Why not? Would you not agree that to be competitive in the market today you need more than a high school education? Many countries that severely out perform us in terms of education also provide education up to a bachelors degree for free to their citizens.
The taxpayers do and it's quite popular. Folks tend to only look at the up front costs of stuff like this, when the long term benefit is a better educated society, which leads to greater technological advancements and high employment in more productive jobs. I'd certainly rather pay for my neighbors to get an education than I would to have another military base in Timbuktu.
My younger brothers and sisters go to private high school. They are getting a far better education. Yes, annual tuition is paid just like college, but it's been consistently shown that private schools charge less in tuition than what taxpayers pay in taxes to fund public schools (there is also a higher literacy rate, higher graduation rate, higher post-secondary education continuation rate, higher scholarship reception rate, etc). http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=1118
The government should fund it so we can stay competitive with the rest of the world, but they should keep their noses out of it entirely and let the teachers teach. They screw up legislating as it is, teaching...ugh!
It should be completely funded by the states, and it is up to the states to determine how, if at all, education is funded. If basic education was not paid for by the tax payers, the poor would not have the opportunity to climb out of poverty. Taxpayer funded education is the basis of equal opportunity.
They already pay for K-12 - Why are you calling this pre-college? In reality most students could finish `1-`12 in 8 years. They are wasting 4 years of their lives which could be used taking college courses which, since gov. is paying anyway for the 9-12 could as well pay the college fees. Those students who cannot do the 1-12 in 8 years should after the 8 years be put into training in the trades which gov can as well pay for.
I think it is important that the parents (in particular the mother) spend time with their 5-6 year old. This is an important time in their child's development. It's not like a baby where you can leave it with someone else and the baby will probably have no idea. I am really against the concept of parents using free K12 to just dump their child off during the day. I realise there are certain situations where the mother is in difficult straits, and it just is not practical for her to do the best thing. But I just fear government subsidies (and the resulting tax increase that results in) will just induce even more parents to dump off their children, when it is not the best thing to do. What about create tax incentives for the parents to stay home with their 5-6 year old? Or try to promote communal family arrangements, where two different families take turns watching eachother's children. For a 5-6 year old child, a good parent is a much better teacher than a mediocre classroom, where a single adult is overwhelmed by 25 (or more) little children creating chaos.
the problem with this is that the under-performers are culled and sent back to the public school, which causes the "success" rates of the private schools to stay high. public schools can't cut the under-performers they have to stick with them and try to bring them up to the "acceptable" standards. thank you, finally someone pointed out that k-12 is already paid for by the government through our taxes. the only people who pay directly for school are those who either do not pay taxes, or those who send their kids to private school.
Leftists are comfortable with knowledge only as long as they totally control what is considered knowledge. it's what most would call propaganda.
I could agree to this, not all college grads are employable and K-12 waste a lot of time. One who has a certificate beside the name does not equal success. I would argue some fields in higher learning are junk and worth little value to the public. I will also argue that in some cases higher learning has become a racket engineered to capture maximum funding for academia's elitist. Free college is not the be all end all solution. The world also needs electricians, plumbers, mechanics etc. in the trades industry.
The bill is paid by higher skill sets leading to better paying jobs which equals productive tax payer and member of society. An uneducated society doesn't have the skills to work in higher paying industry and therefore contributes little to none. Education pays for itself by elevating society as a whole, reducing crime, etc.
