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[Sheb]

Siquo, I do agree with you. Over here, even foactoring in lodging, food and books, a year of Uni must cost around 4000 euros. So we've got loads of student goofing around.

But maybe we can have a just middle? Normal, cheap universities, and expensive, "excellence" universities? It's okay for me to pay 20,000$ a year if you go to Harvard, but any old college shouldn't cost that.

Personnaly, I'd like to have university tuition be a fixed percentage of your parents' income. That way we can make it significant for everybody, while not barring entry to the poors.

Cevtor: I think that as more to do with High School than university, with american high school being terrible (all of my freinds who went as exchange student in the US outperformed their classes in every subject. And they aren't geniuses).

[ECrownofFire]

Looks like I sort of kicked something off. And that was only a side comment, too.

And no, I'm crazy far on the economic right (I'm still right though, so you've been warned). I do recognize that roads and regulations and such are necessary for a government to provide. I'm not really one for pure anarchy. I'm probably as far down the chart as you can go for personal freedoms though (abortions, gambling, drugs, prostitution, whatever). The government should be free of "morals". Yes, I do realize that's a massively loaded statement. I will explain if need be.

Somewhat related, I was just thinking on current regulations for medicines and the time it takes for them. Why not have two options for pharmaceutical companies. They can either go through with the full battery of testing, and NOT be open to sued if there's X thing resulting from use of it. OR they can opt out of the majority of it (the majority, not ALL of it), but be liable for whatever happens.

Really?

Because some of the European teachers here often lament how dumb we Americans have gotten, and how our top students are 80% of what they once were.  And I've had conversations with European graduate students who talk about how Americans have no grounding in culture, the arts, a wide range of studies, blah blah blah blah.

I attribute that to the age-old "my country is better than your country!" thinking

[Sheb]

Actually, a common saying is my uni is that we European are way smarter than American until 24. Then, anybody with two neurons emigrate there to do a PhD/Postdoc. :p

[kaijyuu]

On education costs: Well, the American system has one good aspect: because it is expensive, students are much more likely to work really hard.

In the Netherlands even college and master's degrees are virtually free (2500 euros a year or something, which you can loan against a pretty good rate), which means that taking 10 years for your masters' degree isn't an exception. It creates more equality, but also a lot more "average" students.

The more expensive studies (like medicine) have got a student-cap and a lottery whether you get in.

It's just what your priority is: Fairness or excellence. Do you want to treat your people humanely or fair, or do you want to be the Best Country In The World?

Gotta disagree with your assessment.

The good students will fly through regardless of if they have to pay for it or not. In fact, it's a hell of a lot better for the good students to not have to pay, since they don't have to waste time with a job just to stay alive. One of the bigger reasons rich families stay rich is their kids can focus on their studies instead of spending their early years doing menial work.

The bad students will of course pay more attention if they have to pay for it, but this is a double edged sword. Again they'll have to spend a lot of time supporting themselves, which takes away from their studies. Will they do overall better? Maybe... or maybe they'll crush under the weight of working essentially 80 hours a week and slink into depression like a lot of people I know.


If motivation's the goal, there are much, much better ways to go about it.

[Vector]

I think part of the issue with Oma is that she also basically can't read.  In any language.

This is why people need an education past 5th grade.


The issue of fixed percentage university education is that it means a very different thing for poor families vs. rich ones.  The families living paycheck to paycheck still won't have any ability to pay the fees.

[Sheb]

Hence, I really like my idea of making University tuiton a percentage of your (parents) income rather than a flat fee. Of course, it should be collected by the state and then given back as a grant per student, to avoid universities finding unofficial way to kick out poor student.

This way, University is expensive enough to be worth bothering about, while not forcing anyone into menial job to survive.

[GlyphGryph]

Andir, actually the defense and earmarks aren't such a big part of your tax dollars.

A fifth to a fourth of the entire national budget is a pretty big part, its pretty much the same chunk as medicare and social security (combined, of course, they take up twice as much).

Social security could be made more efficient, but its really not fair to talk about as a portion of the budget, since it has its own input stream. Its closer to its own side budget thing. Which means defense spending is neck and neck with medicaid for "biggest chunk of the general budget"

Personally, I'd support big cuts in all three areas. I'd actually support scrapping medicaid/medicare completely and replacing it with a comprehensive national health plan. I'm libertarian-inclined in many ways, but I consider healthcare to be an infrastructural problem, and almost anything would be better than being handled by the insurance industry.

Andir, I think the problem with that is that a functional Libertarian society rests on a population who's capable of living in it. Failing to educate kids so as to disincentivize the parents leads a whole host of destabilizing societal problems that extend well into the future. And it doesn't really work all that well, because people are terrible at thinking long term like that (perhaps due to their terrible educations?)

If we're talking about our optimal setups, though...
Social Security would be gone.
National Healthcare, no more health insurance
Negative income tax, but with a good deal higher tax rates on both income and corporate operations
No welfare programs (beyond the healthcare and -income)
Minimal defense spending (capped at 3% of budget)
Creation of a government Research and Development department, whose sole purpose is to develop effective government strategies
Greatly increases general science budget, strong research focus, especially on projects that require huge budgets
Large focus on education (Though in my mind, the education system would be much different from the one we have now, focused on developing excellence and instilling in the rest a civic-mindedness and knowledge needed to be a good citizen rather than most of the general purpose crap it shovels out now. I think school should be about helping people find their place in a dynamic society rather than churning out a bunch of automatons)

Overall, our budget would probably be the same, if not larger, so I'm probably a terrible libertarian, but I believe the governments primary responsibility is to grant its citizens freedoms - to take risks, to find their place in society, to work and achieve as best they are able.

Fake-edit:
Also, 11 14 15 goddamn posts. Wow. Super-ninjad.

[olemars]

I really wish I could cobble my thoughts together fast enough to participate in this thread 

[ECrownofFire]

Hence, I really like my idea of making University tuiton a percentage of your (parents) income rather than a flat fee. Of course, it should be collected by the state and then given back as a grant per student, to avoid universities finding unofficial way to kick out poor student.

This way, University is expensive enough to be worth bothering about, while not forcing anyone into menial job to survive.

Meanwhile, the universities that are in poorer rural areas flounder, while the urban universities grow huge. That doesn't really avoid the "problem" of the widening gap.

[Andir]

In the USA there are pockets of good or outstanding educational practice that are not being shared, developed and implemented across a unified system as it is in the UK (this I have first hand professional experience of). As a result the education system in the USA has been relativley stable and consistent (more a model of consolidation, with standards based grading currently breaking through, possibly the first really big thing to happen in 20 years), whereas in the UK we have had structures similar to standards based grading for over a decade, implemented over the whole model due to a more centralized approach, where ideas of best practice are constantly being reviewed, updated, shared and developed at all levels of the system. Very similar is done in Canada and Australia, and large parts of the EU, but much less so in the USA, partly due to a question of scale (Michigan is one state that I know first hand is moving to establish networks to share good practice, but it appears to be alone in this regard), and partly due to the organisational model in place in the USA not suiting such collaboration. This rant isnt to say which system is best at producing well educated students, as the biggest factor in this is skilled teachers with time to do a good job (which has suffered badly in the UK since Thatcher due to innovation overload as a result of the political meddling - if interested I strongly reccomend looking into the work of Dylan William, Bob Compton (his film one million mins is very interesting), David Hargreaves and Yhong Zao), but that the system in the USA is held back by its structure. Removing the barriers presented by local boards and taking a centralized approach could save plenty of cash through saving people re-inventing the wheel constantly for different regions - an idea currently being run with on a small scale in the UK and being called "School Families". I will curtail this rant here as I have written more than one thesis on international aspects of education and dont wanna go on forever!

I would say that you mentioned the problem but came to another conclusion.  Under the current system, the good school should be sharing their success methods.  I wouldn't say that consolidating all the schools under one umbrella is needed as much as the Federal Board of Education needs to be "taking" the ideas and methods from the most successful school and passing them out to the less successful ones.  Kind of like someone watching over a box of ants and telling them all what's working and what's not.

In fact, it's a hell of a lot better for the good students to not have to pay, since they don't have to waste time with a job just to stay alive. One of the bigger reasons rich families stay rich is their kids can focus on their studies instead of spending their early years doing menial work.

The issue of fixed percentage university education is that it means a very different thing for poor families vs. rich ones.  The families living paycheck to paycheck still won't have any ability to pay the fees.

I paid for my own education.  I worked a 40 hour week doing store clerk work (stock, customer service, etc.) while going to school.  I was able to do that with a loan from the government, but it's entirely possible to get a degree without having rich parents.

[Vector]

*rolls eyes*

Yes, it is possible to get a degree.  A degree is a piece of paper.  Getting an education is a 12+ hour/day job.

[ECrownofFire]

In the USA there are pockets of good or outstanding educational practice that are not being shared, developed and implemented across a unified system as it is in the UK (this I have first hand professional experience of). As a result the education system in the USA has been relativley stable and consistent (more a model of consolidation, with standards based grading currently breaking through, possibly the first really big thing to happen in 20 years), whereas in the UK we have had structures similar to standards based grading for over a decade, implemented over the whole model due to a more centralized approach, where ideas of best practice are constantly being reviewed, updated, shared and developed at all levels of the system. Very similar is done in Canada and Australia, and large parts of the EU, but much less so in the USA, partly due to a question of scale (Michigan is one state that I know first hand is moving to establish networks to share good practice, but it appears to be alone in this regard), and partly due to the organisational model in place in the USA not suiting such collaboration. This rant isnt to say which system is best at producing well educated students, as the biggest factor in this is skilled teachers with time to do a good job (which has suffered badly in the UK since Thatcher due to innovation overload as a result of the political meddling - if interested I strongly reccomend looking into the work of Dylan William, Bob Compton (his film one million mins is very interesting), David Hargreaves and Yhong Zao), but that the system in the USA is held back by its structure. Removing the barriers presented by local boards and taking a centralized approach could save plenty of cash through saving people re-inventing the wheel constantly for different regions - an idea currently being run with on a small scale in the UK and being called "School Families". I will curtail this rant here as I have written more than one thesis on international aspects of education and dont wanna go on forever!

I would say that you mentioned the problem but came to another conclusion.  Under the current system, the good school should be sharing their success methods.  I wouldn't say that consolidating all the schools under one umbrella is needed as much as the Federal Board of Education needs to be "taking" the ideas and methods from the most successful school and passing them out to the less successful ones.  Kind of like someone watching over a box of ants and telling them all what's working and what's not.

Also, centralized systems tend towards a standard of "passing is good enough" for everything. It's more of a fault of how the education worldwide works though. Education is very similar to manufacturing, and not only in that sense.

Related to that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

[GlyphGryph]

I paid for my own education.  I worked a 40 hour week doing store clerk work (stock, customer service, etc.) while going to school.  I was able to do that with a loan from the government, but it's entirely possible to get a degree without having rich parents.

I'm not sure if you've spent much time with young people today. A lot of them would love to do this, but it simply isn't an option - I don't know anyone under 21 who's found a full time 40 hour a week job that would pay for their education, which is getting more expensive every year. I'm also assuming you had a relatively good FREE education for the twelve years before that, am I right?

[Leafsnail]

I'm talking about the education cost, not overall cost of raising a kid.

The thing is, we educate children so they contribute to society when they're older.  I don't see why parents should have to face that cost as well.

It's just what your priority is: Fairness or excellence. Do you want to treat your people humanely or fair, or do you want to be the Best Country In The World?

I think this is what you call an unsupported assertion.  If you look at various world rankings of best universities, you tend to see a mix of UK and US universities.  The UK doesn't have a particularly expensive university system (or at least didn't until very recently) - so how come many of our universities end up near the top?  I think there are much more complicated factors at work than SOCIALISM MAGICALLY DESTROYS EVERYTHING

But maybe we can have a just middle? Normal, cheap universities, and expensive, "excellence" universities? It's okay for me to pay 20,000$ a year if you go to Harvard, but any old college shouldn't cost that.

Problem: no university wants to admit to being inferior by charging less money.

Somewhat related, I was just thinking on current regulations for medicines and the time it takes for them. Why not have two options for pharmaceutical companies. They can either go through with the full battery of testing, and NOT be open to sued if there's X thing resulting from use of it. OR they can opt out of the majority of it (the majority, not ALL of it), but be liable for whatever happens.

This isn't a bad idea.  It's two really bad ideas put together.

The first suggestion (take tests and don't be liable) would mean that medical companies wouldn't give a damn about whether their drugs cause any harm beyond what would show up on the tests (so if their drugs had a rare side effect, they'd just leave it in and not get sued for it).  The second suggestion would lead to thousands of people dying from untested drugs.

[Sheb]

Meanwhile, the universities that are in poorer rural areas flounder, while the urban universities grow huge. That doesn't really avoid the "problem" of the widening gap.

Which is why I wanted the government to collect all fees and then give back a fixed sum per student to the universities.