I shall do some quick math and figure out how much the democrat party will reimburse me for all those expenses, add interest to be fair for 38 years, and where do I get my check for $168,000 ? Huh?

I do love that statement about free being overpriced, just look at AOC with an economics degree. Boston U economics program should be shelved. What a total embarrassment she must be to that school.

 

I can't imagine how hard kids would work at their education if there was no cost to them (or their parents).

Some people don't get it even when they have to pay for it.

Economics genius...

 

All of them are espousing this? I happen to know that tulsi is not, Neither is Yang or Biden. And none of the candidate are saying that colleges have to accept everyone who applies and they are not even saying colleges have to increase seats. Warren, Steyer and Sanders allsay that money should not be a limiting factor. I happen to agree that a public school college or university should operate on a blind admission policy, if they have 10,000 seats they should go to the top 10,000 applicants not the 10,000 that can afford to go. They are plenty of private colleges for people to go to that can afford to go and who are not one of the top 10,000.

Tulsi, herself go more than 1/2 of her credits online at the cost of 250 a credit. That is 30,000 for a Bachelor degree. The nation can easily afford it, it spends 4 bill every month in Afghanistan.

to get an associates in mass is 10,000, The plan expoused by most dems is for every state that participates, the feds pay 1/2 and the state pays 1/2.

 

So you don't mind adding it to the deficit and debt. And yes Dems support free college for everyone.