<p>Society actually benefits from the education that its members receive.</p>
<p>It…
reduces crime,
reduces weight of entitlement programs on our taxes,
makes our human capital more productive and entrepreneurial,
and thus our economy more attractive to producers,
leading to lower prices and higher incomes for all,
creates a more intelligent electorate,
and improves the life of persons we are all mutually obligated as American citizens and human beings to improve the lives of.</p>
But isn’t part of the point that all of society benefits from the education of it’s people? So not only the individual, but all of society are paying for it over time? And there is a net positive, even though we have to pay for the cost of the education?</p>
<p>You’ve got it backwards. The “pesky poor kids” get their college education through loans, enabling them to have jobs that pay better than those who didn’t have the education, and pay back their debts. This way the pesky poor adult taxpayer or anyone else isn’t forced to subsidize someone who ends up better off than them. </p>
<p>If everyone has the opportunity to get the education why does it keep them in their “station”? it’s just that when they do well, they ought to pay for the benefits they receive, not someone else.</p>
<p>Maybe the answer, instead of expecting poor people to cripple themselves with debt just for the economic ability to possibly pay it back later, is to set up a progressive taxation system so that, say, people who are really successful due to our nation’s investment in them end up actually fostering success for other pesky groups.</p>
<p>If society benefits from the education, you can be sure that the person is compensated for it.
eg. let’s say you have a poor person who goes to college and finally ends up as a surgeon at a cost of a half a million to society. At this point society benefits from him, but unless I’m mistaken, he isn’t going to be taking your appendix out for free - for the benefit he provides society, he is compensated. </p>
<p>The key is anyone has an opportunity to get to where he can; but when he begins reaping the rewards for this, he ought to return what he borrowed, often times to those who are less well off than him.</p>
<p>Get serious. Our system (including the tax code) benefits middle-class-and-above people far more than it does those at the low end of the SES ladder. I cannot believe we have reached a point in our society in which so many people think they are consumers with buying power over the “commons.” It doesn’t work that way. We have agreed as a nation that certain things–like education–are worth supporting as part of the greater good. Some of you may not like “subsidizing” the education of a poor kid who couldn’t go without financial support; others may not like helping pay for roads and utilities out to your sparsely populated subdivision. We don’t get to decide what we want to pay for “a la carte” except at the voting booth. Which we just did.</p>
<p>I was under the impression that our current FA system is the most generous it has ever been, and that more lower-income students are attending college than ever before. Do I have that wrong?</p>
<p>Some countries do offer free college to their citizens. But as far as I am aware, these countries stream their kids academically at an early stage, so only the high achievers/high potential kids get to go, and the rest of the kids are shut out. </p>
<p>College is expensive, so these countries aren’t prepared to just give it away.</p>
<p>I know, I was being a bit facetious in response to others’ claims that a free education for the needy pays for itself in benefits to society. It should work the same for everyone then, but not everyone gets the same $$ deal.</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s hard to tell after the housing bust.</p>
<p>Or after millions of people have lost their jobs.</p>
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<p>Or not.</p>
<p>College isn’t the only way to success.</p>
<p>Or failure.</p>
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<p>They have to be able to receive it too.</p>
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<p>Probably true but prices keep going up and numbers keep going up as people are squeezed out of private schools. So the net benefit of that increased FA may not feel as big than before.</p>
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<p>Some do, some don’t. Some work for a while, save up money, go to school for a while and repeat. Some people get tuition reimbursement at their job to cut down on college expenses.</p>
<p>GMTPlus, seriously? “Some countries do offer FREE college to their citizens”. Sorry my friend, nothing is FREE! Only those socialist countries that tax their citizens to death offer that FREE education.</p>