Let's grant Free Higher Education to Academically Qualified

Great Debates
41

As Manda Jo said, Georgia has a “free tuition” program called the Hope Scholarship for qualified students. It is, however, a little more involved than she described. It works like this:

-If you maintain a “B” (3.0) average in high school; and
-if you choose to go to a state college; and
-if you are accepted by a state college; and
-if you continue to maintain a 3.0 average in state college;
-then your tuition is paid by the State.

It is certainly not guaranteed (though it is a good bet) that one will be accepted by a state college just because of a “B” average in high school. Funding is solely from lottery sales proceeds. Lottery money is also used to fund elementary education, mostly through computers and computer based classes for public schools.

I see the Hope program as a good compromise. Even though it is funded with public funds, no tax dollars are involved. Should lottery sales not be enough to cover program expenses hard decisions must be made. The options include:

-raising lottery prices
-lowering lottery payouts
-raising qualifying academic standards
-lowering program benefits

It’s not as simple as a bunch of politicians saying “Raise taxes to cover the shortage!”.

Sig! Sig a Sog! Sig it loud! Sig it Strog! – Karen Carpenter with a head cold

42

I’m sorry, Sage. I simply didn’t believe that you could seriously be proposing a system whereby the public would pick up the entire expense of providing all college education in the U.S. Tax rates too low for you, are they?? :wink:

43

To be honest Sage I’m not entirely sure what the American system is. Up until fairly recently I was under the impression that you could win a scholarship by SAT score alone (naive I know :)) As I understand it you guys generally pay for your own education, is that right? Is there any help from the Government at all? Are tuition fees the same no matter what your social status?

Let’s take the matter of paying for your education to start with. In this country you didn’t used to have to pay tuition fees. Under new legislation students can now be expected to pay up to £1000 per year, based on parental contribution and other social factors, most will not have to pay anything approaching that amount. As well as this they must pay for their own subsistence: food, accomodation, clothing etc. Maintenance grants handed out by the Government used to cover a large chunk of this but, as I stated, they have been gradually reduced and eventually replaced by loans. It is my opinion that the old system whereby an individual had nothing to pay and therefore nothing to lose by going to University encouraged the “drop-out” mentality. People would see it as a way to justifiably get stoned for a couple of years before deciding it wasn’t for them. Of course it also allowed low-income families to send their children to University thus breaking the cycle of social depravation and improving the country. What am I trying to say? Well, there are good things and bad about paying for your edducation. It is argued that, as a graduate you will be more capable of paying back the expense you incur whilst studying. But then why go to University if the potential benefits will be outweighed by unsurmountable debt (I’ve read figures ranging from £8000-£15000 if you study medicine for 7 years). I am not strongly opposed to the imposition of fees in this country but it would certainly make me think twice about studying if I was doing so with the intention of dropping out.

If someone wants to fill me in on the state of play “Re: US further education” I’d be grateful.

44

You’re quite right, MadHun, it was the system we had when I went to university ten years ago. I managed to graduate with only £2,000 of total debt, which I imagine must be pretty difficult now.

Under the old system you could also claim income support and housing benefit if you weren’t working during the vacations, which helped.

Rousseau,

If the Government were paying everybody’s tuition fees, then it would effectively have that right by virtue of its position as customer, not as government.

In Britain, different universities do charge different rates despite the fact that fees are largely publicly-funded.

Academics here are still employed by a private institution (the university), not by the government.

If standardisation were a necessary consequence of providing free higher education, then then Lampeter University would be no worse than Oxford.

It already is. Live with it. And if you’re an EU citizen, and you get the right grades, education there costs you no more than about £1,000 per year. You will find that it has plenty of students from modest backgrounds (no enough, granted) who are there because they are clever, not because their parents are rich.

45

If it’s free, that’s exactly what it is worth. How about paying for what you want, whatever happened to that idea? I’ve got no problem with privately funded scholarships for economically disadvantaged people that show outstanding academic achievement, but no, sorry, if you want an education YOU pay for it.

Patrick Ashley

“For those who believe, no evidence is necessary; for those who don’t believe, no evidence is enough.” -Unknown

46

Tom, I think that assuming that it would be business-as-usual for private universities if the government decided to pay for everyone’s college education is a wee bit naive.

It costs only 1,000 pounds a year for college in Britain?? That’s amazing. That’s roughly ten times cheaper than here.

No, Oxford would be no better than Lampeter.

{sigh} I know… {sigh}. Which is particularly amazing considering how inexpensive it seems. But at least Harvard gives them a run for their proverbial money.

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill

47

Rousseau, re-reading my earlier post, I don’t think I explained it very well:

Universities in this country are private, self-governing institutions. Oxford, Cambridge and some of the Scottish universities have been around for many hundreds of years, and even some of our newer universities pre-date the introduction of universal, free education. They are not state-owned or state-run.

Universities charge tuition fees. Different universities charge different rates. Oxford, for example, charges a couple of thousand pounds per year more than a “red brick” university like Leeds or Birmingham. Most universities charge a bit more for science subjects than for arts, to take account of the fact that the courses are more expensive to run (labs, equipment, etc.)

You could see it as the state contracting out the provision of higher education, just like they do with civil engineering works and a number of other functions. That’s not how it happened historically, but the analogy holds for the purposes of looking at the control mechanisms.

It is up to individual universities which students they admit, based on academic and other considerations. Once you have got a place at a university, your Local Education Authority (LEA) pays your fees, whatever they are. The LEA is part of the local (city or county) government. So, if you come from Newcastle and you get a place at Liverpool University, Newcastle City Council (local government) pays your fees to Liverpool University (a private institution).

In addition to this, students themselves are now required to make a contribution of about £1,000 per year. That is what it costs the student, not what it costs overall. IIRC, the annual tuition fees at Oxford run into the tens of thousands of pounds. If, as an American, you wanted to go to a British university, you’d find yourself having to come up with a seriously large amount of cash.

Yes, it works both ways. My point is that we do have free (or almost free)university education for everybody who makes the grade, we have had this system for three or four generations, and Oxford has not been dragged down to Lampeter’s standard, neither has the reverse happened. I am offering an counter-example to your hypothesis.

48

TANSTAAFL You’re not making them free, just making EVERYONE pay for it.

I sold my soul to Satan for a dollar. I got it in the mail.

49

Surgoshan, You are making it free to the user, at the point of delivery. Nobody has suggested that a university education could be provided without anybody incurring any costs at all.

50

TomH,

Universities in this country are all registered charities are they not?

51

TomH:

Just to qualify that, the University of Glasgow was founded in 1451, the University of St. Andrews was founded in 1411.

Oxford University was founded between 1249 and 1264 and Cambridge University was also established in the 13th century. Just some background info…hope these codes all work.

52

MadHun,

I think they are all registered charities. Given that private schools enjoy charitable status — in other words, every Eton education is subsidised by the ordinary taxpayer — it would be a scandal if the universities didn’t.

IIRC, Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, St Andrew’s, Dundee and Edinburgh are the “old” universities. All the others were founded in the 19th or 20th Century.

53

Here’s my question: who determines how much the universities can charge? It seems that over here the price of tuition is driven by market value, but that system would fall apart if there was essentially only one consumer (the government). In other words, can the universities just demand that the government pay them more? Can they more or less arbitrarily raise fees, as is their right in a free market?

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill

54

Rousseau,

My understanding is that the Government fixes the rate that LEAs (see my previous post) will pay, not the rate that universities can charge. Universities are free to charge more if they want to, but they won’t get any LEA-funded students if they do.

For non-LEA-funded students (overseas, postgrad, external, etc) a university can charge what it likes.