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[Eagleon]

Good thing most people aren't won over that way.  Otherwise we might have a real problem.

Yes, good thing no one ever places their trust in an authority and their distrust in others =P
@smjjames
I'm not trying to convince you, I'm trying to show you the kind of lies he spreads. Things that, if true, the working class would be very, very concerned about. It's not just a racist movement, it's rooted in classism the same as Sanders, and that makes it much more powerful. A lot of people voting for trump aren't racist or misogynist. They seriously just think that's funny and care about the "fact" that Mexicans are tanking our economy.

The difference to me is that Sanders isn't just pulling factoids out of his ass. He's addressing millennials in a way that is demonstratively consistent - how do I pay for my mother's healthcare and looming dementia if my college degree isn't worth the paper it's written on and my family is in crushing debt going fast into poverty? The problems are complex, but they aren't so intractable that you just need to make shit up.

[mainiac]

College degrees are worth considerably more then the paper they are printed on with the exception of degrees from for profit universities, which are currently going out of style thanks to bad publicity and a government crackdown.

This sort of exaggeration is why it might sometimes feel like the subtext of my posts is me wanting to shout "fuck you fuck you fuck you" at the Bernie supporters.  Yes there are serious problems in America and we could be doing things a lot better.  But that doesn't mean that any cynical statement you make is correct.  Casual hyperbole like this does not speak well of the political movement you champion.  And I will note that I think the candidate himself has done a good job staying away from such exaggerations himself.  He is capable of being an advocate without needing to exaggerate the very real significance of his cause.

[Eagleon]

Hey, I'm not saying it's right. Personally I think making tuition free will just amplify the amount colleges spend, and unless we make an effort to stick with the program and regulate, falling back on the old system will cause a lot of schools to just close. Making more college graduates will actually result in more people in that situation, just without the debt, but it will improve our most easily defensible asset against creep towards globalization. No, I voted for him because I think he's the only candidate that's serious about getting rid of CU and maybe Buckley - I honestly think Clinton has too much capital behind her already to be reliably focused on that goal. Not that she isn't passively interested in it, just maybe not to the extent an Independent from Vermont would be.

[Amperzand]

Also, more college graduates leads to a better-educated populace, which leads to reduced population growth and more-informed voter decisionmaking on important issues, regardless of the income or social class of the graduates.

From my point of view, the goal of free higher education isn't to get people better jobs, it's to have more people with higher education. I'd say that's a pretty good goal in its own right. Maybe I'll take 600 credits of advanced physics and end up building roads for a living, but at least I'll know how the world works while I do it.

[Reelya]

Hey, I'm not saying it's right. Personally I think making tuition free will just amplify the amount colleges spend

I don't really think so. Because this is one of those cases where it's not a new idea. Plenty of countries around the world offer free tuition to college students, and those countries aren't seeing massive spikes in education spending like the USA is. Many American colleges used to offer Europe-style free tuition, and rates / cost inflation was much, much lower back then.

What seem to be the main issues in the American system were the defunding of regular state/federal payments for education, coupled with expansion of the student loan system, ensuring colleges basically try and gouge as much per student as possible, using up each students personal debt limit is the route to maximizing profits for the education industry. Increases in the maximum student loan therefore only encourage colleges to find new ways to add cost burdens.

An alternative way is to fund places for specific types of college courses. e.g. the state pays a set amount to train, e.g. a Nurse. If there aren't enough nurses being graduated, then the rate is adjusted, so that more places are made available, and there are therefore more resources to train each nurse, ensuring quality is maintained. This is still a market driven system: the school which produces the best graduate nurses, within the funding framework, will attract more students to enroll in their nursing course. This encourages efficiency: produce the best nursing graduates given the cost constraints. And there's still flexibility: the state offers a specific amount for the training of a nurse, but they don't mandate how many places are made available by colleges. That's determined by colleges being able to attract applicants. If nurses are in high demand, more students will opt to study nursing and the number of places naturally increases. The state only really needs to periodically adjust the payment level to ensure there are no shortages in a particular area.

[PTTG??]

Yeah, democrats just dont give a shit about working class people.  They are all concerned about things rich people want like a higher minimum wage, paid parental leave, expanding medicaid, health insurance subsidies and the earned income tax credit.

Democratic policymakers ≠ Democratic activists.

I see a lot of activists and regular people behaving in exactly the manner Eagleon describes when politics comes up, but it's been a while since I sat down for a chat with Harry Reid to discuss the finer points of the Democratic tax plan. I'm not saying that the Republican party doesn't have image problems, mind you, but those attitudes are very real, and people who say things like that are the face of the Democratic party for a very large number of people.

Maybe another four or eight years. Maybe we can hope that Hillary decides not to run again; we've had one-term Presidents before... And then Liz can take her rightful place as our queen....

[Eagleon]

Hey, I'm not saying it's right. Personally I think making tuition free will just amplify the amount colleges spend

I don't really think so. Because this is one of those cases where it's not a new idea. Plenty of countries around the world offer free tuition to college students, and those countries aren't seeing massive spikes in education spending like the USA is. Many American colleges used to offer Europe-style free tuition, and rates / cost inflation was much, much lower back then.

What seem to be the main issues in the American system were the defunding of regular state/federal payments for education, coupled with expansion of the student loan system, ensuring colleges basically try and gouge as much per student as possible, using up each students personal debt limit is the route to maximizing profits for the education industry. Increases in the maximum student loan therefore only encourage colleges to find new ways to add cost burdens.

If there are existing cases, that's awesome. I'm not exactly on the inside here, I just think people's enthusiasm for the idea needs to be tempered by a realist approach, and a bit of healthy skepticism from Sanders supporters could actually help pull the big questions to the front so that Sanders can answer them and pitch them better. The same fanatical conviction that prevents a wider conversation between Clinton and Sanders supporters is hurting us here, and any that was there online at all broke down completely with the 'paid troll' thing. They're most likely just manufacturing dank memes to give to Clinton supporters, but that in itself is repugnant in a different way to me.

An alternative way is to fund places for specific types of college courses. e.g. the state pays a set amount to train, e.g. a Nurse. If there aren't enough nurses being graduated, then the rate is adjusted, so that more places are made available, and there are therefore more resources to train each nurse, ensuring quality is maintained. This is still a market driven system: the school which produces the best graduate nurses, within the funding framework, will attract more students to enroll in their nursing course. But they're doing it on the same payment as all other colleges working through the same state funding to train nurses, so it fosters efficiency and cost-effectiveness rather than price gouging.

Any time you open new facilities you run into costs and problems you don't expect. In this case I don't see how degree mills won't happen unless there's a cap on the number of teachers and their salary. I guess you could go with the government pay scale system, but it doesn't always attract top-tier professionals in places like BLM competing with oil industry jobs. The mills will be serving the demographics that have no choice but to go for them - not every college sets themselves up to be top-tier genius magnets, there's money in people's lowered expectations. Then what happens when the demand changes? They'd try to stretch their funding as far as possible to avoid layoffs, and whether that means taking on more students than they can handle through outright failure to communicate that, or cutting maintenance spending, there's going to be problem schools. We'd also need a common core and management for every single program we set up this way, or there really will be a devaluation problem as programs diverge faster than we can make sense of what exactly they're teaching - as I said, regulation while the bumps happen. Possibly endless regulation.

All I'm saying is that it's not going to be easy to sell, and it shouldn't be easy to sell, because you're opening up something almost as complex and dynamic as another financial sector.

[Helgoland]

You could just institute minimum standards for the degrees being handed out: When the state finances a nurse degree, a nurse degree should be what comes out the other side. Degree mills would simply get no money at all this way.

[Reelya]

Any time you open new facilities you run into costs and problems you don't expect

Fuck'em - that's called being in business. This doesn't impact on the idea of set costs for education whatsoever. If one college fails in business, then another college will pick up the students. Survival of the fittest weeds out the inefficient and bad planners. Insurance is a thing for a reason. Only if there's a system-wide shortage of a particular type of graduate or an overall quality issue, then that's an indicator that the amount invested needs to increase.

In this case I don't see how degree mills won't happen unless there's a cap on the number of teachers and their salary.

Degree mills happen under the current system. BTW, if you think that teacher's salaries is the main problem with degree mills, you haven't really thought through the problems with higher education at all. A degree mill will have substandard low-paid teachers, with large class sizes, and eat up all the revenue with "administration costs". They definitely won't have a high number of highly-paid teachers: that's actually symptomatic of getting a good quality education. What is your money meant to go toward if it's not going towards paying good teachers?

BTW, degree mills can currently set a low price-point, and sell themselves as bargain-basement degrees. If there were set state payments per student, then it creates a competitive level playing field: those who offer the best education for that money will prosper and expand, those who offer a shitty education will wither. In other words, it's likely to be the end of degree mills as they're currently known.

You don't really see the same type of bargain-basement colleges in other rich Western countries as you do in the USA. e.g. in Australia if you study hard you can get into the best college for the same price as a shitty one ... why would you do that? That's why it works: it's competitive between colleges because they want to attract the best students without paying more money, so they focus on efficiently producing the best education and reputation, meanwhile it's competitive between students because they want to study hard and get a placement in the colleges with the best education and reputation. And the government merely sets a price at which the number of places offered by universities and number of students seeking places creates sufficient graduates to meet the needs of business. The government doesn't have to mandate which college offers how many placements or what students choose to study.

[PTTG??]

I've found the perfect compromise candidate.

Re-Elect Benjamin Harrison 2016!!!

[Orange Wizard]

You don't really see the same type of bargain-basement colleges in other rich Western countries as you do in the USA. e.g. in Australia if you study hard you can get into the best college for the same price as a shitty one ... why would you do that? That's why it works: it's competitive between colleges because they want to attract the best students without paying more money, so they focus on efficiently producing the best education and reputation

In NZ we basically do this but with more control from the MOE, so every university/etc. is roughly equal in terms of quality. It's absolutely not a sliding scale of more money==better education; and efficiency reforms are preferable to more investments.

I've found the perfect compromise candidate.

Re-Elect Benjamin Harrison 2016!!!

I would get a US citizenship for the sole purpose of voting for zombie Ben H.

[Cruxador]

Personally if we're electing zombies I want Hiram Johnson.

[Loud Whispers]

Also, more college graduates leads to a better-educated populace, which leads to reduced population growth and more-informed voter decisionmaking on important issues, regardless of the income or social class of the graduates.

Hahahahaha
Shit's about to get LOW-INFORMATION

From my point of view, the goal of free higher education isn't to get people better jobs, it's to have more people with higher education. I'd say that's a pretty good goal in its own right. Maybe I'll take 600 credits of advanced physics and end up building roads for a living, but at least I'll know how the world works while I do it.

The reasons are many, though neglect base survival and all die

[PTTG??]

Also, more college graduates leads to a better-educated populace, which leads to reduced population growth and more-informed voter decisionmaking on important issues, regardless of the income or social class of the graduates.

Hahahahaha
Shit's about to get LOW-INFORMATION

From my point of view, the goal of free higher education isn't to get people better jobs, it's to have more people with higher education. I'd say that's a pretty good goal in its own right. Maybe I'll take 600 credits of advanced physics and end up building roads for a living, but at least I'll know how the world works while I do it.

The reasons are many, though neglect base survival and all die

Free college education inevitably leads to the starvation of mankind, got it.

But no, do go on and tell us why Americans don't deserve the functioning services provided by developed countries.

[Loud Whispers]

Free college education inevitably leads to the starvation of mankind, got it.

You got it wrong

But no, do go on and tell us why Americans don't deserve the functioning services provided by developed countries.

Tbh if we're talking about what people deserve usually it's in a lot more harsh terms like all the freedom missiles or some shit, and if you feel entitled to functioning services aim for functioning services that function. Lest your education merely be an experiment in making all politics harmonized and educated or inimical and low-information