Welfare isn't enough, make education free,

Welfare is an important social safety net in this country but it is not enough to just keep impoverished people alive. We can't try to get off that easy! Those who lack financially NEED to have the option of a higher education, regardless of his or her social class. In this country, where monetary power is given a disproportionate amount of attention, it's far too easy for us to overlook the perspective of the poor or even the (currently) illiterate.

My main arguments is this: I think acquiring an education should be a matter of desire and discipline, not monetary wealth.

So so i's a bit of a given that education is currently too expensive, but I don't think many people realize the solution a free-educated America would really be! It would be foolish to say it would make all our problems go away if education was 100% free, but we'd have taken a big step toward utopia. But no one looks at it like that. They are too concerned with the cost in tax dollars such programs would cost.

I should add that an education is more than merely learning marketable skills to pad your own wallet, but in becoming a globally and spiritually conscious human who understands and accepts him or herself and the world around him/her. This cannot happen when you are stuck receiving handouts because you can't afford what should be a free commodity in guidance (since in teaching one, you are furthering the world population). This knowledge and awareness is true wealth, and the journey towards that goal is so much more gratifying than a surprisingly meaningless and petty quest to accumulate and hoard vast quantities of commerically valuable paper.

We can actually turn this world around if we expand the options available to our fellow man and woman, all of them. It's tough to imagine a brighter future tomorrow, but it's within our grasps, but we all have to take up the burden and pay for e

After all, how effective are knowledge and wisdom if they are only placed into the well off hands of the few? And what kinds of changes are those wealthy few going to strive for when they can exist happily in their current state, basking in the golden rays of their success?

 

Just because they are educated doesn't mean they won't need social assistance. I have my college degree, but I'm not making enough money to survive. Luckily, I still live at home, so it easier.

What's the answer to keep people from needing any kind of assistance? Enough well paying jobs and birth control.

 

I want welfare to still be there for those who need it, but I also want free education in addition to it. Sorry if I did not make this point clear.

 

Education is free if you work hard enough for it. You might not be able to go to the school of your dreams (unless you get into Harvard, which now is free for those whose family income is below $30,000 or so) but you can get a scholarship somewhere if you halfway work through high school.

I'd just like to know where the money for everyone to go to school will come from. It's great in theory, but how would it go into practice?

 

Taxes.

And it works very well in countries where it's been put into practice already. I'm from Finland where even university is free, and Finland has some of the best universities in Europe.

People pay taxes for a reason, and in countries where the whole tax system works properly, people actually get their money back in forms of free education, health care, good public transportation, etc. In the US, where does the tax money go to? Certainly not to education or health services, and that's the problem.

 

It is. It is much easier to fund your education if you are poor than it is if you are middle class.

Absolutely true. If you have the grades and want a higher education you can get it. It is easier for the poor to afford college that it is for the middle class. Since I make too much money, and it really isn't that much, my son does not qualify for financial aid. I send in the $400 dollars a month for tuition.

Yes taxes, and it is countries like yours KosmicBlue that shake up my more libertarian views on taxes. The federal taxes I pay don't seem to get me much in return except for illegal wars. I lived in the Netherlands for a year and I believe their personal returns for the taxes they pay are similar to Finland. I wouldn't mind being taxed so much if I were from Finland.

What bothers me is that here in the US I feel like I end up paying for someone elses health insurance, livelyhood and education while I pay for my own.

 

You could make the opposite argument as well - that we're overeducated, to the point where there is such an excessive supply of university-educated people that it forces down their value to the point where it doesn't justify going.

 

Overeducated? Is there such a thing?

Right now, I'm close to $40,000 in the hole and I'm 1/2 done. It was my choice to go to school, but I believe school at least needs to become affordable. Who has that kind of money? And the interest rates aren't even all that great.
I have recieved a few small grants from the state/fed, but they were small. It's ridiculous. And FAFSA Is a F'ing joke. My expected family contribution was like $13,000! HA HA HA! My mom can't afford her mortgage, how the hell is she going to pay that kind of money? Realistically, my family contribution was a pat on the back.

 

Yes, if you're spending excessive tax-money on education that doesn't continute to boost productivity.

 

Not that I am against welfare, because I am not, but how does that boast productivity? Spooner, is your suggestion to cut that off to until it does so? Same goes for a lot of things. I think everybody should have a right to an education past hs. And I would like to believe my college education WILL boast productivity, thank you very much. I can think of a ton of different ways that REAL excessive tax paying money is being put to waste.

 

Hey I have a 3.85 and I didn't get any scholarships. Scholarships and aid are so biast. All they want are minorities. I work my ass off and the gift I get is debt when I graduate. I got no aid whatsoever and my father is on disability and my mother does not make a lot of money. If anyone thinks that you can go to school for free if you work hard enough has not seen reality in college. It's a very racist bussiness.

 

No, but it isn't impossible to make enough money during the summer to pay for school without going significantly into debt either.

 

Spending excessive tax-money on education - I'm ignoring the welfare argument right now.

But you're making two faulty assumptions here: that all university degrees are equally cost-efficient. I have no problem with my tax-dollars supporting nursing, carpentry, medecine, even to a more limited degree programs such as economics, history, etc.

But I hardly think somebody's "right" to learn philosophy should somehow override my right to spend my money how I wish.

 

maybe the illegal way and i'd rather not do that. I could make websites, but I don't know how to do that, so making that much money isn't going to happen.

 

I'm falling trees this summer to pay for my schooling. Camp life, woo hoo.

Anybody, anywhere in Canada, can go to Grand Praire, High Prairie, etc and get a rig job, and easily make enough money to pay for school.

I'm assuming there is an equivalent in the US.

 

nope, not in the USA.

 

It makes me sick to hear about what tuition costs at universitys for freshman. The costs for a average college student who gets a 4 year. It doesnt matter it all seems expensive as hell. I dont know what it is, but there is something about the education system that i despise.

 

Really? How the heck do you make $30,000 US in a summer? I would really like to know, so I can get myself in that direction.

You are ignoring the welfare arugment until, what, you can find one? Anyways, who gets to decide what to be educated about, or if it's worthy enough to be tax credited? Without philospohy, many things would be "cut down the line" w/o other perspective.

I would MUCH rather my tax dollars go to support a philosophy major than say some kid going through traditional western med school. Why? Because I think a lot of that is crooked. The truth is, it doesn't matter where I prefer my tax dollars to go to, because I don't have much of a say. You don't get to "pick and choose."

And FYI, my major was one of those listed and I still had very limited funding, and I work year round, not just in the summer, to help finace things, yet I will still have a large amount of debt when I graduate.


And Bumble, I totally understand when you say you have to be a minority to get any real funding for school. I'm white and considered middle class, therefor I get, basically, shit on when it comes to any type of funding. It seems like "middle class" is just so broad. I hardly see how my mom, who makes $23K a year, can be catergorized with other middle class families who make $50K $70K or even $100K, because they are all catergorized, in America, as middle class too. And of course, I can't be considered an indepedent, in any school's eyes, until I am 21. I have been indepedent from my family since the day I turned 18.

 

Oil Patch. Mining Camps. Bush work.

It's hardly impossible, just not a lot of fun.

Welfare has humanitarian reasons, government funding for education has economic ones. If you can't tell the moral difference between not letting single mothers starve and teaching some kid the ins and outs of Kant for free, then you aren't worth arguing with.

Tie it to the market. Index the average post-grad wage to tuition - ie: the more taxes you'll pay later in life, the more it is justified for the government to invest capital in you through education.

This is a logical fallacy. "Slippery slope" if you feel like dredging up first year English class.

You can to some degree. Support political parties that want to increase the ratio of trade schools to universities. There are plentyof ways to influence the system, but that is an argument for another time.

I didn't say that was the way things are, I implied it was the way I think things should be run.

And somehow I'll manage to graduate without any. Which proves it can be done.

I love the "blame the minorities" first response.

 

Mining camps? What mining camps are you talking about? I'm from the iron range in MN and no miner I've met, and I know several, get paid that kind of cash. And wtf is Bush work? Working for the pres? Because there are so many of those job available?

I beg to differ. Hardly are there any "summer" jobs where you go to work for 3 months and get paid 10G for each of those months. And furthermore, a lot of these jobs you need to have certain skills or education. If it was so easy, why isn't every blue collar American worker being able to live life w/o economic trouble? You should be able to answer this, since it's so possible to make quick cash.

You don't think giving somebody an education can be a humanitarian reason? Or even furthermore, you don't think giving welfare can be an economic reason? Haha I want to know where you are getting your education?! No wonder you aren't having any troubles paying for it.

Oh please. No matter which way you go in politics, it's all the same. But wait, that's an argument for another time, and if you want to believe in that little fantasy of being able to change the way politics are ran yourself, then I will just have to sit back and have a little giggle.

Graduate w/o any what? Debt? Must be from the compensation from working the mines, eh?

What exactly did I blame them for? I only mentioned my funding was little because I am not a minority, and that my friend, is the truth.


Anyways, good day to you.