
Chile is introducing free higher education - rememberlenny
http://www.attn.com/stories/836/chile-makes-college-tuition-free
======
nico
Many problems with the article:

1) There's no way Chilean education is the most expensive in the world.
Tuition for an engineering degree at the best universities in Chile is around
USD 5k/year, which is way cheaper than pretty much any university in the US.
(edit: in fact here's a ranking, and Chile is not even mentioned on it
[http://www.businessinsider.com/hsbc-australia-is-the-most-
ex...](http://www.businessinsider.com/hsbc-australia-is-the-most-expensive-
country-in-the-world-to-get-an-education-2014-9))

2) The tax hike was a bust and it generated only around USD 2B, a fourth of
what it was expected to bring in. Now they are saying they'll tax people for
having a degree!!

3) There is no clear plan to actually implement free higher education. They
increased taxes hoping to collect additional money from taxpayers (which
didn't work), without knowing how they are going to use the funds.

4) Those students leaders that are now part of congress, deceived the people
that supported them and are now supporting completely different things than
what they said they would when they were leading the people that got them
elected. They basically sold out.

5) The article is from February. Only 2 days ago, the president of Chile
announced she was asking for the resignation of all of her ministers. No one
knows what will happen next.

6) Even though education in Chile is not the most expensive in the world, it
has the highest paid congress people in the world, and they just approved an
increase of seats!! Talk about inequality (they make around USD 300k/year,
when the average salary in Chile is less than USD 5k/year)!

I'm all up for free education for everyone, but the way the Chilean government
is doing it is definitely not the way to go.

PS: all discussions about educational reform in Chile are so short sighted
that no one has even touched on the subject of online/virtual education and
making education cheaper and more efficient.

~~~
sheepmullet
On point 1) if the average salary in Chile is less than $5k/year then it costs
more than a years salary to pay for a years schooling. That is incredibly
expensive.

By contrast in Australia it's around $10-12k/year for a local and the average
full time wage is $75k/year!

If Chilean education was as cheap as Australia's then a good education would
cost less than $1k/year.

~~~
nico
You are right, my bad. Actual average salary is USD 10k/year. Also notice the
USD 5k/year is tuition for an engineering degree (2nd most expensive - only to
med school) at the best universities, so it's pretty much one of the most
expensive degrees you can get in Chile.

Also, it is really easy to get a low-interest student loan (which a lot of
people don't even pay).

My guess is that access to education in Australia is definitely better than in
Chile, but I wouldn't say education in Chile is the most expensive in the
world.

~~~
FireBeyond
Access to education in Australia is definitely better - for most courses entry
is egalitarian - students are ranked and preferences orders determine what
courses you get offered (it's very different to the US system - you nominate
the course you want to take, BS, BA, including the major area and while you
can transfer later, relatively few do). Obviously art and music courses often
have an audition requirement, and exceptionally high demand or courses deemed
to have a desire for 'suitable' people (without getting into a debate about
that), such as medicine may also have an interview requirement.

However, the general philosophy is the Higher Education Contribution Scheme.
This is a fee that is largely flat, only paid on graduation, as an increased
income tax requirement (a few percent more), if and only if your salary is
above a threshold. Drop below that and you're no longer paying on your HECS
debt. However, you can also voluntarily opt to pre-pay your debt for varying
discounts. When I went to school (mid 90s), this fee was $1800/year. Any
course at any university, from liberal arts at a country college to medicine
or law at the most prestigious of institutions.

~~~
shasheene
There's no longer a discount for paying fees up front:
[http://studyassist.gov.au/sites/studyassist/news/pages/chang...](http://studyassist.gov.au/sites/studyassist/news/pages/changes-
to-hecs-help-discounts-and-voluntary-repayment-bonus)

------
MCRed
I lived in Chile for several years. I think this is a bad idea for several
reasons.

First off, one of the things that makes Chile great is that its education
system is independant of the government. It results in chileans who are
markedly better at critical thinking than americans. (While there one of the
things I did was work with high school and college students and of course got
to know a lot of chileans.) Their schools are all about education and keeping
the people sending their kids there happy-- by educating them.

There is a real effect where the person paying the bills calls the shots. When
government is paying the bills, turning out good citizens is the goal. This is
why the football players are the heroes of most schools and the computer nerds
are beat up. This is why schools are enacting absurd zero tolerance policies.
This is why standardized tests and teachers tenure and unions are so bad.

There really is something to the market incentive to provide a better
experience at lower cost...

The socialists are in power in chile right now but I don't think that will
last long, and the reality is the Chilean constitution is pretty well
protecting capitalism. Consequently the government runs a surplus does a great
job of providing services and mostly stays out of peoples way... and Chile is
the south american economic miracle as a result.

~~~
illumen
Is this good for the poor people who can not afford it? Will it make a
difference? Certainly.

Will this result in a more highly skilled, and a more highly educated
population? Yes.

People should still be able to afford private schools if they can now.

The American idea that you can't mix socialism and capitalism is absurd! (urg,
just saying these words makes me feel like I'm using outdated old ideas from
the 1800's!)

Societies much better than USA are mixing them well with great effect. Selling
out your young people with debt is really silly. Having 45% illiteracy in the
USA only benefits the people currently in power.

~~~
TTPrograms
Where exactly are you getting the figure that 45% of the USA is illiterate?
Measured rates are closer to 1%.

That kind of absurd exaggeration really discredits your point.

~~~
illumen
I meant functionally illiterate.

Reading level of US adults at a proficient level is only 13%
[http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-
who-...](http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-
read/)

~~~
adventured
You're misrepresenting what that stat means. ~86% of Americans are
functionally literate.

It's ridiculous these kinds of claims even make it to HN comments.

Proficient on the survey that derives from, is the highest possible ranking.
Proficient on that survey does not equate to functional; anything at or above
basic is functional.

About half the 14% of people that fall below functional, do so because of
language barrier problems related to not speaking English as a first language.

[https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp](https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp)

~~~
illumen
United States has a functional illiteracy rate of 48.7% according to [0]

The UK is at 21.8% for comparison.

The link you provided shows between 43% and 55% are functionally illiterate
(basic or below) depending on which test you look at, for English.

Just because education is poor for people who don't know English as a first
language, and just because USA services are not available in Spanish despite
such a large percentage speaking Spanish does not mean there is no problem.

Functional illiteracy in the USA is a big problem. The education system in the
USA is a massive failure.

[0] Cleckler, Bob (2009). Let's End Our Literacy Crisis, Revised Edition. Salt
Lake City, Utah: American University & colleges Press. pp. 15–26. ISBN
1-58982-230-7.

------
raimille1
What the hell? I'm chilean, born and raised. I've been in the US for about 9
years and this depicts the problem the US has interpreting latin american
news. Did you guys know Bachelet announced in an INTERVIEW she had asked for
the resignations of all her ministers and in the coming days would work on
building a new team? Whatever the single quoted person on this article saying
Chile will have free higher education by March 2016 is looking for a job right
now. This government is so full of shit not even the president could stand her
own ministers! World: please do your reading first before posting about
something you have absolutely NO idea. All this does is give more power to the
socialists running these countries for their own power agenda and wealth.
Chile's economy is where it is thanks to Sebastian Pinera, go research it.
Like the saying says ... Socialism is a great thing! Until you run out of
other people's money.

------
lfottaviano
Here in Argentina, We have since 1821 the University of Buenos Aires, free of
charge.

There are many public and free of charge universities across the country.

Read more:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Buenos_Aires](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Buenos_Aires)

~~~
nico
It would be interesting to know the impact this has in the country.

Do you know if Argentina has better equality and social mobility because of
this? Or if the economy does better as a result? Are there private
universities in Argentina? What percentage of the population go to college?
and out of those who do, what percentage goes to public/free universities? How
does the quality of education at those schools compare to private schools (if
there are any)?

Thank you!

~~~
molmalo
Yes, there are several private universities in Argentina. While some of them
have a very good level, some are pretty much just a means to buy a diploma.
That, and especially the fact that they are much older, is why some of the
public ones are much more respected (UBA - Universidad de Buenos Aires, UTN -
Universidad Tecnologica Nacional - Universidad Nacional de Cordoba) than the
private ones.

The main problem with public and free higher education is that at least the
first two years, there are A LOT of people assisting who will eventually drop
out.

And students coming from poorer families are the most vulnerable, and tend to
drop out in a much higher percentage, some of the reasons being: \- they have
to work to help their families. \- they have children at a younger age. \-
lack the money to take the bus or train everyday (no campus to live in). \-
they lack of a solid high school education. In the end, only the ones who can
persist and really have the will to finish their studies will get the diploma.
But if they can get it, they will surely have a much better life (economically
speaking) than their parents.

~~~
conanbatt
Depends on the degree though: Medicine at UBA is a disaster, and other
subjects like Accounting and Law don't have much prestige(maybe because it
doesn't matter to those degrees).

UBA has its own problems with budget managing, building decay and internal
governability issues. Not to mention that is not only free for Argentinians,
but free for anyone, which presents extra strains on its budget.

Im all up for free college education tho, it would change the landscape in the
US forever if colleges were non-profit oriented.

~~~
lfottaviano
Medicine@UBA a disaster? Are you talking seriously? Do you have arguments to
say that?

~~~
conanbatt
Many, I took a random class there and had friends there.

1) Decay is tremendous in Medicine: there are pests and cockroaches
everywhere. Bathrooms are used very indecently and its not even safe. Girls
dont dare go alone to several bathrooms in the building.

2) Under-budgeted: labs are unequipped and classes have an inordinate amount
of people for the number of teachers they have.

3) Kafkesque paperwork and Draconian teachers : there are so many people going
to medicine in UBA that students get no attention or assistance. The emotional
health of med students is disastrous there, people break down a lot.

A few private med schools actually are pretty prestigious and when you study
there, you can actually focus on studying medicine and not just surviving an
ordeal.

------
rpalmaotero
I'd like to add that right now an even more important discussion in Chile is
about the quality of higher education. After the educational laws were
modified in the 1980s in order to allow the existence of private universities
and technical institutes, many for-profit institutions appeared, even though
educational profit is forbidden (institutes found obscure ways to achieve
this). A direct consequence of those for-profit institutions was a constant
decrease in the quality of higher education, at expenses of overcrowding
classrooms or hiring bad professors. People against this new reform argues
that government's money should be expended first by fixing the bad-quality the
educational system has, and after that is solved, to fund higher education
students.

~~~
nico
It doesn't really make sense to forbid profit in education (at least the way
the Chilean government does it). The best universities in the world make a lot
of money (e.g. Harvard, MIT, Stanford). Opening the educational market should
create competition and drive quality up. Of course the market should be
regulated, but forbidding profit is not really the way to go.

~~~
MrGando
You are not very smart sir.

Stanford, MIT, they re-invest their utilities in their infrastructure. And
that, is allowed in Chile.

You can have a private Universtiy, but to be a real Universtiy, the money
should be re-invested in the institution. (That's the ideal)

~~~
nico
Not sure how me not being smart is relevant to the discussion. I would say you
are not very polite, however that still doesn't add to the discussion here.

The important thing is that even though universities are allowed to invest in
infrastructure, they are not allowed to re-invest any of their donations
(donations law:
[http://www.cned.cl/public/secciones/seccionsnac/normativa/Le...](http://www.cned.cl/public/secciones/seccionsnac/normativa/Ley_18681.pdf)).

Top (and rich) universities, like Harvard, MIT, etc, have an endowment which
invests donations (and pretty much most of their money), in companies and
funds, which would not be allowed under Chilean law.

Additionally, I would argue the idea is not to re-invest in the institution,
but to invest the university money in a way that is financially sustainable
and in line with the university goals. Spending all the money on
infrastructure might not be the best way to achieve that.

------
leke
Here in Finland, our education is also free (even for foreigners), but we are
now starting to put limits on certain things, like the number of tuition free
degrees you can have.

There is now talks of charging foreigners and even introducing basic fees for
citizens.

Education is important here because the labour market salaries are strictly
based on your qualifications and experience, not your experience or ability
alone.

This is why I hope Finland never starts to charge for tuition fees, unless
they do away with the qualification based pay scale.

In the future, I think free online education could replace paid education as
long as the government recognised the achievements of so called 'self-taught'
students. I realise you couldn't do this in full for just any profession
though.

------
pdelsol
As a Chilean living in Chile I can tell you this article not accurate and
outdated.

There has been enormous troubles trying to implement this reform, last news I
had about the current version of the reform was that this "free higher
education" was a form of government loan you pay off your job paychecks.

If you read Chilean news, as of yesterday, all the ministers (including the
cited interior, education and economy) where asked to step down by the
president who faced 70% disproval for a number of other scandals including not
holding to this reform original promises. There is a political crisis
happening right now and its very unlikely that the education reform launches
any soon.

To read about real free higher education ~100 years old, I'd recommend our
neighbors of Argentina

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Argentina#Higher_E...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Argentina#Higher_Education_in_Argentina)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_university_reform_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_university_reform_of_1918)

PD. Sorry to "jacket" the article (Chilean expression)

------
nazgul
People don't get that when you make college free, you also take away a lot of
the choice that goes into college. German colleges are free but the kids who
are chosen to go to them are often selected by the third grade.

Lowering the cost of public universities while increasing the quality will
pressure private universities to do the same, and thus make college more
affordable and accessible for everyone -- it's a much better use of funds.

~~~
random_coder
German colleges are free but the kids who are chosen to go to them are often
selected by the third grade.

Could you explain more?

~~~
goodells
The German school system divides students into three distinct groups starting
in the fourth grade, meaning the decision is made in the third [1]. The three
divisions are 1. Hauptschule (central, lower-level school) 2. Realschule
(technical school) and 3. Gymnasium (uni-prep school). Once placed into one of
these three tracks, it's very difficult to switch between them - more so in
the later years, since they each have a different number of years required in
order to graduate.

Over the past few years, the system has been changing to allow parents greater
say in their children's future, resulting in the same mixups that happen in
the United States when parents can override course placement decisions. I can
go into more detail on this if anyone wants.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany#Secondary_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany#Secondary_education)

~~~
jkot
Czech have similar system. It is easy to get into technical university if you
know some math. Real hard are humanities, some art schools take perhaps 0.5%
of applicants.

~~~
derefr
Wow, 0.5%! What does the market for Czech art-school graduates look like? Is
there more demand than supply?

~~~
jkot
Not sure about market. Most musicians and painters I know are self educated
and have daily job.

University does not have monopoly, one can always pay for private university
(which is not that expensive). But state university is highly selective and
most prestigious.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Performing_Arts_in_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Performing_Arts_in_Prague)

------
hippich
i had idea, which lines up with basic income ideas, of treating college
attendance just like any other 8-5 job. I.e. tough interview, raises based on
performance, annual performance evaluations, firing for not performing well.
And "salary" paid by taxes.

I get that this is highly unlikely today, but may be when basic income ideas
will be more acceptable, something like this could be proposed too.

~~~
johnchristopher
I don't see how what you describe lines up with basic income.

------
jkot
There is other side of this.

State will only pay for education it finds useful. So there will be lot of
engineers and doctors. But some narrow fields might might accept only 0.01% of
applicants.

Not saying it is good or bad. Humanities are mostly affected, I guess we only
need 3 sociologist per 1 million people. But also entire Germany in 2006 had
only 20 graduates who knew howto control atomic reactors.

~~~
bdcravens
There is the joke that those with psychology degrees learn to ask the
important questions, like "Do you want fries with that?"

------
dataker
In Brazil, such experience was just terrible.

Although public universities are the best in the country, secondary education
is terrible and most of their students don't go to college.

As most public universities are very selective, most of their students went to
private schools and are richer than average.

~~~
MrGando
Your third point is the current case in Chile, but you still have to pay to
study in those "public" Universities (U. Chile, U. Católica, U of Santiago,
Concepción, etc.)

------
vpeters25
I think the article's author got lost in translation: the word "colegio"
stands for school, not college.

From what I understand by reading the official government bullet points about
this law
([http://reformaeducacional.gob.cl](http://reformaeducacional.gob.cl)), it:

\- dissolves all charter schools making them public schools with free
admission.

\- private schools must reform as non-profits

\- forbids any school, private or otherwise, from filtering students with
admission tests.

Free college education was a campaign promise by Bachelet's administration but
it was not included on this law.

Edit: grammar and formatting

------
viggity
"Education is a human right"

No, no it isn't. Internet isn't a human right. Human Rights to not require any
transaction or service. Human Rights are inherent in personhood, they are
observed and respected not provided for.

I have the Human Right to speak my mind, it costs you nothing.

I have the Human Right to defend myself, it costs you nothing.

I have the Human Right to own property, it costs you nothing.

[http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/](http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)

~~~
tim333
the UN declaration you link to reads, in part:

>Article 26.

>(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in
the elementary and fundamental stages.

Rights can be whatever society agrees to

------
simpleblend
No matter what Governments try to tell you, nothing is this world is free --
especially education.

There's a general rule in Economics that says whatever the government touches
turns to shit. Even if you think that the higher education will be "free",
it'll be completely inferior compared to free-market education. In addition,
you now have to combat against Socialist propaganda on a daily basis.

It's time for humanity to learn how to solve social problems without a gun to
the head.

~~~
germanier
> No matter what Governments try to tell you, nothing is this world is free --
> especially education.

Education is a net-positive investment. That's the reason many people go to
university at all. That means that you also will pay more taxes and
effectively finance your education in the future. Note that this is no
different to government-sponsered student loans, just without the indirection
of loans.

> There's a general rule in Economics that says whatever the government
> touches turns to shit.

No there isn't. That's a political view of some people (more in the US than
probably anywhere else in the world) but that's not a hard scientific fact
that you make it seem.

> In addition, you now have to combat against Socialist propaganda on a daily
> basis.

What if I tell you that even in "socialist" Germany there are libertarian
professors teaching in universities.

> Even if you think that the higher education will be "free", it'll be
> completely inferior compared to free-market education

Says who? Also, even universities that are completely paid for by the tax-
payer can compete against each other. In fact they do in many countries.

> It's time for humanity to learn how to solve social problems without a gun
> to the head.

You certainly mean the gun of decade long student loan repayments.

~~~
simpleblend
The idea that education is a net-positive investment is completely wrong.
Could it be for certain people? Absolutely. Is it for a lot of people? Ask the
English majors in the States bar-tending full-time.

Education can be a great thing for certain people. However The idea that
everyone should go to college is totalitarian in ideology. You're trying to
mold society to what you "think" it should be.

Publicly funded entities by definition cannot compete since the profit loss
mechanism doesn't exist. Governments can try to artificially "recreate" the
free-market by passing laws, but at the end of the day favoritism exists. It's
akin to the mafia allowing the different family bosses to compete for cities
-- ultimately there is no competition.

The decision to take on student loan debt is completely voluntarily. Comparing
that to a gun to the head is ridiculous. You know what is a fair comparison
though? Governments forcing their subjects to pay for other people's student
loan debt.

------
hackuser
If many in the U.S. continue to obstruct education (by defunding or by arguing
against the value of college) and other countries continue to increase college
education, it's not hard to see which countries will have the most educated
populations with all the benefits that entails, including attracting and
creating the highest skilled jobs.

~~~
cjensen
This has the same problem as most seemingly-good ideas: unintended
consequences.

If you give every US citizen who attends a US college $20K/year, think about
what happens to popular universities with fixed numbers of slots like Stanford
or UC Berkeley. They have every incentive to raise their fees by $20K/year. It
would still improve the financial situation of students: the universities
would probably use some of the extra funding to ensure they don't price out
people who can't afford it. It just wouldn't improve it as much as you might
anticipate.

Second, consider who you are giving this money to: college graduates are the
top earners in the US. Giving subsidies to those who will be richest is a
deeply unfair idea. (Needs-based subsidies to help poorer families afford
college and provide an opportunity to join the richer classes, by contrast,
does make sense)

Free community college is the way to go. Give everyone an opportunity to see
if they can make it in college, and do it at a reasonable cost without
promising a fully free ride. Just don't fund it the way the President proposed
by raiding the money I saved away for my children's tuition.

~~~
digikata
Part of 'funding' college for everybody isn't just giving them the money to go
to college, it's making sure public institutions have enough capacity to
handle those students.

Instead of increasing grants, I think directly lowering tuition cost for
public universities would force private universities to become more efficient
and lower their tuition costs too... non-zero tuition makes for an interesting
tension where public and private can compete in different ways (possibly
making the system as a whole better than one with only, or mostly, free public
colleges)

------
jasonmp85
My first thought was "only 27%? The US has a 35% corporate rate and can't
afford this".

My second thought was "oh, right, the US effective rate is around 12%".

How will they actually guarantee they collect this rate, as opposed to just
scaring off corporations or having them offshore/tax-haven their way to
maintaining profits?

~~~
adventured
The US effective corporate tax rate is over 25%, and it's also worth focusing
on the median corporate tax rates.

That famous 12% rate leaves out a lot of things and is not valid. For example
it only included profitable corporations with at least $10 million in assets,
and it ignores state and local taxes.

[http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/09/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/09/eric-
bolling/does-us-have-highest-corporate-tax-rate-free-world/)

[http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/15/analysis-are-us-
corporate-...](http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/15/analysis-are-us-corporate-
taxes-really-the-highest-in-the-world/)

"Tannenbaum cites a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report showing that, “the effective
U.S. corporate tax rate is 27.7 percent, versus 22.6 percent for OECD
countries excluding the United States.” However, he fails to note that those
numbers were compiled for the period from 2006 to 2009."

"A more recent PwC report, conducted in conjunction with the World Bank,
listed the effective U.S. corporate tax rate at 27.9 percent for 2014, while
the OECD average was only 15.9 percent."

------
the_mitsuhiko
I don't think free college works without some sort of strings attached work.
It exists in Austria and the quality of students and colleges is terrible.
Everybody and their dog go to colleges now dropping the quality to abysmal
levels. There is no proper selection happening.

~~~
crimsonalucard
>There is no proper selection.

Unless you're trying to filter out poor people, removing tuition makes
selection MORE fair. Intelligence and capability should be the only criteria
for selection, not money.

Free higher education is not some imaginary ideal that doesn't exist yet. Take
a look at universities in Sweden. If you're a citizen can attend great
universities for free, No Strings Attached.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
> Unless you're trying to filter out poor people, removing tuition makes
> selection MORE fair.

You can have tuitions and financing options for poor people. As far as I
understand Harvard and other universities operate schemes like that.

> Intelligence and capability should be the only criteria for selection, not
> money.

More than intelligence and capability it should be motivation. Make the access
to university too easy and you have idiots like me taking up valuable
resources because they were not forced to make a proper decision about what's
good for them.

~~~
mburns
>As far as I understand Harvard and other universities operate schemes like
that.

Harvard is one of the richest non-corporate entities in the world, currently
holding a ~$30 billion endowment. Saying "well, Harvard manages to do it" is
not useful when talking about higher education on the whole, particularly
public education.

>Make the access to university too easy and you have idiots like me taking up
valuable resources because they were not forced to make a proper decision
about what's good for them.

Even in for-pay schools, intro classes are full of idiots. People willing to
sign up inherently have the motivation. If they don't also have the
intelligence they should fail and not get to take subsequent classes. If your
complaint is that dumb people are allowed to take classes, I don't think
that's a problem, unless schools are somehow forced to grade on a curve or
otherwise pad the work of students who are not performing well enough.

------
bcheung
The Internet introduced free higher education a long time ago. ;)

~~~
wordbank
In Spanish? Because here in Chile most people don't have enough education to
study in English. Vicious cycle.

------
MrGando
I am Chilean. This year I came to live to Bay Area and now I work in a
Startup.

There are several misconceptions and thoughts that I want to express.

1\. Getting a 'low tax student loan in Chile is easy'

That's BS. If you're in a good 'public' University, it applies. You can get
-more or less from the Government- (which behind the camera acts as an
intermediare with a Bank) what we call "Crédito Universitario". That is indeed
low tax. However, most of Chileans don't go to the top 'Public Schools', it's
hard to get in because you have to do well in what we have as a Standardized
Test to apply for the University called PSU (University Selection Test). Most
of the people in Chile end-up going to private Schools and to get a loan -as
far as I know- you have to go directly to a Bank, and believe me, it's not low
tax. I've know people having to pay up to 50% more than what their studies
costed.

2\. There's no class mobility in Chile.

This is true. It's virtually non-existent. The reasons are quite complex, but
let me elaborate on one of the factors.

The Universitary Selection Test is a test much like SAT. There's Math,
Language, Sciences (including social sciences), etc. When you apply to a
university your presentation score is calculated from a ponderation between
those tests and high school grades (9th-12th grade). In my case for example,
for my Engineering School, it was something like 50% math test, 25% school,
25% Language test.

Since the School education in Chile is incredibly segregated, and there's only
some decent schools, guess who are the majority of people who are doing well
at this test? Yep, you guessed right, people that come from wealthier families
that could afford to put their children in, more expensive and better quality
schools.

That people is who get the best scores at PSU, fill up most of the capacity of
the top Universities high-paying degrees.

And this is why in Chile, the best careers in the best universities are full
of people who are already in a very strong economic position (and from more or
less higher class strata). Yes, you will see some very smart guys with a
University Credit here and there studying Medicine/Engineering in the top
Universities, but they are more in the exceptional spectrum.

3\. It's so bad that there's a market for studying for the PSU.

To take on this opportunity, in Chile we have private 'pre-universitarios'
which are basically institutes that can charge even 4k a year, to better
prepare you for PSU. People often go to them to improve their scores on their
last year of School (after school)... again, guess who can pay them?

Personal Opinion:

We need a good educational reform in Chile. Sadly, the actual government is
the worst we've had at executing on anything specific in a long time. They
tried tackling a lot of very difficult challenges at the same time, and from
what I've seen they have failed miserably.

The educational reform that will come out of this, will, most probably, be
very watered down. People should pay, what they can pay for their education,
that would fix part of the problems that the article correctly linked with the
dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. My father was born low-class and at his
time, he could afford an education in a top university (costed him 0, then he
had to work in the public sector to pay the state for his education). This is
a reality, that simply doesn't exist anymore, at least not like in pre
dictatorship.

But remember that this is not only a money problem, even if it's free... the
PSU is still there acting as a filter, and without excellent and cheaper
public schools things are not going to get incredibly better.

PS: For the ones suggesting that free internet and e-learning as a possible
fix, I won't enter that debate but no, I don't think that can fix for any of
this issues in Chile.

------
sb057
"Free" higher education.

Somebody is paying for it.

~~~
kasbah
Would you not want to spend your money on social mobility, equality and
education?

------
fiatjaf
Worst thing ever. Socialism is coming.

------
xname
Is it fair to people who do not go to college?

~~~
the_af
Yes, it's fair. Just like a lot of public works and services are funded by
taxes even if you in particular don't use them.

More importantly, fairness is a trade-off. Granting free universal access to
certain things benefits the poor and those with lower incomes, even if it's
not particularly beneficial for people with higher incomes. That's a good
trade-off in my opinion, and in the opinion of progressive governments.

~~~
oldmanjay
My main gripe with the language of progressive politics is the redefinition of
words like "fair."

Intellectual honesty demands that you call things what they are. Marketing
demands you redefine things to make people feel the right warm-and-fuzzies.
What you did is the latter.

~~~
nmrm2
"What is justice/fairness?" is one of those philosophical questions that will
never be closed. Claiming that there exists some ground truth definition of
fair is, frankly, naive.

Terms like "just" and "fair" are over-loaded and refer to an ephemeral concept
for which there are multiple, competing explanations and theories. No
consensus or ground truth exists, so it's always fair game to introduce new
explanations and theories. This has been the case for at least thousands of
years.

Progressive politics didn't "redefine" fairness in any meaningful sense. Whose
definition of "fair" isn't a "redefinition"? Rawls? Plato?

------
crudbug
Make 20% flat tax for everybody, no questions asked !

------
DanDanDanDan
What this article doesn't mention, and which hasn't been mentioned below, is
that Chile's president, Michelle Bachelet, is a socialist. I am 100% in favor
of eliminating fees for public universities by increasing state and federal
funding. But this means voting for people who have socialist views. You won't
get this from the democrats or the republicans, who are both in the pockets of
the wealthy, who do not want to be taxed to pay for education for the middle
and lower classes. Unless you're willing to say, "I believe in socialist
principles, and I believe education should be without direct fees as a matter
of principle or human rights, and it should be payed for through progressive
income taxes", you won't see this reality in the US. We are far too
neoliberal/laissez faire/anti-welfare state to collectively support an
initiative like this, and that is a problem, IMO.

Reagan slashed the top marginal income tax rate, we tax capital at a higher
rate than labor, and the wealthy have numerous mechanisms for reducing their
tax burden through loopholes in the code. Until this is changed, there are a
number of policies that sound nice, but which we can't pay for. But at
present, the republicans won't go for it, and the democrats won't fight for
it.

