Isn't free college already a thing?

Lil' Pistol wrote:

Alex87 wrote:

I'm just glad there are white knights like you out there who understand that more self-victimization is exactly what poor people in this country need.

(1) Not white.

(2) Not a knight.

(3) Work in an inner city school where 78.4% of our students are below the poverty line.

Also no smart enough to know what a White Knight is.

You can nitpick over the details, but affordable college certainly already exists and many people don't take advantage of it.

True. But people don't want to hear that because they think they are entitled to everything they want. I know many people who cross state lines and pay double to go to a state school just because they think is sounds better than staying in-state.

lwood wrote:

Community college is pretty damn affordable. Plus if someone running for president is touting free college, doesn't congress have to vote on that to make it happen?

Correct. However, the current President of the United States has completely changed our political system to where you can bypass Congress for just about anything. The control the President has currently is on the level of a King that the founding fathers specifically tried to avoid.

GOP wrote:

If you paid $50,000 for a new car in 2015 and just finished paying it off, why would you vote for everyone in 2020 to get that same car for free?

Why commoditize what you've spent $XX,XXX or $XXX,XXX on? Seems dumb to me … but maybe I'm just a self serving GOP prick.

It's not quite a perfect analogy, as a $50,000 car is a luxury, and I don't think the world would be a better place if more people had $50k cars. But yes, I did have student loans, I did pay them off, and I do support student loan forgiveness and free college.

An example I've heard before: if you had cancer for a while and then someone invented a cure...would you want to withhold it from people until they'd suffered as much as you did?

Hardloper wrote:

You can nitpick over the details, but affordable college certainly already exists and many people don't take advantage of it.

Yes, most of these other posts are pointless tbh. An undergraduate degree isn’t free for most, but can be affordable for almost all if you take advantages of the opportunities. If you’re in massive debt from undergrad- it sucks- but you agreed to that plan and chose not to take the other options. You’re not a victim that was forced into something by evil people in a corrupt system. You live in a capitalist society that has pros and cons. That’s just the harsh reality. Live frugally until you pay off loans and strongly encourage your kids to take a different college approach.

Graduate programs and doctorates are different though and there’s not always an affordable option (but you’re still choosing to go into the professions that require these degrees).

Lil' Pistol wrote:

Undecided Pennsylvania Voter wrote:

It's easy to apply to multiple colleges these days. And if you can't get accepted or get any form of scholarship or financial aid even to a third-tier school then you probably shouldn't be attending college.

Tell that to kids in south Chicago who are living below the poverty line and just trying to not get shot on the way to and from school.

Tell that to kids in rural West Virginia who also live below the poverty line with the added bonus of meth addicted parents.

Tell that to kids in any inner city who can't afford to buy lunch, nevertheless apply to multiple schools.

Your privilege is blinding you from reality.

1. hicago- Cops should get rid of the Crime Problem, so no one has to worry about getting shot-Emulate Tokyo, where there is almost no crime, Why are the Tokyo Police SO MUCH better than the Chicago Police as far as keeping Crime and Murder to a Minimum?

2. West Virginia-Parents should NEVER be on Meth, They are HORRIBLE ROLE MODELS.

3. If a kid can't afford to buy lunch, why not ask Neighbors if they can mow their lawn, or if it snows ask neighbors if they could clear the walkways for them by using a shovel to put snow to the side, when I lived in New York, I did this (Without asking for money) but almost always they Volunteered to pay me, There was A Pizza Place that had a lunch special 2 slices of Pizza and a drink and an Icee for 75 Cents, so even when they only gave me a Dollar, I would get that and buy a couple of Comic Books with the change In New York Comics used to be 10 Cents, but they raised it to 12, then 15, then 20 then 25 cents. Other Times I would get a Hot Chocolate, a Candy Bar and a drink, and still got change from a One Dollar Bill.

4. Michael Brown died after he robbed a store and had a confrontation with the Police, if you look at where he died, supposedly right where his apartment was, if you look at the grass area it was in terrible shape, He could have asked the Landlord or neighbors if he could mow the lawn, then he would have money and would not have had rob the store to get what he wants.

5. In many Inner Cities there is a lot of Graffiti, someone could make money by painting over it, they could ask Police or a Politician, and they would likely set that up as a job. a Graffitt removal Job would probably pay about $15 an hour, so even 2-4 hours a day would give someone good money.

6. Another is go through garbage looking for cans, I would hate, but I have seen people doing that.

People just have to think.

Chicago

Communist countries have free college and medical care.

GOP wrote:

If you paid $50,000 for a new car in 2015 and just finished paying it off, why would you vote for everyone in 2020 to get that same car for free?

Why commoditize what you've spent $XX,XXX or $XXX,XXX on? Seems dumb to me … but maybe I'm just a self serving GOP prick.

You're saying that because you just paid a crapload of money for your car you'd object to being able to get your next car for free? And you'd prefer that your wife, your, kids, your friends and their families have to pay for their cars as well?

I don't get it. Free college means the students will pay for the college through higher taxes the rest of their lives. It also means that their neighbor who works in a factory will help pay for their college through higher taxes. So why should the two if them split the cost instead of the one who went to college paying the whole thing. Maybe the one who goes to college should help pay for his neighbor's car to make it even. Or why don't they both pay for their own expenses?

I think the problem is explained by a Venn Diagram analysis. There is a set of poor students who qualify for almost full financial aid. There is also a set of students who are properly prepared for college. Unfortunately, the intersection of these two sets is but a sliver as educational levels have become increasingly associated with income levels over the years. Poor kids simply lack the human capital to even begin to apply to schools which would pay them if they could make the grade. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was more social mobility in that poor kids often graded into good colleges, I was one of them.

Some economists have blamed the social stratification on increased assortative mating between couples, as the educated guy rarely marries his secretary anymore or vice versa.

My daughter's boyfriend is an example or in more exact terms, the exception that proves the rule. His parents are granola crunching hippies who think Bernie is conservative and take "save the world jobs" that earn little money, i.e., lawyers who work for the free legal services bureau in town. He has his parent's intelligence and got a 34 ACT-he went to a prestigious New England private school for free. My daughter's cost is $70k. No sour grapes here, but I realized that there are very few students like him as we got to know the school.

Parents be crazy wrote:

I don't get it. Free college means the students will pay for the college through higher taxes the rest of their lives. It also means that their neighbor who works in a factory will help pay for their college through higher taxes. So why should the two if them split the cost instead of the one who went to college paying the whole thing. Maybe the one who goes to college should help pay for his neighbor's car to make it even. Or why don't they both pay for their own expenses?

You can make the same argument about all public education. If you went to public high school you're paying taxes for it for the rest of your life it you own property.

Parents be crazy wrote:

The liars who are running for office are pandering to the spoiled middle class students who are used to receiving everything for free. They think they are entitled to a private college education regardkess if the cost. They don't yet understand at 20 years old that free education will only drive the costs up even more and they and their parents will have to pay it through increased taxes. It would ultimately ruin the economy and nobody would be able to go to college.

nowhere else has crazy college costs like the US, and yet their economies are not ruined and their quality of life looks pretty good. Why is it always claimed that perfectly fine working models from other successful countries would lead directly to ruin and financial Apocolypse if tried in the USA?

Parents be crazy wrote:

The irony is that we have candidates trying to convince voters that the roadblock to these kids is the ability to pay. They would pay nothing under our current system but they are not in the market for free college.

That is neither ironic nor related to the post I responded to. Sounds like you could use a better education system.

Hardloper wrote:

You can nitpick over the details, but affordable college certainly already exists and many people don't take advantage of it.

It’s not nitpicking to point out that the original premise of the thread, that we currently have the infrastructure in place that would allow most people to go to college for free, as being laughably false.

One of the main issues is that the costs of college are serving as a de facto sorting system between classes and creates a self-perpetuating system of social stratification.

Yes, there are some options available to students who weren't lucky enough t be born into wealth, but how many community college kids are on the Supreme Court? why should they be excluded from those types of positions just because of the circumstances of their birth?

that is unamerican

The only ones getting anything for free from the higher education system is the spoiled-rotten industries that don't have to lift a finger or spend a dime to train their own workforce.

What if the trades worked this way? Sure kid, you can be a plumber but you gotta pay your employer for two or three years... end up with no plumbers real quick.

The scam is enabled by one thing only, guaranteed federal student loans.

Going to community college does not disqualify on from being on the SCOTUS. You also don’t need to be born into wealth to be on the Court.