Or that it will, indeed, grab your ass.
Clarification: Are people on welfare because they can’t get jobs? Growing up, I remembered watching the economy in the industrial states getting clobbered as the steel mills were being outsourced over to Japan. Blue-collar workers were main group affected at the time. I presume welfare was the only means of survival back then, and given the lack of benefits (e. g., health insurance) of a service job, the incentive to lose those benefits might cause one to hesitate to get a job. Or is it something else?
I’m trying not to lump you two together, which is why I’m still waiting to see a difference. However, since you have been constantly defensive and are now “exiting the thread” due to, I guess, my confusion over the difference between you and the OP, I’m beginning to think there is no difference.
Oh! Well, that puts a new slant on it. I really did think that your idea was that anyone who wanted to go to college should be able to, one the taxpayer. Back to the OP - do you support having the taxpayer send her?
Heh, illegals can do pretty much anything they want to here, unless/until they get caught that is. For example, the company that used to mow our lawn had a TIN number and everything, yet it turned out that the owner and all the employees were illegals, and the got deported. However, it is more what they used to call their anchor babies that will most likely be going to college.
I mean wide variations in population densities - there are fewer people living in the state of Montana than the city of Los Angeles. Everything has to do with politics, because it is politics that drives our goods and services. If you are trying to have just state governments, how is Montana going to be able to afford to maintain their roads, with their low population and their gawdawful weather?
Oh hell, that happens everywhere. In my city, funds go to, say, fix the roads where there are businesses more often than where the poor folk live. A place I used to live, a major road was blown out in a flood and was still unrepaired two years later when I left, despite other, less needed, road work being done in that county. Politicians lie and have only their own needs in mind.
You went into IT for the money?
Why do you say they’re mostly opt-in? As far as I can tell, I’m stuck with them.
They don’t have jobs?
Which is why I don’t want to give those folks even more money!
However, I was talking about parents getting involved in their kid’s schoolwork. Even the worse schooling can be made decent in the parents help with homework, buy supplies, etc.
Sounds like the government got a better contract with you all than with Kaiser. 
Bitch, echo got the same thing from other as he did from me. Your one interest bias is showing.
But do they pay the whole freight?
In this case, it was the coal mines going tits-up, but even jobs that pay below the benefit threshold (like, say, part-time cashier at my dad’s general store–willing to hire you for anything from 10 to 40 hours a week, guaranteed raises every year, job’s been sitting empty for three years now) aren’t getting filled.
A motivated straight-A student looking at a cutting-edge science degree? She keeps a 3.0 GPA or better, I’m all for it. Hell, I’d go to a 2.5, since that seemed to be the standard for private scholarships when I went to college.
I’m not actually sure I have a problem with anchor babies getting citizen benefits. That’s a debate for another thread, too.
I’m not opposed to state and Federal interaction, I’m saying I think the Germany example is relevant because I don’t think it matters what government level implements things. Schooling is roughly proportional to population in a way that many things are not, so it makes sense to move it local.
In 1997 that didn’t seem as bad an idea as it does now. Doesn’t matter, I can basically write my own check these days. 
If no one wants to buy a bond issue, there is no money. It’s not like taxes in that no one is forced to buy bonds if there is a desire to raise money without raises taxes.
<city>'s cost of living is 27% more than the national average. Since 2005, <city> jobs have decreased by 6% per year.
I don’t like the “buy supplies” part. I see that used too often as a stick by corrupt administrators against teachers–my bro’s district, again, proposed a contract that included raises but obligated teachers to pay for their classroom’s first $5000 worth of supplies (for both teachers and students) out-of-pocket.
That’s like asking me to bring my own computer and printer paper to my office job, and that’s idiotic.
For all its faults, if the government ran every contract like DoD SBIR contracts we’d be a lot better off.
Just for the record, here’s the straight dope on left-handed scholarships.
Do you know why?
Isn’t a 3.0 a B average and 2.5 a C+? Also, are you saying that your idea of government funded college would be dependent on the student keeping a certain GPA?
Perhaps. However, it does seriously impact the state’s ability to maintain our state colleges when we get students whose parents have paid zip into the system.
Oh. Then I’m lost. Go back and tell me again - what is it that Germany is doing regarding their schools?
How common do you think it is that people go to college and get a degree in something merely because they know it will lead to a high paying job?
Perhaps I used the wrong word. What is it called when something is put on a ballot to be voted on, which if it passes will provide money for the local schools? Usually by adding to an existing tax.
Ah. Not sure that <city> is such a good example then.
I think the parents should be buying supplies, but the ones that a school shouldn’t be expected to provide. Its been so freaking long since I’ve been to school, but back then such things would be calculators and computers. Things that would help their children go at least a little beyond the basics that the school is providing, so they can make the absolute best of the education they are getting.
I have theories. Most of them involve alcohol. Some of them involve idiocy/pride–my dad (back in the day when coal was booming) could only hire older housewives working for pocket money–so the mindset in the town is that “only old ladies work there”. Some of them involve the discontinuities involved in welfare–you can’t get a full-time job without losing heathcare assistance, but my dad doesn’t have enough employees to offer group healthcare at anything like a competitive rate, and a lot of guys broken down from years working strip mines aren’t interested in having more cash but worse health insurance.
Yes, absolutely–I’m in favor of government-funded education, not government-funded dicking around in a dorm smoking weed.
Still, when those students graduate, they’re US Citizens, educated, and staying here. They’re going to pay into the system all their lives.
Up until recently, they were funding college tuition pretty much completely for public schools–Federally mandated, funded on a per-state basis. The Federal mandate ended, so some of the states (5 of the 16, IIRC) are now merely subsidizing college tuition rather than offering it free. As I propose above, entrance is based on passing qualifying examinations and maintaining good scholarship.
Additionally, the Federal government there offers a need-based stipend to cover books and some living expenses, half a payment and half an interest-free loan, amounting to around 650Euro/month.
When I went to college, I’d say 50%+ of my social group were getting a degree with a career in mind, and probably 75%+ of my peers in engineering and business colleges (discrepancy due to my being in the honors college with a lot of medieval studies and artsy-fartsy majors).
That’s just a referendum, isn’t it? A bond issue is where they put out what essentially amounts to a short/medium-term treasury bond in specific numbers, to cover the up-front costs of a specific project.
Again, I’m leery of anything that is going to rely on the parents actually giving a shit, until we can figure out how to make them do so. Anything NECESSARY for the curriculum as designed should be school-provided, IMHO.
Incidentally, one of the few positive things regarding the budget fights that I’ve been seeing, at least in PA, is that support/admin staff are starting to get hired on the basis of “actually knows what they’re doing” rather than “related to a school board member”. This has primarily resulted in a marked increase in the last five years in the quality of school technology spending.
Sounds like other than the alcohol thing (which is itself idiocy), the answers are all in misplaced pride. If your dad is offering part time work, these guys to do it without losing their health care.
What about government-funded education of poor students? (Poor in the sense of not getting good grades in high school)
Perhaps. Or they could end up following their parents’ examples and send most of their money to Mexico. Besides, we have yet to reach a point when they outnumber the new illegals staggering across the border to “bless” up with another anchor baby.
On other words, Germany found out that they cannot afford to federally fund all public colleges?
But, how many of them enjoyed whatever it was they would be needing to do in their proposed careers?
Dunno. Whatever it is that all the liberals vote for because it’s for teh children.
I agree with that, what I am talking about is parents needing to get out of the mindset that the school does it all, and back to helping with homework, buying extra gadgets that will help their kid excel, etc. For example, if I - god forbid - had a kid in our local public schools, I’d be monitoring their homework daily, working on the computer with them, taking them on field trips, etc because our schools are so mired in teaching kids English that they are doing a crappy job of everything else. I would not be leaving my kid’s education to just the schools.
I have no idea if any of that is going on locally - the papers blame NCLB and it seems to make sense.