Why I Oppose “Free College”
The Bernies are touting another slogan .. free college. Great slogan but an idea that they have not thought out. The US has about 30 million college-age kids. If we estimate the cost of college at $50,000, that comes out to $1,500,000,000,000. That is 1.5% TRILLION dollars!
The Bernies protest, “how can higher education be free in Germany? “The answer is that Germany and other European states have a highly merit-based system. The proportion of Germans who get what we call a bachelors degree is much smaller than here.
The US system has all sorts of ways to get degrees. We offer Bible college bachelors and online diploma mill bachelors. The same accreditation system that allows the University of Washington to give bachelor degrees also award that privilege to the ohso dubious Western Governors University … a college with NOI faculty! As a result, if you can pay for it, you can get a college degree in the US!
That sort of system does not exist in Europe. The European meritocracy begins in grade school where kids are tracked from an early age. What these systems do provide is vocational programs that begin in secondary school respect for tradespeople. Neither the respect not nor the vocational schools of these exist in America. Worse the Bernies would demean any effort to base a free college degree on merit as being elitist while the red hats would, in the usual GOP way, want to cut costs.
The threat from the right is already here. Currently, in a sad search for cheaper education. formerly great state universities have been downgraded. UNC, U Illinois, Wisconsin, and my own UW have seen their course offerings downgraded. This has drastic effects on liberal arts subjects. Whole fields of study and even languages are deleted because they cost money. Why should the taxpayer pay for a Professor of Greek Philosophy or classes in our mathematics if there are no jobs for the graduates? The cost of free tuition would be so high that it would mean downgrading the most expensive forms of education … high-quality education by interaction with high-quality faculty.
One highly touted alternative if to make community college free, I like that idea but it too can be abused. The original idea was rather like what happens in Germany .. community colleges were intended as vocational schools. Now, here in Washington state, the legislature requires the UW to take 1/3 of its students from the community colleges. The result is an educational version of Gresham’s law … the cheap drives out the good. Why pay for an introductory class in American history taught by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. if you can meet the need with underpaid PhDs willing to work for $15. hr?
I suspect free tuition would become like healthcare. Cheap school for most kids while those with $$$$ go to the elite schools.
Tags: Commentary by SMS
Posted 09 Apr 2019 by theaveeditor
in The Ave Scene
Those Germans and Europeans though who do not go to university though end up going to excellent technical schools instead. WE may have to actually remind business and industry that the high skilled workers they want can exist, but they have to be willing to foot some of the bill, and the companies desperate for workers actually will pony up.
No parents having to bribe their children into Big Harv’s motorcycle engine school. Big arv might have a float with a contingent of cyles in the local parade, but it does not have a rowing team. Though classes in two cycle engines and marine engines are available.