Should college be a right?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
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<p>Um, on one hand, some of your points are valid. On the other, having experienced both health systems, I wouldn’t bring Canadian healthcare into the equation -l- too much misinformed rhetoric here in the US about it. More people die in the US at a younger age and while spending 30% more for the same services. </p>

<p>I used to live in Canada and NEVER ONCE WAITED LONGER IN EMERGENCY THAN I HAVE HERE IN THE U.S. The difference is that in the U.S. I have the privilege of paying about $10,000 year (plus out of pocket, plus deductible, etc.) for that privilege whereas in Canada I paid it in taxes (and less). In the US I also get to spend approximately forever keeping an eye on my insurance provider and the myriad disjointed billings generated from any single hospital episode/exposure (which is why health care IS more expensive here than in Canada – billing administration shenanigans) than I ever imagined possible in Canada’s single payer system.</p>

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<p>Hey, I’m all for free health care. I apologize for the incorrect information. That’s just something that I heard secondhand during a seminar about immigration held by a teacher of mine that’s currently in the process of immigrating from Canada.</p>

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<p>There’s no such thing as “free” anything.</p>

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<p>

Willy.<br>
[right].[/right]</p>

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<p>Ok, dude, we get it. You’re a communist. You’re so edgy. You’ve earned the right to wear your Che shirt.</p>

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<p>A joking reference to Free Willy depends upon my economic leanings?</p>

<p>Chill.</p>

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<p>Oh, lol. I didn’t understand. <em>Holstering guns</em></p>

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<p>Nothing is really free unless it comes from nature. Everything free from the government is still being paid by you in taxes at the end of the year.</p>

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<p>^My point.</p>

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<p>A more educated society is a better society.(less racism, more tolerance, more productive people,etc) well, it’s just a theory, not sure if it really works out that way.</p>

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<p>Students that are talented and qualified enough to earn the benefits conferred by a degree from a certain school, e.g. the kind of students that are actually admitted, should not have to turn down the school due to financial considerations.</p>

<p>The reason for this is that a student’s ability to pay for college is in no way indicative of their merit as a prospective student. Parents pay for college, not students. In the rare case that a student has managed to earn enough money to pay their own way through college, it would seem that the achievements inevitably associated with this feat (starting your own business, winning grants or scholarships, etc.) would get them into the college of their choice anyway.</p>

<p>On the other hand, some students are, to put it rather bluntly, simply unqualified for a college education. So no, college should not be a “right” for everyone. Anyway, chances are that many such students are not even interested in spending another four years in school.</p>

<p>Essentially, admissions should be merit-based while cost should be based on the student’s financial situation.</p>

<p>This approach is basically a middle road between “college should be free for everyone” and “the free market allocates resources optimally, therefore only those who can pay for college should attend it.” I paraphrase, but I think that sums up pretty well the two schools of thought I’ve seen in this thread.</p>

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<p>“Free” college</p>

<p>“Free” health care</p>

<p>Is it any surprise that with such views, America is going the way of Greece.</p>

<p>We had free college, and open admissions, at the City University of New York, which was once almost the equivalent of Harvard.</p>

<p>It became a joke.</p>

<p>In any case, free college is not a “right”. It may, or may not, be a good policy decision, but it is not a “right”. Certainly we want gifted students from poor families to go to college, but we already have community colleges, state universities, and student loans programs.</p>

<p>The government and the taxpayers do not have unlimited money. I am sure we can all think of many worthwhile new programs the government might fund. But as it is, America is borrowing 40% of what it spends. And even if we reduced that to zero, we still have to pay back the trillions that first Bush, and then Obama, saddled us with. </p>

<p>Many of the people calling for “free” college are from the upper middle class. That is how we got into this mess, by giving government benefits to the relatively well off.</p>

<p>Shall we next make graduate school a right.</p>

<p>It may be good policy to help kids afford to go to medical school, for example, but it is not a “right”.</p>

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<p>Calling it free college would be a misnomer. Obviously, government-funded programs are paid through taxes (and debt, when taxes are slashed). People have a right to education. Ergo, we have “free” (tax-paid) public K-12 education. However, by an imperfect local-funding set-up, it makes the poor schools bad and the rich schools good. Since education amounts to empowerment, this keeps the poor children generally trapped in the cycle of poverty. So before we address college rights, public K-12 education needs to be seriously fixed. We’re spending hundreds of billions to occupy foreign countries, I think we can throw a few at some long-term fixes for our schools.</p>

<p>As for college… Making it a right (or recognizing it as a right, since, in theory, a state cannot “make” rights) might be a good idea. However, there are a few things to consider.</p>

<p>[ul][li] Do we make public colleges/universities free? - Of course we’re talking public here, just like it’s public primary and secondary education that’s free. Let the privates do as they will. Now, making it free would establish it as a “right” just as K-12 education is, but it also means we’d be fully shouldering it as a tax burden, eliminating tuition. In a time when we are trying to avoid cutting social security, this strikes me as an unlikely and bad idea. When we can raise taxes to pay for our current social programs, and are out of some wars, then this might be worth reconsidering.</p>[/li]
<p>[li] Do we retool F.A. into a more progressive structure? - We could, instead, simply make it completely free for the poor and reasonable for the middle. Basically, by making all public schools meet full need, and making sure they really do so (not like certain schools who claim they meet need), we could establish college as a right not in the sense of “free” K-12 education, but like food is a right; those who are capable of paying for it do, but those who cannot are given government aid. It makes more sense, like how it would be a waste for the government to pay the Gates family grocery bills. Combined with retooling K-12 education, this seems more viable under our current system.</p>[/li]
<p>[li] “If college is a right, do I get to go to Harvard if I want?!?!” - No. Again, this is just public colleges/universities, and college as a right does not mean every school must have open admission. Community colleges have open admission; with overhauled F.A., that should ensure that anyone who wants to go to college, can. Universities and the like should still be able to turn people down, elsewise they would collapse under the burden. This is also the only way to avoid the government directly deciding who can and cannot go to college; if you get into a university, great, we’ll make sure you can go. If you don’t, enter the workforce, or go to a CC or trade school (everything from carpentry to captaining, so people can enter the skilled labor force).[/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>These are my thoughts, at least. Sure, I disdain our current system, but if we’re going to enact something that works within it, I think this is a decent blending of the ideal and the pragmatic.</p>

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<p>Germany before WW II was the most educated society in the world.</p>

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<p>

Source/relevance?</p>

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<p>The only reason reason why I believe everyone should have A CHANCE to go to college if they really want to, is so everything’s fair, so people aren’t sad that others get to do something they don’t, etc. </p>

<p>My reason is not based off of the merit of college. If it was, my belief would be much stronger. Is yours?</p>

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<p>Germany before WW II was awful that’s how Hitler rose to power.</p>

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<p>The state of Germany in the 30s was thanks to the punitive Treaty of Versailles and the US stock market crash of '29, causing a series of banks to call in their European loans. I don’t really see what the level of education of the German populace has to do with it.</p>

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<p>Education is only a right to a certain extent. America wants a democracy. One of the basic tenets of a democracy is an educated populace. Therefore, we have a public schooling system as a trade off for a successful democracy (you can argue the extent of success, but that’s not for this discussion).</p>

<p>The question is “how far do you go to educate people?”. The answer lies in the cost vs. benefit. In high school, you can teach the basic survival material (basic math, science, reading, etc.). Beyond that, the cost for a more specialized education, which college provides, sharply rises as most of you know. Let’s say you did make college a right. An undergraduate would be the new high school, even more so than it is now. What would simply happen is that grad school would become the place for people to get an “edge” over the competition. Heck, it already is that way, except now we have so many grad students that the edge’s existence is questionable.</p>

<p>Some of you will say “Well, now we have a more educated general populace! That’s a good thing!” Yes, this is vaguely true. However, let’s face it: Not all men are created equal as far as ability is concerned. Many people simply don’t belong in a college setting. Do you really want to take on the burden of funding all of them through a probably failed college venture?</p>

<p>Furthermore, if you make college a right, you will bureaucratize the system even more than it already is. All the schools will have to go through the government for the money to pay for the students. Essentially, this will create a dependence, resulting in near-complete control of the government over college. This binds college to the bureaucracy and enlarges it greatly. You’ll be creating a lot of headaches if you do this.</p>

<p>There are one or two more penalties to making college a right, but these are the major ones I can think of. There could also be some penalties I failed to consider. As it is, I think high school is a decent place to form the education basis for the public. Any higher and it becomes prohibitively expensive with diminished returns.</p>

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<p>the students should make research of the colleges in their city an then select the college to join it is must</p>