@ClarinetDad16 “All one needs to look back to when the City of New York schools offered free college.”
Right because outside of NY, people are jumping through hoops to try to get into a CUNY.
Agree with the OP about the GA HOPE/ Zell Miller. Pretty much what happens is the rich people from around Atlanta have their tuition paid for by people in rural parts of the state who play the lottery.
Yes, everyone seems to think that the state schools in any state but their own are much better, then are surprised that they are expected to pay more, being OOS.
Iran has a population of 84 million. Iran provides free university education in public universities in all levels. The system is far from perfect, as it ignores extracurricular commitments and writing ability and Iranian universities are far from world class, but it is worth mentioning :
Iranian public universities have an interesting system. They calculate an Academic Index based on centralized high school junior year finals and an standardized test. The country is then divided into three tiers, based on wealth and the opportunities available to the students. Students in each tier are ranked, and gain admission into their choice public universities based on their index, demand for that particular university and quota.
Students who make the cut into a certain school are guaranteed free tuition, room and board, plus a small stipend.
Students who barely don’t make the cut can become “night students”, which is a meaningless name because they take their classes along with others, and this distinction is not mentioned in their degrees. They have to pay a small amount of money as tuition ($200 per quarter)
Students who are below the line, but good enough to gain admission into a university of slightly lower standing can enroll as “Campus Students”. They have to pay a reasonable amount of money to enroll.(around $40K for the four years). The number of such students is of course limited.
Of course, certain awards and ECs can act as coefficients to a student’s index.
Perhaps it should be competitive to get on a college track, provided that people are able to return to the college track later in life through some backdoor means (e.g. community college → university). Much of the problem of low graduation rates stems from the fact that people who have no business in university are pursuing a college degree and flunking out.
@calicash do you realize you are offending many of the greatest generation who served our country and then came back home to attend college through the City of New York?
@ClarinetDad16 – CaliCash is, like, 19.
Earlier in the thread, sub100-level courses were mentioned. Not sure if y’all know this, but federal financial aid cannot be used for sub100-level courses. I wonder if free college were to be implemented, would sub100-level courses be free? I will admit that I am not a fan of free college for all … I am too close to the effects of federal regulations to believe for a second that it would be all sunshine & roses. My biggest fear is that it will devolve into dumbing down college & requiring profs to pass students who are not performing up to par.
@ClarinetDad16 Then in the late 1960’s CUNY went open admissions and academic standards were thrown out the window. Everyone could attend and had a right to a degree no matter what, if anything, they did.
CUNY is not the CCNY of old, neither are the CUNY students.
The problem with America is that we’re a culture that does not say no. If we want something extravagant and luxurious, then people push their limits financially for it, whether it was a smart idea or not. The worse thing the US government could have done with higher ed was guaranteeing loans to everyone who asked for them to go to college. By guaranteeing loans to everyone regardless of their study/major, credit worthiness, or preparedness for college, we are seeing the perverse effects of government intervention: default rates on the rise, kids pushing off 4 year graduation targets, and colleges becoming sprawling monsters of bureaucracy and amenities. I strongly believe that fixing the college system requires cutting down artificial demand for college from students who should not be going in the first place. If the US government should be in the system at all, they should really force states to emulate Georgia and Florida with their funding model for the best students to go to in-state schools. I have no problem with sin taxes paying for higher education because they discourage somewhat immoral activities all while funding the brightest students to go to school. Since 80% of students go to in-state colleges, this needs to happen asap. If the feds can hold hostage some federal funds like they did to force states to adopt drinking laws, they can get states to implement systems similar to Georgia and Florida without increasing income taxes by the feds. Essentially, if these states want to twiddle thumbs while in-state students suffer from government incompetency, no reason the fed should reinforce that waiting any longer.
Colleges need to return to an image of being a direct human capital investment instead of a place to find one self or to waste time entering the market place. We need to stop wasting tax money on everyone who wants colleges simply because they want it but without regard to their ability to finish. I took a gap year because–among other things–I needed to figure things out in my life while I entered the work force for a bit. I have two of my best friends going to college and wasting pell grants/loans because they don’t want to face reality that college is not for them and they dont want to get a job. I even offer my friends jobs to work with me and they say “I will look into it later”. $10,000 in loans and pell grants later and they have nothing to show for it other than failing grades and avoiding reality. The government needs to stop doing this to students. Sometimes a “no” answer is better than giving them the ability to screw up badly when they don’t know what they’re doing.
Have the people pointing to other nations’ “decrepit” college campuses spent much of any time on other countries’ college campuses? I have, and not just one or two—and I haven’t seem anything I’d call any more decrepit than what you’d find in the United States.
Of course, I went to grad school at the University of Pennsylvania in the 90s, when even that insanely wealthy college had buildings closed down due to deferred maintenance issues—so you’ll excuse me if I don’t find the idea that free education causes such things even remotely compelling, anyway.
@dfbdfb Actually I have.
Then you know it’s not really terribly different than in the US.
Yes it is “terribly different” compared to private American universities, even the non-elite private schools.
My daughter is trying to decide on housing for next year. The majority of the housing at her school is single rooms in suite style buildings, either in newer ones on campus or in refurbished apartments across the street. They can be 1-4 bedroom units. I think they are quite expensive for what they get, and many students do choose to live in the community at about half the price and they don’t have to buy a meal plan. I suggested my daughter consider the traditional dorms, which are about half the price of the modern dorms. You can also get a single, even with a private bath, but that costs more (not as much as the single rooms in the suites).
Horrors! Why would she do that? She doesn’t want to live in a shared dorm room, or even a single with a shared bath.
Very strange that people pretend a system is rigged just because they do not like the outcome. People simply make different choices.
The rural people can avail themselves of the scholarships same as the rich people. However, the rural people may choose, more often than not, to just play the lottery AND not to study as hard to get the required GPA. Why in the world is then one jealous of other kids who decide differently, i.e., decide to study and get the GPA for the scholarship?
I will ask it a different way: can anyone present rural and poor kids, who get the required GPA and other requirements, who then are denied scholarships because they are rural and poor and played the lottery? Conversely, are there rich kids who fail to get the GPA and other requirements who are given the scholarships because they are rich?
Instead of making false arguments maybe it would be better to educate ALL kids that it is worth studying harder, especially the kids who do not have parents to model such study habits for them.
College isn’t free. Someone has to pay for it. So the name itself is misleading.
We don’t have enough jobs for our current number of college grads. So having everyone go is a good thing? How many kids who belong in college and who can handle the work load are not going because of financing?
Seems to me we need to change our model. A lot of kids do not belong in college (and there isn’t anything wrong with that). There should be other options for kids (like trades and vocational training).
Making college “free” (essentially sending everyone there) just cheapens the value of college. Makes grad school that much more likely/necessary for a whole lot of kids.
@katliamom My age doesn’t matter. @ClarinetDad16 People get offended by too many things these days. It’s true. The reputation of CUNYs are no where near the reputations of public colleges in other states. @TomSrOfBoston Ditto.
If I’m not mistaken GMT has spoken on this.
It’s not that rural students play the lottery and thus do not earn the Miller/HOPE scholarships, it’s that the lottery as a whole has more rural and poor people playing, that sales taxes are regressive, that sin taxes on liquor and cigarette cost the poor more than the rich.
Because there are requirements for the GA or FL programs such as a high GPA and test scores, and those are more often achieved by higher income students who can attend test prep courses, the programs are unfair to those students who don’t have the opportunity to earn the scholarships since they don’t have good teachers, test prep, time to do community service, a school that offers a foreign language.
You have to look at what the program was designed to do. If Zell Miller’s purpose was to keep the brains instate, does it matter if those brains are rich or poor? If the purpose is to give more kids who otherwise couldn’t afford college a chance, these programs probably aren’t working all that well since the kids earning the scholarships are more likely to have gone to college with or without the Miller/Hope/BF. At least in Florida, those that it may have been designed to help, the B students from lower income areas, don’t qualify anymore.
@CaliCash seems my reference went over your head as I am referencing an example from many years ago to demonstrate that free college works.
I am not talking about a school today.