Problems with the "free public college" plans

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

I was responding to @Abogado about this but I'm using this post to jumpstart the dialogue





For the record...i'm not against it...entirely...but there has to be a uniquely American answer to fix this problem...if there is one.

Now connect how all that shyt affects free colleges?

1. What the hell does fewer colleges have to do with making college free? Please elaborate. I won't do this work for you..

50 states

Each state has an average of least 4-5 colleges that are public

The United States has more colleges than any other country...after India.

You want free college?

You're gonna have to shut down thousands of schools just to comply with federal finance demands when most of these schools make their money on loan payments.

That's ultimately a decrease in college access and a massive impact on some of the services that public colleges offer.

Free public college on a scale that we'd see in the USA is just a crazy gamble with too many variables for a range of factors like geography, legacy, and all of the other things that have caused public universities to have the identity they've had.

Colleges in the USA have a lot of appeal different from what they do abroad...largely as lacking that party image and lacking that marketing angle from professional sports. That greatly affects things.

2. Population crises. Yeah, their populations are getting older. Once again, what does this have to do with free college? They could just as easily shift that money elsewhere. Explain why.

There are incentives by countries with population crises to get people to immigrate AND work domestically. There are programs for foreigners to come and get professional degrees in Germany to meet their urgent need for primary care physicians...for example in Greece the same issue is facing doctors as a result of both population AND macroeconomic financial woes

Germany Seeks Foreign Cure for Its Doctor Shortage

www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/world/europe/pressed-by-debt-crisis-doctors-leave-greece-in-droves.html

3. This is true, which Sanders has put forward, but we could also just reallocate funds.

OK...Which funds? For what? And covering JUST tuition isn't the whole story. Theres tons of fees associated with running these public schools. Sanders plan just does a lot of handwaving when you get into the weeds on this.

4. This is not true. We spend 3.5% of our GDP on military funding. France and the UK spend 2.2 percentage. Germany spends about 1.2 of their GDP on it. As it stands, college loans are about 1% of the GDP, doubling that would equate to free college tuition for everyone at public universities.

This is just outright false.
A lot of the social welfare of Europe has persisted:

1. because of the export of the german system from the Kaiser in the 1880s:

2. NATO supplying military assistance to allow european nations to avoid committing to their NATO GDP requirements...this lets them spend money on other shyt.

Your GDP numbers are MASSIVELY lacking in context:

Theres TONS of literature about there about the "Free Rider Problem" in European Economics.

Political feasibility and financial feasibility are two different things. You have failed to demonstrate the latter. I'll wait on you to do it

Click to expand...

This is an empty statement akin to "well i'm wrong and you're wrong because I don't like you...so boo"

Do better.






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[ADevilYouKhow]

A lot of states are having a problem in funding their university systems as it is, I think we should be proactive in fixing that, top down just a bloodbath. Raising taxes isn't as popular as Sanders followers argue, people will do anything to avoid taxes.. Unless you're infringing on states rights you're going to have issues here. These god damned red states, and their fiscally retarded policies are going to tank the entire US someday. Hell they wouldn't even expand Medicaid in some states.

 

[The American]

No free college. If you want education, pay for it. I'm sick of freeloaders wanting handouts. Earn your shyt.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

A lot of states are having a problem in funding their university systems as it is, I think we should be proactive in fixing that, top down just a bloodbath. Raising taxes isn't as popular as Sanders followers argue, people will do anything to avoid taxes.. Unless you're infringing on states rights you're going to have issues here. These god damned red states, and their fiscally retarded policies are going to tank the entire US someday. Hell they wouldn't even expand Medicaid in some states.

It'd take a complete rewrite of the social contract honestly...people just dont see it as an "American" thing to do.

But yea...funding gets some serious hand-waving when Sanders does it...and its kinda annoying. Dude just made a number, then dropped it on the table as if you can just give a 1:1 transition and "fund" things that way.

 

[Tate]

Free tuition would be like 0.5 of the GDP iirc. Not a stretch at all.

Numbers of colleges is a very dumb way to look at this. Off the top of my head, I think WVU has more students than every other university in the state combined.

Free college isn't that huge an issue to me. It's good in that it can bind the upper middle class to the welfare state(which is very good), but it's not a poverty solver or anything. More educated people only seems to mean more educated poor people in the broad strokes. But ultimately decommodifying education is good.

No free college. If you want education, pay for it. I'm sick of freeloaders wanting handouts. Earn your shyt.

Agree, capitalists should stop freeloading off workers

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Free tuition would be like 0.5 of the GDP iirc. Not a stretch at all.

Numbers of colleges is a very dumb way to look at this. Off the top of my head, I think WVU has more students than every other university in the state combined.

Doesn't matter. A state like Georgia has like 29 public colleges:

This is more than some fukking countries bro.

Then on top of that, a lot of these recently were cannibalized by other schools based on sheer financial problems.

You put a top-down system in place, and a lot of those places will suffer in trying to keep the doors open.

YOu're talking about a massive drag on employment AND access opportunities for students.

You could argue that too many are already open...but over time you'd see a lot of schools closing.

Free college isn't that huge an issue to me. It's good in that it can bind the upper middle class to the welfare state(which is very good), but it's not a poverty solver or anything. More educated people only seems to mean more educated poor people in the broad strokes. But ultimately decommodifying education is good.

If we reign in immigration, and focus on prioritizing certain majors...and promote alternative educations/trades ...I think this would change.

Agree, capitalists should stop freeloading off workers

The same workers that can start their own businesses?

You keep using these terms like "exploit" when it comes to workers.

 

[Tate]

Doesn't matter. A state like Georgia has like 29 public colleges:

This is more than some fukking countries bro.

Then on top of that, a lot of these recently were cannibalized by other schools based on sheer financial problems.

You put a top-down system in place, and a lot of those places will suffer in trying to keep the doors open.

YOu're talking about a massive drag on employment AND access opportunities for students.

You could argue that too many are already open...but over time you'd see a lot of schools closing.



If we reign in immigration, and focus on prioritizing certain majors...and promote alternative educations/trades ...I think this would change.



The same workers that can start their own businesses?

You keep using these terms like "exploit" when it comes to workers.

So number of students is less important than number of schools when it comes to free tuition? Can I get a yes or no ok this one? No big text or line breaks please my man

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

So number of students is less important than number of schools when it comes to free tuition? Can I get a yes or no ok this one? No big text or line breaks please my man

Yes.

But the cost/importance of all these public universities changes things radically because they would require massive amounts of money to not only keep running, but offer access, AND level off costs.

Again...I never saw Bernie's plans adjust for growth or investments in infrastructure of colleges.

Its not some simple "swipe left" shyt

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

'Free' college in Europe isn't really free

'Free' college in Europe isn't really free

Abby Jackson

Mar. 6, 2016, 2:53 PM
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While Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has garnered populist support with his debt-free college proposal, several economists recently told NPR's "Planet Money" that they don't like the plan.

Their main gripe: The plan should target students who actually need free tuition rather than spend money to pay for everybody's public education.

Still, Sanders has pointed to free tuition in European countries like Germany and Denmark to prove the models can be successful.

"Free" is a relative term since tax payers absorb that cost.

European countries often differ greatly from the US in substantive ways. Their college enrollment percentages, for example, are much lower than in America.

Europe also traditionally has higher taxes than the US, which allows those countries to offer additional social services.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its 2015 report on the tax burden on earnings among member countries.

Their report ranks countries by their tax wedge percentage. The tax wedge is the dollar measure of the income tax rate. The countries below with the red arrows offer free college, with the exception of the US. There are other European countries that offer free college, but the countries below are the most well-known examples.

OECD OECD comparison of total tax wedge as % of labor costs.



While the tax wedge is certainly not driven solely by free-college tuition costs, the countries that offer this benefit have much higher income tax rates than the US. If the US were to go the route of European countries that finance free college by taxing the income of citizens, the tax wedge of 31.5% would likely increase.

Germany, with particularly high income taxes, has one of the most inclusive debt-free college programs, offering free college to foreign students as well.

European countries also differ substantively from the US in terms of the percentage of college attendees that their debt free models serve.

"Germany has a lower percentage of students go on to college than we have here in the US," Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at think tank Demos, told ATTN.

The World Bank reports tertiary school enrollment by country, and the data supports Huelsman's claim. The World Bank defines tertiary school broadly, and includes universities, colleges, technical training institutes, community colleges, nursing schools, and research laboratories.

In 2012, the tertiary enrollment for European countries that offer debt free college, and the US, was as follows:

World Bank2012 tertiary school enrollment



The percentage is calculated by taking tertiary enrollment as a percentage of the total population of students who graduated within the last five years. For all countries, with the exception of Finland, the US has a much higher percentage of students who have enrolled in post-high school education.

While Sanders plans to fund free college by imposing a tax on "Wall Street speculators," free college in America would likely be a more complicated endeavor than it is in Europe.

 

[FAH1223]

Making tuition free would be $60 billion or so. Out of a multiple trillion dollar budget.

The STATES also have to freeze tuition increases. It was done in Maryland during O'Malley's first term. It needs to be done across the country.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Making tuition free would be $60 billion or so. Out of a multiple trillion dollar budget.

The STATES also have to freeze tuition increases. It was done in Maryland during O'Malley's first term. It needs to be done across the country.

Yeah...but to mixed results:

UC System to Hike Tuition After 3-Year Freeze

California has serious problems with this and schools just cap enrollment and try to get more international students.

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

Making tuition free would be $60 billion or so. Out of a multiple trillion dollar budget.

The STATES also have to freeze tuition increases. It was done in Maryland during O'Malley's first term. It needs to be done across the country.

I believe there is currently a freeze at cuny but I'm not 100% on that.

 

[Tate]

So number of students is less important than number of schools when it comes to free tuition? Can I get a yes or no ok this one? No big text or line breaks please my man

Yes.

You gotta love it

 

[the cac mamba]

i dont even think it should necessarily be free

what if instead of free, state college loans had no interest rate? we need SOMETHING to make these motherfukkers start being compelled to drop prices because its out of control

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

You gotta love it

you asked a stupid question