# Sanders proposals and how to pay for them. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 10, 2016, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-proposals-and-how-to-pay-for-them/745741 "2016-02-10T19:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-proposals-and-how-to-pay-for-them/745741/81 "2016-08-23T16:18:20Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Why is it relevant how Princeton discriminates? I have no idea where you’re going with this. You don’t think college is for everybody - but you want it to be free for everyone. > > Without cheap financing, college is less accessible - people need to make real choices if the opportunity cost and actual cost is worth going. As financing became easier, the choice became easier, and you have people going into massive debt to get stupid useless degrees. The problem isn’t that it costs so much, it’s that we’ve made it cheaper by allowing folks to defer the cost without respect to what the return on those degrees will yield. Now the proposal is to make it free to the student, so even more people will go. Except this time, instead of them shouldering that burden mostly themselves, now the rest of us will have to fund that useless bloat. No, I thought I was saying we should remove the subsidy of private universities and apply that money to make public schools free. This would make them more competitive. The well endowed private universities can continue to produce useless degrees because for the most part their name of the degree is enough to make their art history majors employable at investment banks. Public universities have many social benefits over private universities making them free would increase competition for the seats at these schools (no one is saying that we should make room at these public schools for everyone that would like a degree). ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-proposals-and-how-to-pay-for-them/745741/82 "2016-08-23T16:59:12Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > And why is this? Is it because the high schools have lowered their standards, so that a high school diploma no longer means what it used to and “college is the new high school”? Is it because we no longer have nearly as many manufacturing and service jobs from which a person can earn a decent living without a college degree? Is it because there’s just more that a person needs to know nowadays? I think its all of those things plus social pressure and the increased access due to government subsidies. > [@](#): > > But why _should_ college be free to those who could afford to pay for it? Why should high school be free to those who can afford to pay for it? > [@](#): > > And why is “shifting the relative desirability to public schools” a good thing? Private institutions are not subject to the same constitutional requirements as public institutions. > [@](#): > > Earlier in the thread, I believe you claimed that it was because they educate students more efficiently than private institutions do, but you never backed up that claim. And if they are indeed more efficient, what makes it so? The toilets aren’t as gold plated. > [@](#): > > Is it the kind of efficiency that sacrifices quality (e.g. by having several hundred students per class or by having classes taught by overworked, inexperienced teaching assistants)? You think that budgets constrain the number and quality of teaching assistants? > [@](#): > > If efficiency’s what matters, who needs bricks-and-mortar universities at all? Weren’t MOOCs touted as the future of higher education, largely because of their great efficiency? but it turns out they’re not the best way for most people to learn most things. It is clear that public institutions are cheaper than most private ones. What teaching benefit do these private institutions provide that justifies that price difference? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-proposals-and-how-to-pay-for-them/745741/83 "2016-08-23T19:28:01Z")
[QUOTE=Damuri Ajashi] Why should high school be free to those who can afford to pay for it? [/QUOTE] High school isn’t free, though. We all pay for it, whether we have children or not, through taxes. Some people pay taxes AND pay for private schooling. If college was ‘free’ it would basically mean more taxes for everyone, since the ‘free’ stuff has to actually come from somewhere. As for people who can’t afford it, there are actually avenues available for minorities at least to help with or even fully pay for college. My own college was partially paid for by such things. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-proposals-and-how-to-pay-for-them/745741/84 "2016-08-23T19:35:35Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > If I’m reading NCES right, It looks like the OP’s plan takes away federal grants and loans from ~1.9MM students at private non-profit colleges who currently \*can’t \*afford the cost to attend, and gives that to ~1.7MM students at public colleges who currently _can_ afford the cost to attend. No, what would happen is that those 1.9MM poor students would attend public university if they can displace the wealthy students at the public college. If you want to inject some level of social engineering into the college admissions process, then fine but for those who are most qualified, we should make access to college cost free. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-proposals-and-how-to-pay-for-them/745741/85 "2016-08-23T19:36:59Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Why is it relevant how Princeton discriminates? I have no idea where you’re going with this. You don’t think college is for everybody - but you want it to be free for everyone. No, I want it to be free for anyone that gets in. Getting into these tuition free colleges would be competitive. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-proposals-and-how-to-pay-for-them/745741/86 "2016-08-23T19:46:46Z")
> [@XT](#): > > High school isn’t free, though. We all pay for it, whether we have children or not, through taxes. Some people pay taxes AND pay for private schooling. I’m familiar with TANSTAAFL, but when things are free to the user we call it free. Was there really confusion on your part about this or did you think that I actually thought that the professors were working pro bono and the buildings magically appeared? > [@](#): > > If college was ‘free’ it would basically mean more taxes for everyone, since the ‘free’ stuff has to actually come from somewhere. No, it doesn’t mean more taxes. I thought it was clear that the money would be coming from all the federal subsidies of private colleges. In fact one of the other posters has been very critical of me for wanting to pull money away from more expensive private colleges to pay for less expensive public colleges (this would result in some of the private college poor students being unable to attend college because they couldn’t get into the public college and they couldn’t otherwise afford college or get into one of the well endowed colleges that would float them a scholarship). > [@](#): > > As for people who can’t afford it, there are actually avenues available for minorities at least to help with or even fully pay for college. My own college was partially paid for by such things. Which minorities? Right now the federal government gives much more in aid for students attending private college than we give in aid for students attending public college. If we took all the aid we gave to students attending private college, we could make public colleges free. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-proposals-and-how-to-pay-for-them/745741.md?page=4)