I don’t think there’s any way for universities to exist without some sort of public funding, except for maybe a few that cater only to the rich.
Porcupine1 didn’t specify the destruction was if it was free for everyone. Just free.
No, not a fan of lumping people who want to tell fairy stories to adults with those who want to tell them to kindergartners…
You are assuming colleges/universities have the financial wherewithal to reduce tuition and still provide the same level of education. A number of smaller colleges have simply closed in recent years (Burlington College, Holy Family, Concordia University, Marygrove College, Becker, Macmurray, Notre Dame de Namur … the list goes on). By some measures, fully a third of private colleges are under deep financial stress already, and putting them in further competition for students is going to put a lot more of them out of business.
Meanwhile, overstretched state and local governments are subsidizing a smaller percentage of public college/university funding. In response, public institution tuitions are going up, up, up, meaning students need to borrow more money.
Why do you think these trends will reverse and institutions will be able/willing to reduce tuitions?
Sorry, no, it is NOT anywhere near universally agreed. For starters, private schools tend to be much more selective: many simply won’t accept students who need special services, or have IEPs, or have other kinds of problems, meaning the students who are more costly to serve. See also this study: once you control for parental income and education level, the supposed advantage of private schools disappears entirely: private schools are good at educating the kids who would do well in public schools too.
Are you including people going into the trades? Germany has about a million people going through trades apprenticeships every year. Why are we so set on acting like university education and other post secondary are completely unrelated?
I think primarily because a lot of things in the german system that are trade schools, like nursing, are university paths in the US. Other things like carpentry aren’t really taught in the US. I can’t find my notes from college on the german education system to see what percentage of the gymnasium students go the trade school route. It is very difficult to compare between systems because they are so different like only having 9 years of compulsory education in Germany.
If you have the numbers I’d love to see it though.
They are, but it’s usually through apprenticeships sponsored by unions or trade associations, rather than formal trade schools.
That’s true but still makes it harder to compare or subsidize than say a diesel program or HVAC.
Here’s the basics of how it works:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/how-germanys-vocational-education-and-training-system-works
Key quote:
So university plus trade school is about the same as just university in the US. Their total educational program would be equivalent to free college in the US.
Not sure I follow. What does that make actual trade schools in the US?
It makes the people who go to trade schools (and apprenticeships) unaccounted for and probably unpaid for in the comparison. In Germany 60% of high schoolers do trade schools or university while in the US 60% of high schoolers do just university.
It isn’t universally agreed by a long shot.
Well, I think that for as long as I can remember, there has been a sort of class association with higher university education. Trade school and community college might get you a job as a carpenter or draftsman. A college degree will position you for a job as a civil engineer or architect, which typically command higher salaries and better working conditions. Get an Ivy League degree, maybe go work for the private equity firm that financed the building.
Then again, you also have the concept of college as a 4-year camp for children of the affluent to goof off for 4 years before being forced to enter the real world. Or even if they take their studies seriously, treating university as a sort of class indicator.
Well, I wouldn’t support a scheme that only looked towards paying for BA or BSc graduates. I would imagine a rational forecast would not show the country needs 60% of high school grads to get a BA.
Define which fields “should” be college and which are vocational/trade school. For example, as noted above nursing is voc-ed in Germany and now mostly 4-year BSN stateside. Then add in the employers who want to see a BA/BS in something as a minimum qualification for jobs unrelated to the actual degree.
Obviously there would have to be some shuffling of categories to replicate the German system in the States. No real benefit to me personally defining all that in this thread. We could have a general BA category and some targeted ones for things like nursing, physiotherapy, etc when allocating money/spots.
Didn’t think so, just checking.
Nope, it isn’t
But I did specify later in the message that it would “at best provide meritocracy at absorbent costs and at worst prove fiscally unsustainable”.
Economics is about how to allocate scarce resources. If you are not allocating resources with a supply and demand price structure then there are two ways to avoid a financial collapse. 1. Ration resources some other way by providing it to a smaller potion of the population as discussed above or 2. reduce the quality to the point providing it is cheap enough to not be unsustainable. And both of those options have side effects of stifling innovation and tend to degenerate further as time goes on because universities will no longer have an incentive to provide a quality product to their students.
It hasn’t proven unsustainable, and yes, it is a meritocracy of sorts. But no-one has ever suggested “Free University” means anyone gets to study anything they want.