We should move to a system like Germany where higher education is at no cost but the total cost to the tax payer is limited by steering people to the appropriate schooling early on.

My suspicion is that the vast majority of companies only need employees with a two year degree.

that "steer(s) people to the appropriate schooling early on."

School systems have been steering Black, Hispanic and Female students for years.

is that anyone can gain entrance to a full four year degree at any time either through testing and/or life experience.

If you can't make the grade or do the experience on your own, it just wasn't meant to be.

Like any system, it's not perfect, but limiting access through enforced basic standards is the only realistic way to preserve quality.

As for learning for fun- improve K-12, don't pass the buck to college. That's whats going on right now.

That was almost word for word what I was thinking when I read that post too.

and it's a bad idea. College costs haven't risen because we don't do things like Germany.

College costs have risen because now everyone supposedly needs something that is guaranteed to be paid for from an unlimited money supply.

Take away one of those two things, and costs get under control.

How stupid are they?

There's never been an unlimited money supply, yet that didn't stop funding in the past.

The fact is true regardless of who promotes it.

The one special distinction with student loans is that we're forcing entire generations into debt slavery for it.

You're the one that brought up unlimited money supply as if anyone was claiming this was the case.

Who's forcing them into debt slavery? The banks who got into the business of financing college tuition and lobbying for laws making them impossible to discharge. This gave colleges no incentive to keep costs down.

Treats each child as an individual rather than a canned product.

would be two fold.

1. Forgive all the debt owed to 'public' universities.

2. Re-coup control over said public schools and fully fund them through socialism. Anybody who has high enough grades gets a basic 4 year degree. In effect, make basic 4 year college funded like K-12 used to be. (I'd do the same for them, too.)

In the long run, it would be cheaper and better for the students and more 'productive' for society in general.

End the for profit monopoly on higher education nation-wide.

Math, engineering, business, architecture, medicine, dentistry, law and Education. Anything else is paid by the students. Absolutely no majors in liberal arts or social science degrees or even worse midevil studies will be paid for by the tax payers.

The reason is too many are majoring in non employable majors. Most Sociology majors are in retail or fast food.

because I've always seen lots of jobs advertised for social work.

and my degree in math, generally is NOT worth the paper it's printed on

I work as a janitor, and before that, as a factory temp. A factory temp who could solve a programming problem on a million dollar bosch line, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/12 but still a factory temp.

Not the filling of a bucket.

I forget the source, but it's true.

I liked that so much I looked it up for you.


"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
~William Butler Yeats

Love it!

that conservatives too often say 'education' and really mean 'training.' Sure, people should develop job skills, but what's really needed is critical thinking skills. All too often, our kids don't get that and we can see that in the dumbing down of America.

In my ideal world, higher education would be a right, available to all, to further knowledge and not just a ticket to a less dreadful job. But I'm very naïve in many ways. I still think quality high education (not just 4-year vo-tech dressed up as college) should be affordable to anyone.

it was when I went. I cannot believe the level of debt kids come out with today.

That level of debt is just terrible for all of us. We have a whole generation of people who can't afford to do all the things that people do in their twenties and thirties: buy or rent residences and cars, furnish residences, have kids, start businesses, etc. We're all going to feel the effects of the slowdown when no one is making any major purchases. And the debt produces nothing and benefits no one but Chase and Citi and all the other banks that float those loans.

Back when I was in college, it nearly killed me to go through the way I did but the thought of that much debt scared the crap out out of me. Now many don't have a choice. That's not right.

6 times the debt that I did.

I think this is a great idea.

What we are putting in place in Oregon is a 'Pay It Forward' tuition program, you pay no tuition then later, when working, you contribute a preset percentage of your income for a set period of time. Make more, pay more forward, make less, pay less forward. No one paying until they are earning. Everyone can go without tuition costs.
This plan was passed unanimously in the Oregon Congress the same day the US Congress jacked up student loan rates.

There are several types of debt that I would like to see forgiven, educational and medical to start with. People should not be indebted for years simply for getting an education or a life saving procedure. It's just wrong.

and no, it wouldn't benefit me personally. In my perfect world, all higher education would be free.

and tie the repayment schedule to the person's wages. High wage, pay on the original schedule. Low wage, pay little or nothing.

I had loan debt that seemed insurmountable to me but compared to what today's students are taking on it was peanuts. I walked into a tough job market too but not as tough as this one.

I think that going forward we should explore making public undergraduate education free of tuition. It's an investment in our future.

It's a two year degree at a community college. It's definitely a good start.

Colleges would jack up their tuition by double or triple, students would borrow whatever they needed to cover the increased costs, and sooner or later someone else would forgive the loans. Someone (banks? government? taxpayers?) would be out a whole lot of $$$ with o end in sight.

Maybe a better idea would be to look into why college costs are so astronomical in the first place.

It's the banks getting in the game and financing college costs and then lobbying for laws making the debt impossible to discharge. So, I'm not sure your claim that this would jack up costs comes from.

I'm with you 100% there

Restoring funding and getting rid of for profit colleges would, too.

so long as public colleges are available and funded.

As they tend to operate now, with the false advertising and exorbitant tuition, they're often just a scam that leaves the victims exactly where they were before plus massive debt.

the historical fact that college costs have increased astronomically in the last 30 or so years.

besides, if someone is just going to forgive the debt, why shouldn't colleges charge whaatever they want? Fat salaries for admininstrators, more administrators, etc. No one loses--except whoever is holding the debt.

Why would they then charge whatever they want? That makes no sense. Absent the funding that used to be a source, who can afford the hight costs without the loans?

We are fast losing our education system and replacing it with an education industry. The cost increases are largely for peripheral issues that don't have to be there. If we reverse the privatization and profitization in education, costs would normalize in a few years IMHO.

the future ... I am talking about the $2 trillion bubble that's about to pop because this group of students have stood a chance.

within the last 8 years both with Masters.

The amount it cost for their education was ridiculous. I'm speaking of just tuition. I was with my daughter when she bought books for a semester and it was $900. For my son he'd spend $600 and the sell back would be $150 if he was lucky.

State Universities should come at a huge discount to in-state students. The cost of an education vs what the average middle class family is making it impossible for kids to go to college. And the poor, well forget about it. They're not even considered.

Used to be even poor kids could work summers/part time and go to school. Shit, you can't work full time and afford school. I'm all for taxes paying for college, everyone should have a shot.

It's making the divide between 'us' and 'them' bigger, imo.

The less affordable to lower and middle income students, the less chance they have to get ahead in life. And the wealthy will always be able to afford college.

I have another concern too, and that goes back years---there are too many jobs that have no need for a college degree that are requiring one. Some of the most mundane jobs are asking for degrees, and a high school education would be an over-qualification.

about jobs requiring degrees that shouldn't. Not just that but they're paying very low even with degrees. Unreal what some jobs are paying people with degrees.

When I graduated from high school--back with Barney Rubble --you could actually opt not to go to college and still have a decent job. Not anymore, you have to have a degree to sell phones. Crazy. I worry for anyone that cannot get the education.

of wiping out a debt that affects the middle class so much more than the poor. Why is that the debt that is forgiven? Why not medical debt?

Educational debt affects the middle class much more than the poor: but I suspect it's only because the poor don't get the loans/education, in the first place (for a number of reasons).

Than again, medical debt affects the medical class more than the poor, alos for a number of reasons.

Why forgive educational loans as opposed to medical debt ... well ... because that's what I was thinking about.

What I've read indicates that there's been gouging going on due to our willingness to go deep into debt for the right diploma. More government financing of these overpriced universities won't, of itself, reverse that trend. We need more discussions about this.