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  1. Default Free Public College


    Interesting idea here - http://www.credomobilize.com/petitio...e-tuition-free

    The numbers involved actually sound about right, which makes this an oddly sensible thing to do. What do you guys think?

  2. Default Re: Free Public College


    The current system is pineappleed up. This seems like a nice idea, but I honestly don't see it going anywhere.

  3. Default Re: Free Public College


    This is almost like the system we use in denmark and to me it's a great step forward.

    Education should be a national interest.

  4. Default Re: Free Public College


    I think it's a good idea, but I don't agree with it.

  5. Flatpanel TV
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    usa

    Default Re: Free Public College


    there's different factors that come into play if college tuition is free. albeit i would love to be able to not pay for college, theres one thing a profit based system protects. That one thing is that the lower the cost of tuition of a class is, the higher the chance someone will take a class slot and potentially drop the class later on, wasting that slot. Since they aren't paying for the class, the sense of money loss ins't as great as those who say pay 2-4k for a class, and feel they wasted 2-4k because they are failing a class. the people who actually pay for the classes are generally more serious about their work.

  6. Default Re: Free Public College


    That's a bit too contradictory to not explain.

  7. Orbital Bee Cannon
    IGN: SaptaZapta
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    Default Re: Free Public College


    We see the opposite happening in Israel. People who pay higher tuition generally feel entitled to graduate no matter what. (And the schools instruct the professors to basically pass everyone). The best schools are actually the government-subsidized state Universities. They're not free, but they're much cheaper than private colleges.

    A free college system could place limits on repeat classes and total years to graduate, so that people would have some incentive to actually get their studying done. Also, I assume this program doesn't talk about paying people's living expenses, just tuition, so there is still some monetary pressure to finish your degree and start earning the big bucks.

  8. Default Re: Free Public College


    We used to have that problem some years ago here when public superior education was basically free and even gave free place to stay and food. I think that the problem is that people don't appreciate education itself but rather the free stuff that would come with it. Which is easily solved, at least it was here, when it stopped being completely free and became dirt cheap but getting accepted in a public university is hard and staying there is even harder. Those "different aspects" that seem problematic are easily solved so I don't see in that a reason to oppose to it.

    Also, not even as an argument but just stating my opinion, thinking of your education in terms of spending money for a class is quite sad.

  9. Default Re: Free Public College


    ITT thinking education is free and therefore taking it for granted and not being serious about studying (and thus graduate with rubbish grades/stuff) is sad.

    My education in Cambridge is "free" (a.k.a. sponsored by a government scholarship) but I am motivated both by gratitude, responsibility and a desire to do well. I see much of both sides of the world here. It's really quite sad. That said, I don't think I need a "get a First Class or I'll take the money away from you" gun pointing at my head all day in university.

    Hadriel

  10. Default Re: Free Public College


    I think subsidizing public education is generally good. A diploma is, supposedly, the gateway to making more money and advancing your social class. I don't think higher public education should be free and I don't think it really solves the problem. However, at the same time, free public post-secondary education has no immediate negative impacts on me, and overall would likely be a benefit to most of society and the state. Therefore I find no reason to oppose it despite my disagreement. This does assume there's no change in quality of post-secondary education. I still do have concerns about it's sustainability though.
    Last edited by Jamesie; 2014-01-17 at 08:56 PM.

  11. Default Re: Free Public College


    signed the pineapple out of this, even though I'm still working on my degree, something like this can only benefit society as a whole.

  12. Default Re: Free Public College


    Quality superior education makes you a better human being, the money that comes from the degree is just an extra.

  13. Default Re: Free Public College


    That's not always true. I know many people who have high levels of education and they're all terrible Human Beings.

  14. Default Re: Free Public College


    The problem with public colleges being free is that in the end, it wouldn't really do much. If it was free for everyone, then everyone would go, and in the end how would having a college diploma be any different than having a high school diploma right now, in a job setting?

    As it is it's hard to get that starting job with a Bachelor's Degree in your field. If it's free to obtain, then even more people would have it, making job competition even worse, making those extra years even more wasted time than they already potentially are. There would be even less to distinguish a good starting applicant from a bad starting applicant, and it would be even worse for you if you were unable to complete college for whatever reason, as it would be beyond the norm it already is to have a degree.

    If obtaining up to a Bachelor's Degree became free, then the next level of education is a Master's, then a Doctorate. Everything would just move up a level, and would waste more of your time before you could actually begin doing something with your life. Imagine if you had to have a Doctorate before you were able to be effective competition in a job hunt (Just like you have to have a Bachelor's now) If it became the norm for everyone to have a Bachelor's, the only way to divide up candidates on paper would be a Master's/Doctorate. You'd be 30+ before you started your first job, unless you were lucky. What a colossal waste of time.

    I certainly understand some of the things that the petition brings up - Like Financial Aid plans from the Government already cost way too much and would be cheaper to essentially make it free. They make sense, but I think the bigger issue is the flat out requirement to have a degree. Why is experience in the field useless? I could 5 years ago provide tons of examples of my experience in my field of choice, but because I did not have a fancy piece of paper I did not get a job offer - I lost several because of it in the past. Why is this the norm? I think the bigger issue isn't that college costs too much, but that college is a requirement, not a plus. This is especially so when 85% of the time I spent in college was a colossal waste of my time, I learned almost nothing, and most of the things I did learn do not apply to my life or my field and I have forgotten. I learned far more taking things up on my own time than I ever did sitting in a classroom reading a book and answering multiple choice questions.

  15. Basic2 Re: Free Public College


    For what I am reading the main problem would be people "abusing" the system and just going there because well, why not?
    But as someone said in here, this can be easily solved making it incredible hard to enter and study in there. And of course making it at the same time one of the best collegue in it's field. Like here in Perú the national engeneering university.
    With this people without the financial resources to study will need a lot of effort to finish/enter collegue and reach something.

  16. Default Re: Free Public College


    We got pretty much all that here with the only thing that its just for the first title/degree(iirc), there are some "crappier" free ones but in general if you want to go to a good college here you go to the free ones, the worst part of this IMO is when the state pays for the education of someone just so that they go get a job in another country and well all the people that get a degree and never use it.

    I pom you due to the start of your post but this, this is just stupid, how come people are this stupid in the states? or is it that the government requires them to have certified people? am I wrong or don't they also ask for experience too and thus why it's hard for a newly graduates to get a job?

  17. Orbital Bee Cannon
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    Default Re: Free Public College


    Employers, including the government itself, are just lazy. They require a degree for any job, even the simplest clerical ones, because why not? Their reasoning is that most of the population has one and those that don't are usually lazy and/or stupid. Yeah, there are some few self-educated people who are smart and hardworking and just never had the time to go to university, but sifting them out of the chaff is hardly worth the effort. Let the universities do our initial screening for us.

    This is unfortunately already the case in the USA, as in most (all?) of the "First World," so I'm afraid Polantaris' objection is a generation or two too late. Everyone already has to get a degree, and almost everyone already does. They just get into heavy debt to do it, even though the government spends (according to the article, anyway) more on loans, scholarships, and grants than it would just paying everyone's tuition outright.

  18. Default Re: Free Public College


    There are a couple of issues that are fairly distinct yet inseparable from each other here.

    (1) the purpose of education -- philosophically speaking and economically speaking.
    (2) the state of education in today's world -- what people teach and learn in school, its effectiveness, and how they are taught.
    (3) the worth of education -- the relevance and effectiveness of education to society, towards job-finding and towards the jobs we actually work at.
    (4) the attitudes toward education -- by the students, and by the general public.

    I'm only laying the ground for more decent arguments. I have a great deal to say about each of these. What actually has a great deal more relevance than what many people realise is "the relevance and effectiveness of education to society". A great deal remains unsaid when people comment about things like "people go through education/school and yet come out stupid", and I feel really upset about why such statements get uttered (on many counts).

    Hadriel

  19. Default Re: Free Public College


    It's basically what Sapta has said. It's the norm, and because its the norm it's easier to sift through the masses of applications a company gets for one or two positions based on it. You have to have some amazing experience on paper to be considered for a position without a degree. Essentially, if you don't look amazing on paper your application gets tossed. That's how it is in the States, and that's why making college free won't help anything, it will just make it worse. If everyone has a Bachelor's because College is free, what's next? A higher education yet again, and undergraduate work will just be considered an extension of high school/basic education.

    Honestly, I believe the reason many people feel "people go through [college] and come out stupid" is because of two major factors:
    1) College is already practically mandatory, at least in the US. I've known quite a few people who were there just because they had to be, and not because they cared about anything they were doing there. One example is my previous post, but a for second example: Want to play Football/Baseball/Basketball/Other Sport Here for the rest of your life? You still have to go through college, you still have to do all the "higher-education" stuff, even if it has no relevance at all to your wishes in life. How does college help you be a good ball player? Sure, there are college teams and such, but would those really exist if college was not a prerequisite to a professional sport? Sometimes players are chosen for Minor/Major leagues with an emphasis on the school they went to, and not how well they can play (For example, when Football games start on TV, they go through the roster and specifically state which school they went to, as if that was the deciding factor in their ability to play).

    2) There are a lot of schools that are just poor quality. Many schools have teachers that have no idea what they are talking about. In fact, in the US, most teachers(but not all of them) are actually people who failed in their field, and their last resort is to teach it. Why are these people, who are too bad to hold a job, teaching us? It makes no sense. On the contrary, I know several people from other countries (like India) who have told me it's the complete opposite, and teachers there are the ones who have done their field for several decades and just want something to do after retiring, or enjoy teaching others their field. The few teachers I have that I respected and enjoyed their classes for are the teachers that were there because they liked it, but those are very few and very far in between(I think I can name 3 over 4 years).

    As for your list, please understand this is from a US perspective; I don't know how it is in the rest of the world:
    1) I believe the purpose of college education is to learn your desired field. It should be solely focused on that.
    2) At least in the US, the state of education is abysmal. High School barely teaches how to read and write, and part of every major is how to read and write...again. The entire point of High School and below is to get you ready for the world, yet college re-does all of it. Why? When I first started college there were "aptitude tests" in reading, writing, and math. When I asked what happens if I do badly, I was told I'd just be put in a lower level class. That's ridiculous. If I can't read, write, or do math, I shouldn't be accepted to the school. I should be directed to a prep school or some other form of learning. College should not be focusing on teaching me everything all over again, but it is. By the time I finished my second year I basically had just finished high school again, with a few exceptions. I spent tens of thousands of dollars and learned almost nothing at all.
    3) In its current state education is nearly useless, except to get a job. Almost every job has two weeks of starting training, even if you took a job that's exactly the same field you went to school for. In some scenarios I can understand this -- Special Software, special procedures, etc., but my first job retaught everything that was part of school as part of the new-hire training. So why did I go to school again? You just went over what I did!
    Above that, run around on some random forums one day and see how well school taught people how to read and write. I'm not trying to say I'm perfect, but I've seen posts by people who claim to be English born, from the States, over 18, and they can barely write a coherent sentence.
    4) Overall, it's pretty bad. Most students aren't in school to learn, but know that it's required to get further in life. That's how society sees education - If you don't have it you must be an idiot, when it's not even necessary for a lot of situations. I think the worst part is that most of the smart people in the world who have done amazing things never finished college, or never went in the first place. I'm not exactly sure where this ideal that education = intelligence came from, but since it's here and the standard it bites people in the ass.

    I'm sure I'll get more downvotes for this post (if anyone even reads it, it's giant), however this is my opinion and thoughts on the subject(s).

  20. Default Re: Free Public College


    I put a quote from a renown person from my place, to put some facts into perspective:

    "When you graduate with a science degree, what can you do? Wash test tubes." [read: Bachelors degree]

    edit: @Polantaris; I know the US perspective, because I've been following up fairly closely on jobs for my field around the world etc. (even though I don't need to because I'm a lucky guy). It is very much what you said in your previous post that makes me upset: because it's true, and amazingly not uncommon at all.

    To go a step further, we need to ask what's the relevance of education (or its purpose) should be given the context of the above quote. It's not 100% true, but in STEM fields I'm afraid it is.

    Hadriel

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