CDZ Should college education be available for free to anyone who qualifies academically?

[320 Years of History]

...
Out of scope! Please read the OP......

You wrote it in the OP, not me.

Let me be clearer. Your red text is out of scope because "how" to make the end happen isn't part of what I've asked about. ....

If you didn't want to discuss it, why include it? In a prominent bullet list, no less.

Are you truly that thick? You asked, "[H]ow do you offer it 'free'? Does the student pay upfront and get paid back if he meets the criteria, or is it 'free' (as if such a thing were possible) and the student must pay back the amount if he does't meet the criteria?"

Nothing in any of my bullets addressed how to make the outcome free. The only question is whether free college is a goal for which we should aim. How to bring about the goal is a different topic, one that's out of scope for this thread.

What I will gladly discuss is the theme of the question I posed in the OP or the one I asked you with regard to the inherent assumption underpinning your "blue" assertion that "[a college education] can't be free." That question, if you forgot, is, "Do you believe that to which we, as a nation, commit to make happen is beyond our ability to make happen?"

 

[Unkotare]

...

Nothing in any of my bullets addressed how to make the outcome free. .....

But you included very specific conditions that begs the question. You might as well have left out your little list if you are hostile to addressing it (which is fine).

 

[Asclepias]

It's already free to those that qualify through academic scholarships.

The thing is we are trying to send many to college that are not qualified.

No. Scholarships are not unlimited. There are people that qualify but dont get the scholarships because money runs out or they simply dont have the information to know where to get the scholarships. Also its hard for kids that are not low income to get the scholarships due to how much their parents make. Insuring everyone that has a minimum set of prerequisites gets a free education without having to go through the circus of applying for and getting a scholarship would be great.

 

[320 Years of History]

We had a very nice young man with a biochemistry degree serve us our lunch Sunday at a local restaurant. (Not joking). I made sure to tip him 20%. It's our family policy not to tip over 15% for non STEM graduates.

So yeah. Put the taxpayers on the hook for producing more highly educated waiters, waitresses and bartenders.

And more English majors. We need a lot more English majors. They make great disgruntled Starbucks baristas. Nothing goes down better with your decaf, soy latte with an extra shot and cream than the whinny moans of crushed dreams and misplaced aspirations.

Off Topic:
It's great that you tipped as expected for a full service, sit-down restaurant. What do you know about the young man's comparative skills and accomplishments relative to his competition in the market for biochemistry undergraduates?

I've participated in campus recruiting (grad and undergrad) for some 20+ years. Many are the folks who have "target" degrees such as computer science, accounting, economics, as well as a plethora of liberal arts degrees that develop key analytical skills and to whom my firm/I did not offer a position. I cannot say whether any of them resorted to waiting tables.

I'm not particularly familiar with the market for biochemistry students (grad or undergrad), but I have to wonder whether it is similar to the market for physicists wherein a PhD is practically required for any long term career in the field that doesn't involve teaching at the community college or high school level?

Back on Topic:
Are you so sure that the quantity of students who'd, per you, "waste" the free education/free money because, in your judgement they shouldn't have majored in English or some other discipline of which you don't approve, would be so high that it warrants not making a college education free to all the people who would pursue areas "of which you approve" and who otherwise cannot or won't because it's not free?

Should our country do without benefitting from the full potential of say the conscientious objector or physically disqualified for military service 3.2 GPA senior who also scored well (80% or better) on standardized tests, but who just cannot afford to go to college? That student may not be the "brightest light in the candelabra," but s/he is far from a "low achiever." Why should his/her economic position be the sole reason for them not going to college?

View attachment 64651

I think that's a perfectly fine route for anyone to take, and certainly for those folks who cannot achieve the academic standards I listed in the OP but who still want to go to college. Indeed, some very bright young folks may receive appointments to the various military academies.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The title question says it all. It's a yes or no question. It is not a question about how to make it free for all who qualify academically. It is a question of about whether, in your mind, the end -- a no direct cost to the student/student's family college education -- is one that the U.S. should aim to achieve.

What does "qualify" mean in the context of the question? Measurably, it means one must achieve all of the following:

• Graduate from high school in the U.S. (or a U.S. territory) with a 3.0 cumulative GPA for grades 9 through 12,
• Score in at least the 80th percentile (overall) on either the SAT or ACT, and
• Finish a bachelor's degree in 9 semesters (4.5 years) or less with a cumulative 3.0 or higher GPA and a 3.6 or higher in one's major(s) and minor(s) (if one opts to minor in something).

Only the ignorant imagine a 'free college education' is free.

The fact is, it is wasted money as far as actually educating.

And...most of those rewarded with same treat it as a vacation.


"4-year colleges graduate 53% of students in 6 years"
4-year colleges graduate 53% of students in 6 years - USATODAY.com


And this....

San Jose state college graduation rate after four years:
"9.0% undergraduates completed their degree "on-time" (within two or four years depending on the degree)"
http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/san-jose-state-university/outcomes/



College for everyone....paid for by the producing-citizens.....another great socialist plan!



Among first-time, full-time undergraduate students who began seeking a bachelor's degree at a 4-year degree- granting institution in fall 2007, the 6-year graduation rate was 58 percent at public institutions, 65 percent at private nonprofit institutions, and 32 percent at private for-profit institutions. Fast Facts


Socialism infantilizes the electorate.


Six-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time students who began seeking a bachelor's degree in fall 2007 varied according to institutions' level of selectivity. In particular, graduation rates were highest at postsecondary degree-granting institutions that were the most selective (i.e., had the lowest admissions acceptance rates), and graduation rates were lowest at institutions that were the least selective (i.e., had open admissions policies).

For example, at 4-year institutions with open admissions policies, 34 percent of students completed a bachelor's degree within 6 years. At 4-year institutions where the acceptance rate was less than 25 percent of applicants, the 6-year graduation rate was 89 percent.

SOURCE:U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2015).The Condition of Education 2015(NCES 2015-144),Institutional Retention and Graduation Rates for Undergraduate Students.




It also depressed the housing market....ask me how.

 

[Stephanie]

well fine, if all the people who thinks like this (the op and kind) takes up a collection to PAY FOR THEM. no problem. go stand on the street corners. taxpayers are fed up with paying for a bunch of losers, now embracing Socialism by attending those commie camps called, schools, universities, colleges.

 

[Arianrhod]

City and state universities used to be tuition-free for those who qualified. Someone as old as Stephanie should know that.

 

[320 Years of History]

...

Nothing in any of my bullets addressed how to make the outcome free. .....

But you included very specific conditions that begs the question. You might as well have left out your little list if you are hostile to addressing it (which is fine).

I'm fine with addressing the listed criteria, but what is there to discuss about them? Some of the stated criteria are pre-enrollment criteria and some apply to the course of one's college career. In order to get the free college education, a student must meet the criteria. It's that simple.

Moreover, the only reason for my listing the criteria is so folks know what I consider to be "qualified" as goes the OP/thread question.

I'm not fine, in this thread, with addressing how, as a nation we would administer enforcement of the criteria listed. You keep trying to ask how to pay for program, when would the payments be made, and that's out of scope for this thread.

Curiously, you keep ducking the question I asked with regard to your assertion that "it can't be free."


Lastly, the criteria listed do not "beg the question." Begging the question is a circular form or reasoning that follows the form:

Claim X assumes X is true.
Therefore, claim X is true.​

For instance:

• Paranormal activity is real because I have experienced what can only be described as paranormal activity.
• The reason everyone wants the new "Slap Me Silly Elmo" doll is because this is the hottest toy of the season.

 

[the_human_being]

 

[Asclepias]

View attachment 64660

Trade school classes count for college depending on if you go to an accredited one and they frequently make you take classes in trade schools that have nothing to do with your trade.

 

[320 Years of History]

The title question says it all. It's a yes or no question. It is not a question about how to make it free for all who qualify academically. It is a question of about whether, in your mind, the end -- a no direct cost to the student/student's family college education -- is one that the U.S. should aim to achieve.

What does "qualify" mean in the context of the question? Measurably, it means one must achieve all of the following:

• Graduate from high school in the U.S. (or a U.S. territory) with a 3.0 cumulative GPA for grades 9 through 12,
• Score in at least the 80th percentile (overall) on either the SAT or ACT, and
• Finish a bachelor's degree in 9 semesters (4.5 years) or less with a cumulative 3.0 or higher GPA and a 3.6 or higher in one's major(s) and minor(s) (if one opts to minor in something).

Only the ignorant imagine a 'free college education' is free.

The fact is, it is wasted money as far as actually educating.

And...most of those rewarded with same treat it as a vacation.


"4-year colleges graduate 53% of students in 6 years"
4-year colleges graduate 53% of students in 6 years - USATODAY.com


And this....

San Jose state college graduation rate after four years:
"9.0% undergraduates completed their degree "on-time" (within two or four years depending on the degree)"
http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/san-jose-state-university/outcomes/



College for everyone....paid for by the producing-citizens.....another great socialist plan!



Among first-time, full-time undergraduate students who began seeking a bachelor's degree at a 4-year degree- granting institution in fall 2007, the 6-year graduation rate was 58 percent at public institutions, 65 percent at private nonprofit institutions, and 32 percent at private for-profit institutions. Fast Facts


Socialism infantilizes the electorate.


Six-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time students who began seeking a bachelor's degree in fall 2007 varied according to institutions' level of selectivity. In particular, graduation rates were highest at postsecondary degree-granting institutions that were the most selective (i.e., had the lowest admissions acceptance rates), and graduation rates were lowest at institutions that were the least selective (i.e., had open admissions policies).

For example, at 4-year institutions with open admissions policies, 34 percent of students completed a bachelor's degree within 6 years. At 4-year institutions where the acceptance rate was less than 25 percent of applicants, the 6-year graduation rate was 89 percent.

SOURCE:U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2015).The Condition of Education 2015(NCES 2015-144),Institutional Retention and Graduation Rates for Undergraduate Students.




It also depressed the housing market....ask me how.

Given the criteria I listed as the qualification for receiving a free college education, all that "blather" about how long folks take to complete a degree has what to do with it? The relevant figure, given the criteria, would be the percentage of students who complete their degrees in 4.5 years or less, not all the ones who take longer than that. Those would be the relevant figures because, given the listed criteria in the OP, those are the only ones who'd qualify for the free education, at least in terms of "time to complete their degree."

 

[PoliticalChic]

City and state universities used to be tuition-free for those who qualified. Someone as old as Stephanie should know that.

Colleges and universities used to have standards and actually educate.
Seems that there are morons old enough to know that,...but don't.


1. Consider the talented and tireless Ira Magaziner. “As a student activist at Brown University in the late 1960s, he helped codify the no-requirements approach of the so-called New Curriculum (few grades, lots of self-discovery) and changed the face of modern academics. As Bill Clinton's point man on health care in 1994, he led perhaps the most contentious public-policy project of the last 20 years.” FindArticles.com | CBSi

2. "More than 900 four-year colleges and universities allow students to develop their own programs of study with an adviser's help, up 5.1% from five years ago, based on data from the College Board, a New York-based nonprofit organization of colleges and universities. University officials say at least 70 go a step further, providing programs with faculty advisers, and sometimes specialized courses, to help students develop educational plans tailored to their interests, while still meeting school standards.

The create-your-own-major programs still spark eye-rolling on campuses, partly because of their loopy past. Born of student demands for academic freedom in the 1970s, many early DIY major programs were pretty offbeat. Puzzle master Will Shortz earned a degree in enigmatology (the study of puzzles) from Indiana University in 1974. And at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., back then, a student majored in the marketing, design and aerodynamics of "flying disks," presumably Frisbees. Alan Goodman, Hampshire's dean of faculty, says advisers today require students to tie majors more closely to their planned fields of work or research."
Can't Pick a College Major? Create One

3. "Why did I have to listen in music humanities to this Mozart?" she groused in a discussion of the curriculum reported by David Denby in "Great Books," his 1997 account of re-enrolling in Columbia's core curriculum. "My problem with the core is that it upholds the premises of white supremacy and racism. It's a racist core. Who is this Mozart, this Haydn, these superior white men? There are no women, no people of color." These are not the idiosyncratic thoughts of one disgruntled student; they represent the dominant ideology in the humanities today."
Nothing More Timeless Than Ignorance by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal January 13, 2014

 

[PoliticalChic]

The title question says it all. It's a yes or no question. It is not a question about how to make it free for all who qualify academically. It is a question of about whether, in your mind, the end -- a no direct cost to the student/student's family college education -- is one that the U.S. should aim to achieve.

What does "qualify" mean in the context of the question? Measurably, it means one must achieve all of the following:

• Graduate from high school in the U.S. (or a U.S. territory) with a 3.0 cumulative GPA for grades 9 through 12,
• Score in at least the 80th percentile (overall) on either the SAT or ACT, and
• Finish a bachelor's degree in 9 semesters (4.5 years) or less with a cumulative 3.0 or higher GPA and a 3.6 or higher in one's major(s) and minor(s) (if one opts to minor in something).

Only the ignorant imagine a 'free college education' is free.

The fact is, it is wasted money as far as actually educating.

And...most of those rewarded with same treat it as a vacation.


"4-year colleges graduate 53% of students in 6 years"
4-year colleges graduate 53% of students in 6 years - USATODAY.com


And this....

San Jose state college graduation rate after four years:
"9.0% undergraduates completed their degree "on-time" (within two or four years depending on the degree)"
http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/san-jose-state-university/outcomes/



College for everyone....paid for by the producing-citizens.....another great socialist plan!



Among first-time, full-time undergraduate students who began seeking a bachelor's degree at a 4-year degree- granting institution in fall 2007, the 6-year graduation rate was 58 percent at public institutions, 65 percent at private nonprofit institutions, and 32 percent at private for-profit institutions. Fast Facts


Socialism infantilizes the electorate.


Six-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time students who began seeking a bachelor's degree in fall 2007 varied according to institutions' level of selectivity. In particular, graduation rates were highest at postsecondary degree-granting institutions that were the most selective (i.e., had the lowest admissions acceptance rates), and graduation rates were lowest at institutions that were the least selective (i.e., had open admissions policies).

For example, at 4-year institutions with open admissions policies, 34 percent of students completed a bachelor's degree within 6 years. At 4-year institutions where the acceptance rate was less than 25 percent of applicants, the 6-year graduation rate was 89 percent.

SOURCE:U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2015).The Condition of Education 2015(NCES 2015-144),Institutional Retention and Graduation Rates for Undergraduate Students.




It also depressed the housing market....ask me how.

Given the criteria I listed as the qualification for receiving a free college education, all that "blather" about how long folks take to complete a degree has what to do with it? The relevant figure, given the criteria, would be the percentage of students who complete their degrees in 4.5 years or less, not all the ones who take longer than that. Those would be the relevant figures because, given the listed criteria in the OP, those are the only ones who'd qualify for the free education, at least in terms of "time to complete their degree."

And you didn't ask how it depresses the housing industry...

Plus....check out post #32 for another reason that your premise is nonsense.

 

[Unkotare]

..... Some of the stated criteria are pre-enrollment criteria and some apply to the course of one's college career. In order to get the free college education, a student must meet the criteria. ....

Hence my question. Do you envision retroactively billing a student who fails to meet your criteria?

 

[Unkotare]

.....to your assertion that "it can't be free."
...

Nothing is "free." You should know that.

 

[Unkotare]

..... Begging the question is a circular form or reasoning.....

You stopped reading the dictionary entry too soon.

 

[Asclepias]

Judging by the replies of some of the posters that claim they went to college one would think that maybe its a bad idea after all. Most cant simply answer the question and lack good reading comprehension.

 

[PoliticalChic]

"A person receiving “free” tuition may not see it (or even care), but subsides actually raise the total cost of an education. The core problem is that they remove the paying customer—in this case the student—from the equation.

Without the subsidy, the paying customer receives the direct benefit for the service and bears the direct cost. If that person doesn’t think the cost is worth it, they don’t pay.

Louisiana’s program replaces this paying customer with groups of government officials. These officials neither receive the direct benefit nor endure the direct cost of obtaining an education. These groups do, however, benefit a great deal from obtaining more of your tax dollars.

And they rarely bear any direct cost from either increasing your taxes or delivering a substandard education product. (The incumbency rate is fairly high for politicians.)

On a practical level, Louisiana’s program converts tuition payments into a state budget item. In other words, a large chunk of each school’s “tuition” becomes nothing more than revenue sent in by the state bureaucracy."
This State Offered Free College Education. Here’s What Happened.


I strongly suggest you pick up a copy of "Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One" by Dr. Thomas Sowell


Amazon review:

Sowell takes the key political issues and challenges the reader to analyze not only their short term (Stage One) political impact but to also think ahead to their long term (Stage Two, Three, etc) economic impact. He reminds the reader that politicians do not think beyond Stage One because they will be praised (and elected) for the short term benefits but will not be held accountable much later when the long term consequences appear. He lays out the Stage One benefits of each political issue and then predicts the long term consequences that politicians don't address. Price controls on drugs and health care may have an immediate benefit, but the consumer will pay years later as health care quality decreases and new drug research declines. Reducing the price does not reduce the cost. Does raising the minimum wage really help entry level workers? What happens in the long term when communities raise taxes on businesses? Is free health care really free, or better?
We need to look beyond Stage One and separate politics from economics on the hot election year issues.

 

[Unkotare]

.... Why should his/her economic position be the sole reason for them not going to college?......

As it stands now, it need not be.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Judging by the replies of some of the posters that claim they went to college one would think that maybe its a bad idea after all. Most cant simply answer the question and lack good reading comprehension.

If you think it's a good idea.....pay for it.

Don't force your neighbors to.

The equation for Liberalism:
Good intensions + coercion = solution