What surprises many is the fact that America has willingly accepted that post-secondary education - of key economic importance in this new day-and-age of ours - should be very expensive. Which is contrary to what most other developed countries today employ as Key Societal Objectives. Heady notion or not, the country must be made to understand the key importance of high-cost post-secondary education for the greatest number of students. A costly expense simply diminishes the number of students that apply and obtain post-secondary education. After all, it's your tax-dollar that is supporting both the DoD and financial-assistance for post-secondary education. Apparently, we cannot have both without exploding the budget? So, which is more important? Is government support of a national Post-secondary Education Program money well spent? Believe me, it is crucial to the well-being of the nation out of pure economic-importance! And the stats tell us that Uncle Sam is not up to the challenge of assuring the well-being of individuals by financing the cost of a Post-secondary Education? Which allows them the work-skills in this brave new world of Services Industries that now account for more than 80% of all jobs in America. (Manufacturing has been reduced centrally to high-tech projects for which the required manpower need also of a higher order of skillfulness.) From here: National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES): It is clear from the above that the graduation percentage numbers shown are greatly insufficient. We must pay particular attention to the fact that an unacceptably low-percentage of our children are obtaining the degree-certificates that will assure them well-paid work throughout their lives and into retirement. When are we going to learn as a nation that both Education and Healthcare are the two key-attributes necessary to a sustained well-being ... ?
No one bats an eye at military spending, yet government funded education and healthcare is unacceptable. I believe it explains a great deal about our thinking in the US.
Spot on! Uncle Sam seems to be in the same euphoria as 1946 when he won the war. And that was more than 75-years ago! Things have changed and the US thinks it is still on the right track. The Right-track being one of the worst instances of National Income Unfairness - as already shown on this forum here. Can the unfairness get worse. Yes, it can. Because the economic systems have changed drastically. All those people who used to work in manufacturing factories are out of that kind-of-job forever. The Chinese saw to that fact - and we swallowed their products hook, line and sinker. Want to know who is responsible for the fact that Chinese-made products have flooded American markets? Then look in the mirror ... !
Just go to any Walmart location. There you will find those addicted to Chinese made products, who also rail against the Chinese and Democrats. Its a sight to behold.
LIFE GOES ON Whether Chinese-made or Mexican or Burmese is of no consequence whatsoever. That's life and we need to get used to it*. In central-Massachusetts there is a supermarket sitting on the site of where my parents once worked almost all their lives making sunglasses. My father took me back to his village in Europe where he was born to reminisce with his son of how he changed his life to better it. (Millions from a war-ravaged Europe did that before and after WW2 and are doing it still today under our eyes.) What can I say? The older one gets the more one reminisces. It is only human as life goes on ... *My Point: -I keep repeating here a fundamental truth presently about Life in America. It is the fact that the breakdown between Manufacturing and Services Industries jobs has fundamentally changed across the world these past decades. And we must learn to adapt and live with that fundamental transformation. A post-secondary degree is far more important nowadays than ever before to find a decent job at a decent remuneration in either the US or Europe. -That's the way life-goes-on nowadays ...
Maybe we should be asking the question of WHY it is so expensive. First, before we start paying for it. And think about the rest of the expensive education society is paying for.
And the more people who have an educational credential simply diminishes its worth in the job market. Would you agree with that, to some level?
PEDDLING DRUGS No, I cannot agree with that quoted in red above. The job-market has no "limit to demand" (except the prevailing economic Demand-dynamic). Just because a rule-of-competence is established does not mean that "worth in the job-market" is diminished. On the contrary. My migrant-parents made plastic sunglasses in an 18th century factory - so I know well how sadly boring such repetitive-work can be. More-so, why they wanted their children to get a post-secondary schooling degree! The day-and-age of depending upon Manufacturing to hire "workers" has long since shifted out of the US to China and Central America. So, what's left for American workers who have no particular work-advantage because of a specialized-degree? Nada! Except peddling drugs! Or some other crime that likely will put them in jail. Neither would I despair: -There are plenty of post-secondary skill-training courses. How to become a great cook or mechanic or ... whatever is available as instruction. And these "lower skilled-worker jobs" will continue to exist. They are not going away like Manufacturing has done. The basic skills are simple but still necessary in our work-force! -Whatever the skill-option chosen, it is better assuming that option to find obtain a necessary skill-set than doing nothing. Or, as many of our recently immigrated-friends who drifted into to the "Promised Land" are finding-out: Going to jail for peddling drugs! -From Pew Research: My point?: *Sorry to those who migrated from south of the Mexican border - Uncle Sam does not need more non-specialized-migrants from South or Central America! This is is the only policy-matter in which Trump got-it-right! *Rather, we need to get more of our own kids out of high-school and into either Post-secondary colleges or skills-training schooling (at very low-cost)! *And the migrant-door remains open to those who have specialized post-secondary degrees. *Which will allow both above categories the skill-sets necessary to find work ... !
But some of that demand is simply for the best credentialed people, correct? They are not demanding those workings because they have education; they are demanding those workers because they have more education than the other applicants. Some of this has simply come at the expense of Americans. They hire foreign workers because they can pay them less, qualifications being similar. What if they had a limit on bringing in skilled workers and corporations had to bid on being able to get them? That could generate additional revenues from the government, and make sure the foreign workers actually most in demand get those limited number of positions.
You need to make the key distinction between cost and price here. Decent tertiary education is always going to have a relatively high (and largely fixed) cost. The real question is actually who pays for that - the price. The money has to come from somewhere. I know this isn't true here in the UK and I suspect it's not true in the US. The problem isn't a shortage of people getting degrees, the problem is the imbalance between the education, skills and training with the full range of jobs that need filling. Most jobs don't require a degree (even accounting for the off-shoring of a lot of manufacturing), one of the reasons so many degree educated people are in jobs that don't require a degree (or at least not the degree they have). The main issue is that there is insufficient socio-political (and thus economic) value given to many of the jobs which don't require a degree or the non-degree routes to jobs that do require higher qualifications or experience. And the exclusive focus on more and "cheaper" degree-based education only serves to build on that misrepresentation. We don't need more tertiary education, we need a wider range of education and training options, each of equivalent value and, in the context of your point, equal support in ensuring they're accessible to as many people as possible, including on the basis of price.
ADEQUATE EDUCATION IS AMERICA'S MAJOR PROBLEM TODAY It need not be that way were most Americans to seek a post-secondary education. Why should Tertiary-level Education be any different from Primary or Secondary schooling in the US? It shouldn't because the better jobs are going to those with a Post-secondary Education Degree. (Why? Because those talents are necessary on-the-job in this New World of ours!) Unless, of course, someone might be keen on making sure that the 13.7% of Yank-families below the Poverty Threshold ($25K-income per year per family of 4) remain poor? Which is pure silliness, but historically what has been happening! No, there has to be a "way out" of poverty and at present we seem to think that giving families subsistence-allowances is THE CORRECT ANSWER. Uncle Sam has the highest crime incarceration rate in the world, and most of the guilty are dirt-poor. So, that is NOT the answer! The answer is simple: A proper very low-cost post-secondary education is the more correct response. From "the Balance" here: My Point?: Not a word above about Education! The US should NOT leave to the states the necessity for providing a solid Primary-, Secondary- and Tertiary-level Education. Many do it insufficiently and even more cannot afford to do all three at a minimal-cost that assures the larger part of the American population has access to a key economic-component of their future-existence ... !
It is stoopid for America to let into the country people who are not adept for the New Workforce that is the major component today. These people may be in dire need, but they just happen to be from a country "next door". That is no reason whatsoever to allow them into the country in countless numbers! What we don't see in jails across the country are those from abroad with advanced degrees who come to America because American companies sought them abroad! I have a dozen or so European-friends who now work in the US - and they are pleased to do so! (However, they have conferred to me personally that upon retirement they will likely return to Europe.) Workers are "fungible" nowadays. They go where the jobs are better and according to their capabilities. But, one element is constant between Europe and the US - that is, neither need low-capability workers any longer. A great many of the smaller cars one sees in Europe nowadays are manufactured in North Africa (where manpower is cheaper than even in the new eastern-European countries admitted to the EU) ...
You're conflating several distinct concepts here. The idea that giving people access to degree-level education automatically means they'll be able to make more money is simply wrong. Many people don't have the academic ability to get a degree and even if everyone did have a degree, the balance of available jobs (and wages) would remain the same. Degrees are not the be-all and end-all and we should stop presenting them as the pinnacle of personal advancement, implying that any other option is lesser or a failure. Practical, technical skills and experience are at least as important, especially for a lot of roles, so apprenticeships, combined working-education options and the simple process of starting at the bottom and learning on the job should be seen as equally valuable to going to college/university. By extension, the jobs that naturally support that form of training should be given more value and appreciation, and thus more balanced wages and conditions. Even then though, there are always going to be lower skill jobs that need doing. We'll always need cleaners, shelf-stackers, servers and the like. While the people in these jobs should often be given more appreciation (and money) than they currently get, they're never going to be at the same level of those which require significant education and/or training. And having people with degrees (or who tried to get degrees!) doing those jobs isn't going to change any of that in the slightest. That isn't designed to get people out of poverty, it is to allow them to subsist while they're in poverty. Other measures are needed to help get people out of poverty, and vastly different ones depending on individual circumstances. While availability of degree-level education may help a few, that is far from the only or most significant way to address this issue.
ECONOMIC SUPPLY & DEMAND Indeed, we are now a nation that is more than two centuries old and we cannot seem to understand the fundamentals of wealth-accumulation. The first principle of which is there No Wealth Accumulation if there is no wealth generated by a national economy. The second-principle is that it behooves a government to assure (by means of Income Taxation) that Wealth Accumulation should exist to reward effort but never to accumulate an unfair amount of riches. And by "national economy" is meant to constitute consumers who are the fundamental criteria necessary of any country employing a market-economy of Supply & Demand* ... *Which is quite simply this: "The law of supply and demand is a theory that explains the interaction between the sellers of a resource and the buyers for that resource". And that "theory" has become "practice" since a long, long time.
A PIG IN SHAT Biden and Pelosi are "politicians" and they know how to get elected. They are masters at the "art of getting elected in America". Good for them! I'm not interested in "how to get elected". I am more keen to understand What should be the best for American priorities? (Which are, to my mind, fundamentally a National Healthcare System and very-very-low-cost Post-secondary Education/Job-Training.) I'm kinda sure that both Biden&Pelosi would agree with the two key-priorities mentioned above but they are "elected". They will do nothing that might cause them to get unelected. What must be done is alter the fundamental objectives of the Dem-party and concentrating on getting both as paramount wants of the electorate. Whyzzat? Because I doubt greatly that most Americans think those two key-priorities mentioned are central to the country's future. Obama wanted to make Real Change but was stymied by the Replicants. And since he has cooled considerably enjoying his retirement. The country needs said Fundamental Change and it aint gonna get that with the current makeup of the Dem-party. As for the Replicants, well they are way, way beyond hope. The super-rich got the Megabucks-and-More that the Replicants had promised them by reducing upper-income taxation, so they are all presently Happier than a Pig-In-Shat ...
SKILLS TRAINING DEGREE Most who are born in poverty subsist all their lives through it. In this brave-new-world of ours where all the easiest factory-jobs have high-tailed it to China. Which is why those who do not continue into a higher-level post-secondary education must be allowed - free, gratis and for nothing - to take courses that will earn them a "skills-training degree". Like driving a truck, of baking-bread, running a super-market, garage mechanic, etc., etc., etc. All I am saying is "Let's get rid of poverty forever!". And by training people, that's how we do it. Some people even join the Army to learn a job ...
Not all of them by a long stretch. The issue is that those kind of jobs are generally viewed as being of little value or importance and therefore are grossly underpaid, even those that require skills or training. On the opposite end of the scale, there are many white-collar jobs which are perceived as requiring a degree (though they often don't) and are seen as being more valuable (even though they generally aren't) so earn much higher pay. That builds on the vicious circle of a university education being seen as the only value route for a worthy career. We need to break that cycle. That is the right direction but I don't think you're taking the full leap. You're still stuck on the image of "higher-level" tertiary education as the best, default option, only falling back on to other forms of education and training as the second-best option. Also you also seem to be tied to the word "degree" as something special or important. What we need are a range of different options, suited to different people with different preferences and natural abilities, all presented as equivalent quality and value. This should probably even be considered at secondary level, but certainly beyond that. Academic degree-level education certainly has it's place, but it shouldn't be the default, majority or perceived pinnacle. With the military, that used to be to learn a trade - it was effectively an apprenticeship. These days, it is as often as not about getting a degree.
EDUCATIONAL OPTIONS You've got it all mixed up. Stop personalizing your rebuttals. They make no sense whatsoever. I am trying to understand the different "components" of education that are necessary to meet the needs. According to the fact that people are naturally adept at learning but the level of learning is different for different individuals. How do we accommodate that difference is the challenge. And a degree is simply a piece of paper that shows accomplishment regardless of the level accomplished. What I insist most upon is that the US does like Europe that incorporates the cost of a post-secondary degree within the purview of both state-and-national support. The US is still welded to the notion that a post-secondary degree is the summun of educational effort. It isn't - it's just a level between two options - one a formal educational-path and another that is a range of training-programs of competence in multiple areas/subjects. Both options must be made available at very low personal cost - such that students easily chose their preferences. Which may or may not change along the course of educational instruction.. I very much agree. The subjects and degree-levels are simply options to be considered and taken or not-taken depending upon the student making the elective decision. Post-secondary Education clearly can have (at least) two options - one that pursues existing educational sources in place leading to a recognized "degree" of aptitude. And another that focuses on the capacity to teach "know-how" that can be put to use quickly either to find work or just for a personal necessity. That option variety will allow most students of variable intelligence/aptitude or desire to pursue and obtain a remunerative working-career. Which is the objective that matters most to any individual - and thus to the whole nation ...
