# If we can afford free K-12 education, why not a free college education? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2021, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613 "2021-04-08T17:23:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/122 "2021-04-23T02:28:23Z")
New York already requires those entering nursing programs after 2018 [to obtain a BSN within ten years](http://nursing.buffalo.edu/news-events/nurses-report.host.html/content/shared/nursing/articles/nurses-report/posts/bsn-in-10.detail.html) of licensure. ---
**Author:** ![Porcupine1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@Porcupine1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Porcupine1)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/123 "2021-04-23T02:39:04Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Look at it this way- if Hillbilly Tech has 3500 slots for admission in their freshman class and say… 9000 applicants, you basically have four intersecting sets of people- qualified, unqualified, can afford, and can’t afford. Of course making college free will cause demand to go up. You’re proposing limiting the number of people allowed to go to Hilbilly tech to the 3500 slots they have available. Rationing how many can go to college will keep costs down but how do we artificially know what the right number is? If tuition is guaranteed paid, Hillbilly tech will expand as fast as it can to take as many students as possible, with no incentive to keep quality up since tuition is guaranteed paid no matter what. Even worse, if the government is footing the bill for education the college is not going to be the one deciding who gets a slot and who doesn’t, government will. So now your limited college spots are going to whoever has the best lobbyist or whoever donated the most to X campaign, or perhaps the political opponents of which ever party is currently in power will not be allowed to go to college. That last scenario is not as far fetched as it seems. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/124 "2021-04-23T03:14:15Z")
> [@Porcupine1](#): > > You’re proposing limiting the number of people allowed to go to Hilbilly tech to the 3500 slots they have available. No, the number of people admitted to Hillbilly Tech is ALREADY limited, by the number of teachers and classrooms and labs and dorm rooms and whatever other facilities are needed, and a publicly-supported school can only expand as fast as its masters (board of education, state legislature, regents, etc.) allow it to do so. At most public universities/colleges/trade schools, tuition covers only part of the actual costs of education: the state legislature or other governing body funds the rest. If the federal government is footing the tuition bill for education there, on what basis do you conclude the state is guaranteed to cover the rest of the bill? However, without that rest being covered, the college can’t afford to add a bunch more facilities. > [@Porcupine1](#): > > Even worse, if the government is footing the bill for education the college is not going to be the one deciding who gets a slot and who doesn’t, government will. Currently, about 80% of undergraduates and 60% of graduate students attend government-run colleges and universities in the US, and the overwhelming majority of those students receive at least some government funding, be it in the form of grants, loans, work-study opportunities, fellowships, or public subsidy. Do you think it is currently difficult for good students to get into those public institutions without having lobbyists or donating money or belonging to the correct political party? > [@Porcupine1](#): > > Yes, there is evidence in the study I cited. Most of it, predictably, comes from high salaries of the government school teachers. I’m not seeing this evidence: can you point me to specific page numbers in the PDF? What I do see is vast government _underfunding_: they couldn’t even find any government-run schools in the slums of Kibera, e.g., so they had to compare private schools in the slums to public schools on the periphery (which enrolled many middle-class students from surrounding areas as well as slum students). (p. 8, p. 31) Sure, government teachers in Kibera were paid about three times as much as private schools (p. 38), but they also taught about three times as many students (p. 13: student-teacher ratios in government schools averaged 60-1, versus 21-1 in private schools), meaning the per-student spending on teacher salary was pretty close to the same. Meanwhile, in Hyderabad, 22% of government schools didn’t have blackboards in every classroom, and 48% didn’t have a functioning toilet. (p. 23) This suggests the government schools in those slums are not even attempting to fund adequate spaces for all of the students in their service areas, relying on private schools to pick up the slack. That’s precisely the opposite situation as in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Porcupine1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@Porcupine1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Porcupine1)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/125 "2021-04-23T03:22:49Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Your own cite discusses “a troubling pattern of parents who have claimed that they were told that Success Academy does not offer special education services or the classroom settings that their children need.” Success academy doesn’t offer special needs programs, but there are plenty of private schools that do. It plays again to the advantage of private schools be able to tailor to a specific need and letting other schools fill other needs instead of the one size fits all. As far as de-segregation goes. I agree with Pondiscio’s position as long as it only applies to private schools, not public ones as I will explain below. I believe that is his position as well though I’m not sure. The argument for freedom is letting people to what they will as long as they don’t hurt other people. Obviously the forced segregation is terrible, but forcing people to de-segregate against their will is also bad. You can not force people to like each other, and all trying does is cause more resentment. As different kids excel in different learning environments it is plausible that a particular type of school will be more attractive to one ethic group or another. Forcing, for example, Catholic students to attend a Jewish school in the name of equality is not going to help anyone or improve relations. The same logic applies to any other ethnic groups. Private schools have a large incentive to be as inclusive as inclusive as possible as its good for business, and the vast majority are. For the few schools that limit attendance in this way there is probably a cultural reason and who are we to say we know better than the parents? The reason public schools are different is because everyone is forced to be part of the government. You can’t deny someone a service while at the same time forcing them to pay for it. Even those who are poor enough they don’t pay taxes are still forced to be a ‘part of the government’ in that they are required to obey laws. So if you have public schools you can’t restrict attendance. This does not mean segments of the population would be left without an schooling option absent a public schools. The first study I cited indicates private schools are at least as capable as public ones in serving poor communities. But the fact that people are required to pay for public school regardless of whether they use it cripples the demand and effectiveness of private sector. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/126 "2021-04-23T03:40:51Z")
> [@Porcupine1](#): > > Success academy doesn’t offer special needs programs, but there are plenty of private schools that do. It plays again to the advantage of private schools be able to tailor to a specific need and letting other schools fill other needs instead of the one size fits all. But then what is the point of comparing Success Academy to public schools that do have to offer such programs and deal with kids who may require special services? “We do it cheaper and better as long as we don’t have to deal with expensive and hard-to-teach kids” isn’t exactly comparing like with like. > [@Porcupine1](#): > > As far as de-segregation goes. I agree with Pondiscio’s position as long as it only applies to private schools, not public ones as I will explain below. I believe that is his position as well though I’m not sure. Sorry, no. The quote was explicitly in reference to the white middle- and upper-middle classes abandoning **public** schools so that their kids would not be in the same classrooms as black students. Concurrent with “white flight,” however, is a reduction in resources available to the public schools. Whites, in the US, have on average higher socioeconomic status and more money than black families, but if public schools are where _other people’s kids_ attend, not your kids, then there’s a lot less motivation to support funding for the public schools. Moreover, concentrating poor kids, minority kids, kids from single-parent households, kids with special needs, etc., into what amounts to segregated schools all over again does in fact hurt those kids. > [@Porcupine1](#): > > Private schools have a large incentive to be as inclusive as inclusive as possible as its good for business, and the vast majority are Why do you think this? Being as inclusive as possible means including students who by definition are harder and more expensive to teach, which is NOT good for business. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/127 "2021-04-23T13:22:33Z")
> [@Porcupine1](#): > > Private schools have a large incentive to be as inclusive as inclusive as possible as its good for business, and the vast majority are. I’ll also disagree with this but on different grounds than @slash2k just above. Private schools have an incentive to maximize profitability. That may not be through maximizing revenue or headcount; instead it’s done by concentrating on the people cheapest to teach and charging a bundle for it. Compete on sizzle, not on steak. A homogenous student body carefully filtered to remove the troubled and the troublemakers is the cheapest. Even more importantly ref inclusiveness, a policy that lets in a few minorities and causes half your white customers to flee is a _net_ loser. And it’s the net effect that matters, not just that you get a few more brown / black / Asian kids in. Given the racism-cum-classism so deeply prevalent in the white comfortable / executive / professional class, it’s a darn good bet that most parents searching for the ideal place to afford maximum advantage to their precious offspring will see inclusiveness as code for second rate and exclusiveness (carefully dog-whistled of course since it’s illegal) to be the sign of the best place for their Darling Child of Privilege. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/128 "2021-04-23T14:41:51Z")
Free tuition is not the only remedy available. The government could create an on line university that would be available to everyone through home computers or public libraries. In fact it could provide a new function for libraries. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/129 "2021-04-23T15:09:17Z")
I think you’re on to something. Private schools aren’t necessarily competing on the sheer quality of their educations- in many cases, the local state universities are very competitive in those terms. But there’s definitely a certain component of exclusivity and (IMO more important) flexible admission requirements to private school admissions. Public schools have much more scrutiny in terms of who’s let in and why, as well as government mandates for diversity and underprivileged students. Private schools don’t have any of that kind of stuff, and can set their requirements wherever they want them to be- religious affiliation, academic record, etc… So they can afford to concentrate on the upper quarter/third of students in terms of socio-economic status, and rest assured that because of the differences currently inherent in our educational system between that quarter and the rest, that they’ll look great in terms of the educational attainment of their incoming student body… without having to even concentrate on that. So they basically have their cake and eat it too; they cater to the rich and upper middle class, and then as a result, get a high-performing incoming student population by default, and have some wiggle room to let in wealthier, but lower performing students. State schools OTOH, have to be more hard-nosed with respect to admission standards (or have had to be historically) because the financial barrier to entry isn’t/wasn’t nearly so high, so they had to be selective in terms of rejecting people who could afford it, but didn’t have the academic chops. Making college free would basically enlarge the potential applicant pool, without necessarily increasing the capacity of the school, via the mechanism of removing the financial barrier to entry. Look at it this way- how many people go to their local community college or local commuter college because they can’t afford to go elsewhere? In my era, that was quite a few people, especially the lower on the socioeconomic ladder you went. Specifically it was people going to the University of Houston instead of Texas A&M or University of Texas, because they couldn’t afford to go off to Austin or College Station, even though they were qualified, or in many cases even accepted to those schools. Free college would have thrown them into the admissions mix at those schools, because that barrier to entry would have been erased. In the long haul, assuming that the school’s capacity doesn’t go up significantly, free college would result in a higher quality student body because they’d be choosing the same number of students from a larger pool that’s presumably similar to the other students applying. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/130 "2021-04-23T17:10:30Z")
If public universities and colleges are going to become tuition free or funded by taxpayers, then college athletics at these schools should be disbanded. There are only a few college athletic programs that are not a financial drain on the school. The purpose of these colleges should be on education, with much of it online. And there should be no room and board provided as this would make spots more available for local students. ---
**Author:** ![Porcupine1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@Porcupine1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Porcupine1)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2021, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/131 "2021-04-24T03:15:00Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > But then what is the point of comparing Success Academy to public schools that do have to offer such programs and deal with kids who may require special services? “We do it cheaper and better as long as we don’t have to deal with expensive and hard-to-teach kids” isn’t exactly comparing like with like There are plenty of private schools that do take special needs kids. I picked a couple examples, I don’t have time to do a case study on every school. However success academies lower costs remain even if you exclude the cost of special needs programs from the public schools. The private schools that serve special needs are more expensive than the ones that don’t but still serve them cheaper than the public school does. One of the reasons its cheaper is because they are able to specialize that way. ---
**Author:** ![Porcupine1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@Porcupine1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Porcupine1)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2021, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/132 "2021-04-24T03:19:23Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Sorry, no. The quote was explicitly in reference to the white middle- and upper-middle classes abandoning **public** schools so that their kids would not be in the same classrooms as black students Is that why they left? Or did they leave because they private schools are better? Black families also leave the public schools when they can. Change the system so people don’t have to pay for a public school they’re not using and reduce prohibitive licensing and regulation and suddenly it isn’t only the relatively affluent that can afford private school. ---
**Author:** ![Porcupine1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@Porcupine1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Porcupine1)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2021, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/133 "2021-04-24T03:22:35Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Why do you think this? Being as inclusive as possible means including students who by definition are harder and more expensive to teach, which is NOT good for business. It is good for business, if that is your business. If some private schools don’t serve certain students, than you get by default get all of that business if you open a school that serves them. If there is a demand for a service, the market provides for it. Which is already shown by the many private schools that serve that special needs students. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2021, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/134 "2021-04-24T04:51:35Z")
> [@Porcupine1](#): > > The private schools that serve special needs are more expensive than the ones that don’t but still serve them cheaper than the public school does. One of the reasons its cheaper is because they are able to specialize that way. Cite? Do you have an example of a private school that serves all students (including those with behavioral problems or other special needs), is cheaper than the public schools, and delivers good results? None of the examples you’ve picked so far fit that description. > [@Porcupine1](#): > > Is that why they left? Or did they leave because they private schools are better? He’s talking specifically about whites fleeing integrated schools because they didn’t want their kids to have to go to school with blacks. > [@Porcupine1](#): > > Change the system so people don’t have to pay for a public school they’re not using and reduce prohibitive licensing and regulation and suddenly it isn’t only the relatively affluent that can afford private school. How exactly do you envision public schools being funded if they’re not supported by the entire community, including people who don’t have kids in the public schools? Also, exactly what “prohibitive licensing and regulation” are you talking about? Tuition costs at private schools are high because it costs serious money to deliver a quality education. Good teachers don’t work for peanuts, textbooks and technology cost real money, and the school needs adequate facilities: classrooms, labs, gyms, etc. > [@Porcupine1](#): > > If some private schools don’t serve certain students, than you get by default get all of that business if you open a school that serves them. Can this business make a profit serving students who are expensive and difficult to serve? If the business can’t, then no, the market is not going to provide it. There are plenty of markets where there is demand but no supply. For example, witness how many small towns and inner-city neighborhoods are trying to lure grocery stores: people want food, people will buy their food, but no business thinks there are adequate profits to be made, so stores close and aren’t replaced. > [@Porcupine1](#): > > If there is a demand for a service, the market provides for it. Which is already shown by the many private schools that serve that special needs students. Private schools serving special needs students tend to fall into one of two (somewhat overlapping) categories: those serving the upper-middle class and up, and those serving students whose home (public) school district is footing the bill because the public school can’t provide the services they need. Ordinary middle- and working-class families who would have to pay the tuition themselves are generally priced out of this market because serving special needs students is VERY expensive (although many such schools have financial aid programs, that money still has to come from somewhere). For example, AIM Academy in Pennsylvania has an excellent reputation for helping students with learning disabilities (dyslexia, etc.); tuition starts at [$36,746/year](https://www.aimpa.org/admissions/tuition-and-fees) and goes up from there. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/135 "2021-04-29T04:19:24Z")
Bidens Infrastructure bill would provide free two year colleges: > **[Here's what's in Biden's $1.8 trillion American Families Plan | CNN Politics](https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/28/politics/american-families-plan/index.html)** > > A month after he laid out a roughly $2 trillion infrastructure plan aimed at helping the nation recover from the coronavirus pandemic, President Joe Biden is set to unveil an additional $1.8 trillion federal investment in education, child care and... _Making community college free_ Biden is proposing a $109 billion plan to make two years of community college free. The federal government would cover about 75% of the average tuition cost in each state when the program is fully implemented, with states picking up the rest, another senior administration official said. States would also be expected to maintain their current contributions to their higher education systems. If all states, territories, and tribes participate, about 5.5 million students would pay nothing in tuition and fees, according to the White House. Biden, along with [first lady Jill Biden, a community college professor](https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/politics/jill-biden-community-colleges/index.html), has called for making two years of tuition free since 2015, when he helped former President Barack Obama launch a similar initiative. That proposal died in the GOP-controlled Congress, but it inspired several states to take up the idea. Free tuition programs followed in [New York](https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/08/pf/college/new-york-free-tuition/index.html), Rhode Island and Oregon, to name a few. That may not be what everyone wants but it is a good start. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/136 "2021-04-29T04:47:28Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > That may not be what everyone wants but it is a good start Agreed. I didn’t get a chance to read through the article yet, but what happens if a given state refuses to pay for their 25%? Do students there have to pay the remainder? ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/137 "2021-04-29T05:12:47Z")
As a conservative( not to be confused with a Trumpster) I would have to say your assessment is very inaccurate. We have a fairly large group of voters as do the democrats who know very little about politics or issues. A typical conservative that I know would have a lot of questions. Who would be illegible? .What will the costs to the tax payer be? They would not likely support something that was just across the board free. I think they might support a very similar program if it the proper qualifiers were in place and it did not blatantly give more support to any one race even the though ability to qualify would fit nicely with poor and disadvanaged. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/138 "2021-04-29T12:31:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > That may not be what everyone wants but it is a good start. Agreed. IMHO one of the fundamental problems is that there seems to be a mismatch in what universities charge vs. how much they actually cost to run. I suspect the former amount is quite a bit larger, probably as much as 4 or 5 times larger, than the latter. I don’t have access to university budgets, however, so I have no way of knowing if this is in fact the case. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/139 "2021-04-29T13:37:25Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I’m not sure why she would have been a better or worse nurse by sitting through English 101 or been required to take a course in Indigenous Peoples Studies. What we teach in English 101 is how to understand complex written texts (like, for example, an article in a nursing journal) and communicate information in ways that are appropriate for a given audience (mostly in written format, but there’s obviously a lot of overlap with spoken communication as well – like, for example, explaining recommendations to a patient). I don’t know of any university that specifically requires a course in Indigenous People’s Studies, although many of them have some sort of cultural-competency requirement; students usually get to choose from a broad menu of courses that fit this requirement. Since nurses have to deal with people from different cultural backgrounds, it’s surely useful for them to know about the history of how these cultures have interacted with the medical system, and why (for example) people from some backgrounds may be more vaccine-hesitant than others. This is _exactly_ the sort of issue that would typically be covered in many of these classes. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/140 "2021-04-29T13:45:05Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > I don’t know of any university that specifically requires a course in Indigenous People’s Studies, although many of them have some sort of cultural-competency requirement; students usually get to choose from a broad menu of courses that fit this requirement Yes, these courses aren’t just “lAwL wAsTe TiMe On InDiGeNoUs StUdIeS”, they’re usually related to your major. For example, I fulfilled my cultural-competancy requirement by taking Economics of Poverty. Besides, general education isn’t a waste of time. It teaches you how to think critically, examine your own ideas, and be open to challenging them. There’s a reason why the biggest predictor of support for the prior president is whether or not you have a college degree. Trump’s platform was not one based on fact and reason, but on bad arguments and emotional appeal. I prefer to live in a country where more of the population is educated enough not to fall for such nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2021, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613/141 "2021-04-29T13:46:15Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > IMHO one of the fundamental problems is that there seems to be a mismatch in what universities charge vs. how much they actually cost to run. I suspect the former amount is quite a bit larger, probably as much as 4 or 5 times larger, than the latter. I don’t have access to university budgets, however, so I have no way of knowing if this is in fact the case. This is _sort of_ the case at some private universities, where the “sticker price” is sky-high but financial aid is abundant – a few rich-but-mediocre students may get soaked, but mostly, the logic is “use a high-on-paper price to signal to your customers that they’re getting a high-quality product, and then discount it heavily in practice to make them feel like they’re getting a bargain.” It’s absolutely not the case at most public universities, where the cost of educating a student is usually more than the university is taking in through tuition alone; if state subsidies are going down, as has often been the case in recent years, the school basically has a choice between raising tuition and trying to make up the shortfall through private donors. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-can-afford-free-k-12-education-why-not-a-free-college-education/939613.md?page=8)