Why would a single mother need more thant $20.00 in her wallet?

The BBQ Pit
241

Maybe the government doesn’t owe that to its citizens, but it’s in the government’s, as well as society’s, best interests to do so.

We covered this in econ when we were learning about externalities. Externalities are costs or benefits for a product/service that are not accurately included in the market price. They can be positive or negative. Negative externalities can be represented by pollution. It can be argued that the price of gas does not include all of the costs with its use–increasing levels of carbon dioxide, particulates in the air, etc.

Externalities can also be positive. Education is the classic example of a positive externality. When people bitch about paying property taxes so someone else’s kids can go to school, or government subsidized student loans, or vocational programs for people on welfare, they’re usually not considering the positive externalities of education. In general, an educated person is more likely to be gainfully employeed, and higher education tends to result in jobs that are higher-paying. Which means more taxes for the government. Which means less crime, as people don’t need to steal to eat. Which means that their children will benefit from growing up in a household that doesn’t have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck.

In short: education good.

242

education is good. no one said it isn’t. But education is not required for all ‘good jobs’ and it’s not necessarily something that everybody is interested in.

we as a society have deemed that H/S level education is important enough for all to have, and have set up a system to attempt to do that. And yet, there’s drop outs from h/s.

Given that fact - that even though h/s level education is available and free for all, and not all avail themselves of that, and that not every h/s drop out/ h/s only grad is on welfare, etc I think it’s unsupportable to claim that somehow or nother post h/s education should be free/required or anything other than ‘voluntary’.

If you continue to wish to make that claim, I suggest that you start by addressing the issue of ‘how do you propose to require etc post h/s education to those who don’t have a diploma?’