I just posted a thread favoring free college. I'm in favor. Education should be the highest national priority next to security. I see no difference between K-12 and college. If public education is good enough for K-12, and it is, at least in principle, and depending on your local school district, it's good enough for college. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/barack-obama-free-community-college-114094.html
I would much rather see our money go to something like this than all the foreign aid we send around the globe. Help our own nation and people for awhile.
The federal government is already saddled with most college debt via grants and loans that don't get repaid. Maybe we don't have the money for it. Maybe we could have the money for it if we reduced spending in other areas (tongue in cheek). In any case, in principle, I like the idea. I don't believe this is a socialists, statists power grab, as some will inevitably assert. I think when it comes to education, we conservatives need to be more open minded about making it free, because our economy depends on an educated workforce. A rising tide does float all boats. We need the talent pool coming from American students instead of foreign students who may or may not work here.
[video=youtube;P8pjd1QEA0c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8pjd1QEA0c[/video] It's a good watch. It does explain a lot.
free associates degrees? not a bad idea. a high school diploma is pretty worthless these days. unless you're gonna be a coal miner, you need higher education. that means, at the bare minimum, an associates degree or two years at a trade school.
As long as we realize "free" really isn't "free". The teachers...staff....supplies are all still going to cost money. Oh well, as I said...id rather spend it here on our own than around the globe on everyone elses problems.
State domain, feds stay OUT. This is in no, way, shape, form a legitimate function of central federal government. It's also "free stuff" vote buying of the rankest type for which the left is famous. Mostly it's a slick con to set up Congress to be bad guys and "crush the hope of millions who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford a college education." Get ready for one of these silly-ass feelz "proposals" a week with Congress in session and through the end of 0's term. We could hear everything from "proposals" for new anti bullying bureaucracies to appeals for two weeks of paid leave for all workers bilging out of the lame duck WH over the next couple of years, all intended to vilify the GOP Congress in the eyes of the moronic Democrat voting blocs. OTOH, if he proposed a federal student loan forgiveness program for those who go to trade school including nursing school, paralegals and some other legitimate trades (not bartenders or truck drivers), then practice the trade for a few years, that might be worthy. Unions would HATE that though, so we won't EVER hear anything remotely like it. Flood the market further with more well-indoctrinated social sciences, resentment studies, Marxist humanities, social work, education, communications folks? No thanks. Pad your ignorant, surly, resentful voting blocs some other way, Barry.
If its free, kids wont study since they have no skin in the game. Look at publicly educated high schoolers today. Most are a bunch of retards. I interview many and most can't do basic math.
i could support a plan that gives free associates degrees or two-year trade school degrees, at in-state public institutions. no private schools. no out-of-state schools with out-of-state tuitions. minimum GPA of 2.5 for each semester required to continue free ride. families with combined income over $200,000 will not be eligible.
College is a wake up call. There's more then one way to motivate people to do better. Paying for it is one may, but when you're actually there, that's it. You don't want to disappoint yourself.
Vocational schools deserve far more credit and respect. Modern society needs more people with real technical skills, engineers, machinists, plumbers, electricians and doctors. It definitely does not need more politically brainwashed, technically useless 4 year college grads with no real career prospects and a mountain of debt equaled only by their burning SJW rage. While we're at it, why are medical schools still these impossible to get into institutions? I went to Emory and those of my friends who ended up in the medical school agree that most of what they learned turned out to be of little use or easily replaced with modern technology. Doctors should be trained in 2 year vocational schools like nurses and the training needs to focus on using new information tech to keep up to date and diagnose/treat.
Their skin in the game is the same reason K-12 students have skin in the game. Jobs, Parental approval, Self improvement. My community college was almost entirely paid for. I worked very hard because I had a lot of trouble in high school and this was my last shot to make something of myself. Besides, the proposal says they must retain a 2.5 gpa to stay covered.
This is a great idea. I hope it passes and it proves wildly successful so we can one day make Bachelors and graduate degrees free. This is one of those things that always creates a return to us if we invest in it. We will always see a return from a higher educated population.
America needs better STEM skills. Rather than increased funding for two-year schools, reducing the financial burden of university students may decrease the need to import talent.
Don't ham on community college's ability to teach STEM skills. They can teach them just fine. Community college is a great stepping stone into university. And if you do it right it can shave years off your university degree. Which also means shaving money off. I'd like to see free university at some point. But this is a major step in the right direction.
Also just a quick point I wanted to add... STEM fields aren't the only labor gap in our economic system. Trade skills are too. Plumbers, electricians, construction foremen. Jobs like this are seeing very few millennials getting into them. Free community college would definitely help students train into those fields.
Yeah, OK free. But there should still be entrance requirements, such as a decent high school GPA. Otherwise idiots will go in and idiots will come out and the expense (ours) will be wasted.
1. You will never see "free" university or "free" junior college anywhere in the world. It is not f-ing "free," and those who pay for everything else in this country will have to pay for this too. 2. Assinchair time in institutional academia does not = "education." Education is what happens when people who want to become educated devote immense time and effort over years into becoming so. It takes place mostly after school in work experience far more than in a classroom. The -right- institution (and there are precious few of those) can help develop the tools necessary to become educated, but education is not something one buys or just gets sitting in a class in French Cinema or any other class. 3. Far more people go to college in the US today than should. That a "college education" is some life panacea is a cruel hoax peddled to parents and youth who would be far better off learning trades. It is snake oil sold by a self-interested educational bureaucracy in cahoots with the left who know full well that getting as many people into their indoctrination programs as possible is the only way they maintain political relevance. 4. We have quite enough problems associated with infinitely extended childhood in this country as it is. Proposals such as the topic would surely exacerbate those problems.
Great. First free healthcare, now free education. And I'm paying for it all. Wow, that must make me some kinda..... watcha call it..... philanthropist. I guess that means I should feel pretty good about myself, right?
No (*)(*)(*)(*). You're not giving anyone any new information. It's free on delivery. Particularly for young people who have no assets and no taxable job. We pay the cost for our country's future. That's experience. Not education. Education is learning about the things that have other people have accomplished. Experience is learning from your own accomplishments and failures. Experience is definitely valuable and in many cases more valuable than education. But education creates the foundation and without it gaining experience is impossible since you don't have the base line knowledge to begin working and be valuable to any company. There is no evidence for this. Right now we have labor gaps of skilled jobs and we have a high unemployment rate for low skill jobs. What part of that story makes you think we have too many people graduating college. We don't have enough. And it's only going to get worse as robots start automating most of the low skill jobs. We need as much of our population doing complex work as possible. Otherwise we're going to have to start having a very serious conversation about a basic gauranteed income because if automation does what it's expected to do in the near future we will be left with 33% of our population or more that's completely unemployable by no fault of their own.
This is laughable. People with real educations can't find jobs. Where are these 2-year teat babies going to work? Ridiculous!
That's exactly what the president proposed. - - - Updated - - - At more places than with just a high school diploma. Also community college credits transfer to 4 year universities. Meaning you can get those credits for free and shave off expensive time from a 4 year university. - - - Updated - - - You pay a lot more for uneducated people who will leave a lifetime of welfare most likely.
