

Who should pay for college? - Eddk
http://colabopad.blogspot.com/2010/09/who-should-pay-for-college.html

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blahedo
I was sure until the end of this essay that the author was going to argue for
governments to pay for or heavily subsidise a post-secondary education (as in
fact they do in much of the developed world); all the arguments about an
"educated population" seem to point in that direction.

So I was surprised that the conclusion was instead that employers should pay
for the college education that they are benefitting from. Surprise: they
already are. They pay your salary, from which you pay your college loans. It
does mean that your take-home (post-loan-payment) pay is lower, but that's
because you're still just a journeyman. Any arrangement where the employer
pays more than a base salary means that inexperienced fresh-outs will be
_more_ expensive and thus even _less_ desirable than now.

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kevin_morrill
This whole notion that beneficiaries should pay is garbage. The logical end of
this is a totalitarian dictator that shoves stuff down your throat. The person
who should pay is the person doing the buying, acting on their own free will.

As per college, totally agree this is over valued. There are far more
efficient ways to learn. The whole system has turned into a tremendously
expensive signaling device to future employers that you're willing to commit
to something.

Of course there's also a long list of phenomenally successful engineers and
businessmen who did fine without it: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison,
Michael Dell and Thomas Edison to name just a few.

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auxbuss
I'm old. I live in a country that until fairly recently universally funded
tertiary education. (What Americans call college, most other places call
university, but we can all accept it as tertiary education, I believe.)

I was 28 when I started my degree, but it was "state funded", both university
fees and a maintenance allowance were paid. I had a mortgage and a car, so I
had to work during the summer to make ends meet, but without the mortgage it
would have been decent subsistence living. Regular students survived, many did
part time work improve their lot.

This was a great and workable system. It pretty much leveled the playing field
and allowed anyone who wanted to go to university to do so, if they satisfied
the requirements of the university.

I maintain that it is a fundamental right that anyone who so desires, and who
meets the requirements of the university, should be state-funded through their
first degree (not failed years, of course).

It is hugely beneficial to everyone in a nation state to have the most
educated workforce it can afford and support.

You cannot over-educate a nation.

