This would save young Americans from going into crippling debt, but it would also make a university degree completely unaffordable for most. However, in the age of the Internet, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t get an education.
Consider the long term impact of this. There are a lot of different ways such a situation could go, for better and for worse.
On the flip side, consider this. If few can afford university, then the universities will have a reduced income and they’ll be forced to adapt by shrinking and lowering tuition rates. Cheaper institutions will end up with a competitive advantage. This could ironically make degrees more affordable.
A. That would only be true in a culture where employers don’t think you need a degree for basic jobs. From what I’ve seen, the US isn’t like that.
B. Even if people are practically able to turn down uni, all the universities will most likely agree to keep prices high, similar to what landlords do. If all of them keep their prices high, then all of them get more money.
If no one could get a degree, employers would have to change their requirements to reflect this. Otherwise they won’t be able to find any employees.
Universities need to have their classrooms filled to stay in business. If attendance plummets, then they will be forced to adapt by reducing tuition prices and reducing expenses, i.e. providing less amenities.
You are saddling the horse from behind.
Yea, the education must get cheaper. A lot. But the lever to do that is a cost adjustment for the education, not artificially lowering demand by discriminating against the poor even more.
Your logic completes ignores costs of business. Property taxes. Utilities. Staffing. Those must still be covered
We can lower all of these costs by shrinking the university. Fewer buildings, fewer utilities, fewer classrooms. Not to mention the many extraneous amenities that don’t directly relate to coursework.
What about online university? Then you don’t even need a building and students don’t need to travel to the campus.
Your also skipping the dual function of universities as research institutions.
What you’re describing is a community college. Which are fine, and do a great job. But they don’t excel at giving deep specialized knowledge, or advancing the frontiers of human knowledge.
They’re just not equipped with the staff or materials.Reworking the foundation of how we do advanced education and research in our society seems quite a bit more work than making a program where the taxpayers just pay for qualifying people to get as much education as they want.
That’s a good point, research would be affected. However it’s worth mentioning that the US government already subsidises research, which might cushion the impact.
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Not all degrees can be done in a classroom with a projector
Context.
I am a non traditional student, who has spent a significant amount of time working between highschool and college. The degree is about $18k/year for tuition. My STEM degree has a track record of 100% job placement, in your degree field, within one year of graduation. and, with a BS, average starting salary is approaching $80k.
With average rent and stuff, lets call it about $25k/year for the degree. Maybe $30k.
Is there stuff that the university is spending money on that they shouldn’t? Yes. But, we also have many millions of dollars in equipment, some for undergrad, and some for graduated program use. All that equipment/lab spaces takes up space, and that equipment, our professors, and the reputation of our graduates are what makes the companies want to hire from pur school. We’re not even that big of a school, but we have a large reputation for academics.
If you started cutting funding and forcing downsizing, you’re losing decades of experience im teaching, many hundreds of millions in labs and equipment, and reducing the quality of the education that can be offered.
Now, I will grant you that some schools are too expensive, or degrees aren’t worth the cost. And yes, changes in student loan structures are needed, but blanket statements, like that loans should be made illegal, is painting the issue with too broad of a brush stroke. What about making student loans able to be discharged in bankruptcy, and not being federally guaranteed? That could create an environment where loan companies are denying loans based on the cost vs income potential of the degree. Even with that though, we want to be very careful that it is structured in a way that is not going to disenfranchise low income students or minorities. Some degrees will either disappear, or get a lot cheaper. If you can’t get a loan for a $400k underwater basket weaving degree, then it will either go away, or get cheaper.
A lot of programs need space and equipment to effectively produce a good product. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
It cost 70k to get my degree. Any idea how much tuition would have had to be for someone living out of a trailer to be able to afford it? If your answer was zero dollars you are correct.
I don’t believe encouraging someone to go into crippling debt over a certification will help them.
Education is how people get out of poverty op. The issue is that the US has a dog eat dog fuck the poor mentality that keeps the ladders out of poverty out of reach then blames them for their situation. The only thing that should determine whether you get into college should be your capability to do the work or not. Not what is or is not in your bank account.
The actual solution is to make college free given academic benchmarks are hit and institute mechanisms to keep costs under control that go beyond “how can we maximize profit?”
The benchmarks have to be weighted in order for this system to be fair across income levels. Also, making college free benefits well-off students more than poorer students. So many public schools offer full rides for low-income students, especially if they are first-generation students.
I was low income. This idea that the poor have enough aid is so divorced from reality. But youre right, the academic requirements probably should be weighted according to demographic because the rich are so heavily showered with resources by their parents. But youre wrong about free college benefitting them more than the poor.
How long ago were you in college? From my friends’ experiences, the lower income ones have had a really easy getting their educational expenses covered through grants and first-gen scholarships offered by my university. This does ignore living expenses, but strictly from a university perspective, they get more money than they pay.
I started college in 2005, had to leave because things happened in my life halfway through then finished my degree in 2020. So I have an idea of what it was like over the last 15-20 years as I worked on my degree. But by all means continue telling me what it is like to go through something you have never experienced yourself.
Glad you were able to graduate. That being said, invalidating my friends’ successes is pretty shitty. I was only speculating whether things got better or worse.
Regardless, after skimming through some more recent articles, I still don’t think making colleges universally free would help inequality long-term. The rich will still find some way of getting an advantage by, for example, attending private schools with legacy admissions. With our current system, public and private universities are treated the same except for their sticker price, and any publicly funded “free university” program would more than likely only cover public universities and limit choice.