On price increases re. minimum wage increase

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It's embarrassing that a explanation is required but here we are. ”Free" as in provided without direct cost to students. This is what is generally meant when folks say K-12 education is free. Obviously people are taxed to pay for their neighbors' kids education. As a society it's been agreed that the benefit to the community is worth the cost taxed to the community. Why there is still debate as to the cost/benefit ratio of undergraduate and graduate education is quite beyond me. Personally speaking, my income increased 10 fold and my tax burden increased infinitely with a college education. If only a few percent more people can experience the same who couldn't otherwise afford to go to college, it pays for itself. The community experiences the benefit when more people are spending much more money and actually paying taxes instead of getting 100+% refunds after credits. Hence the community should pay the cost just like K-12. Paying college students based on their grades should also be done, but let's just start with free tuition.

I'm on board with "free" college under two conditions.

1. We have to admit people into higher education based on aptitude. If you can't/don't demonstrate the aptitude, no free college. It's a simple fact that not everyone is college material and we should not waste the state's (or anyone else's) money on people who are not college material. Find a way to weed out people who are going to drop out after/during freshman year before any money is spent on them.

2. Limit what people can major in. Find out how much work is available/likely to be available in a given field, and base the number of people who can get a government-funded education in that field on that.
 
I dropped out of college because it was too expensive and I was unhappy with the school wasting money on things that didn't improve my education. I was unfulfilled studying things I was told I was good at, but wasn't too passionate about. I'm glad I dropped out and pursued something that has been much more fulfilling even with less income.
 
How many of those drop outs did so due to financial aid issues or because they had to work full time while attending college and caring for family? Also, I don't see a partial education as a waste.
The reason is colleges haven't kept up with the lowering of academic standards at the rate public education has. Higher Ed has a lot of catching up to do
 
I was unhappy with the school wasting money on things that didn't improve my education.

This. College sports in particular (especially football) are such a ridiculous racket. The fact that the highest-paid public employee in most states is a college sports coach makes me want to start a riot. If the NFL wants a minor league to recruit from, let them pay for it themselves.
 
Hardly any. They found that college, even community colleges were just to difficult for them. My son is one of them. He now owns a machine shop.

Since some people are intent on giving out more free stuff..the so-called "free college tuition" programs should be limited to technical or trade-school programs only. IMO, at least that way the country would actually be better off due to the program.
 
This. College sports in particular (especially football) are such a ridiculous racket. The fact that the highest-paid public employee in most states is a college sports coach makes me want to start a riot. If the NFL wants a minor league to recruit from, let them pay for it themselves.
Well, that's no longer a factor now that the NCAA caved to dropping the "amateur" status of college athletes.

Ever wonder why people aren't charged a tax on free college tuition? Yet others are expected to pay for the free college tuition... 🤷‍♂️
 
Ever wonder why people aren't charged a tax on free college tuition? Yet others are expected to pay for the free college tuition... 🤷‍♂️
Many grads pay their tuition many times over through increased taxation after leaving school. It's just a matter of paying it forward. School is paid for by the previous set of graduates for the current set of students. There are also societal benefits of educating non-STEM students even if the economic impact is less direct.
 
Maybe so, but probably not much benefit to educating as many of them as we do. See my condition #2.
2. Limit what people can major in. Find out how much work is available/likely to be available in a given field, and base the number of people who can get a government-funded education in that field on that.
A command economy for education, interesting.

I'm more for a scatter shot approach. IMHO anyone who has an interest, is willing to do the work, and can maintain better than a C average has the potential to add something to society if they are given the opportunity to pursue it academically, regardless of the majors/minors they study. If there are qualified people to do something amazing, innovation and creativity just might surprise the government planners. Maybe not for a decade or two, but eventually. An educated electorate is one of the many infrastructure improvements our nation desperately needs (again IMHO).
 
A command economy for education, interesting.

I find it fascinating how many people who profess to be Libertarian are willing to go down some really deep command economy/government control rabbit holes. I don't know if Antares has said he's a Libertarian, but I've seen it in several other threads here.
 
Many grads pay their tuition many times over through increased taxation after leaving school. It's just a matter of paying it forward. School is paid for by the previous set of graduates for the current set of students. There are also societal benefits of educating non-STEM students even if the economic impact is less direct.
No..."some" may pay by increased taxation. The "current set of students" don't pay for future students unless you consider that college scholarships and tuition are tax free. That is about as much "free stuff" as I would consider for students. I don't know the breakdown but I'm sure that most of the people claiming tax breaks for school cost are not the students but the parents.
 
A command economy for education, interesting.

I'm more for a scatter shot approach. IMHO anyone who has an interest, is willing to do the work, and can maintain better than a C average has the potential to add something to society if they are given the opportunity to pursue it academically, regardless of the majors/minors they study. If there are qualified people to do something amazing, innovation and creativity just might surprise the government planners. Maybe not for a decade or two, but eventually. An educated electorate is one of the many infrastructure improvements our nation desperately needs (again IMHO).

I suppose I could be convinced to relax condition 2 if we are strict about condition 1. Condition 2 can be implemented later if we end up with too many people not being able to find work in the field of study that was publicly paid for.

Note as well that people under my thinking would be free to pay for their own education with whatever means they wanted if they don't want to be constrained by my conditions. My point is mostly that if we are going to publicly fund college education, we need to ensure that public money is not wasted.
 
No..."some" may pay by increased taxation. The "current set of students" don't pay for future students unless you consider that college scholarships and tuition are tax free. That is about as much "free stuff" as I would consider for students. I don't know the breakdown but I'm sure that most of the people claiming tax breaks for school cost are not the students but the parents.

Dependents can't claim the tax deductions for college education, so the benefit goes to the parents for the most part. Those tax breaks aren't particularly large either, something like $2K/year, capped at 4 years per student.
 
Personally speaking, my income increased 10 fold and my tax burden increased infinitely with a college education.

Many grads pay their tuition many times over through increased taxation after leaving school. It's just a matter of paying it forward. School is paid for by the previous set of graduates for the current set of students. There are also societal benefits of educating non-STEM students even if the economic impact is less direct.

As an Engineer, I agree my income has paid more in taxes than many other professions (but not as much as others in other professions - unfortunately ;) ).
And I became an engineer after the benefits of college - with a mix of self-funding, scholarships, grants, and loans (that took many years to pay off). But no funds from my family (in fact I must have been one of the very few students who got calls asking if I could send money home).
However, the 18th Century Belgium Flute Music major more than likely will not be getting a high paying job, and so will not be paying higher taxes to "pay forward".

Some, are just not college material, yet they still want to try. The drop out rate here in California is remarkably high about 70%.

My college would set up bunk beds in the common areas in the dorms for the incoming freshmen (freshperson?) class. It was known that at least 10% of the incoming class would drop out within a few weeks. Within a month these bunk beds would be gone and the common area re-opened for community use. It had nothing to do with money, it had to do with the students not prepared to handle college life.

I've seen the posts about the overall benefit to society for everyone to have a college education, I guess I need to see some data to back this up....
 
Some, are just not college material, yet they still want to try. The drop out rate here in California is remarkably high about 70%. That money seems to have been wasted.

Are you saying that 70% of college students in California drop out? That does not sound right. It definitely was not the case when I was in college. Where is that info from and how are they calculating that rate?
 
I find it fascinating how many people who profess to be Libertarian are willing to go down some really deep command economy/government control rabbit holes. I don't know if Antares has said he's a Libertarian, but I've seen it in several other threads here.

I am libertarian in general, but whoever pays for a thing, including the government, has the right to dictate terms and ensure their money is used wisely. If prospective students don't want to pay for their own college, they should be prepared to lose the freedom to go to college on their own terms. I see it the same way as parents refusing to pay for their flunking child to continue to go to college or refusing to pay for a course of study that does not leave them with marketable skills. Like I said in my previous post, if students don't want to be bound by my two conditions, they are free to pay their own way.
 
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These government free programs are just power grabs to put more people, college employees, day care workers etc as defacto government employees. Thus more and people are dependent on the government, freedom lost. More tyranny.

When the government pays your tuition the government is the customer, not you .
 
I am libertarian in general, but whoever pays for a thing, including the government, has the right to dictate terms and ensure their money is used wisely. If prospective students don't want to pay for their own college, they should be prepared to lose the freedom to go to college on their own terms. I see it the same way as parents refusing to pay for their flunking child to continue to go to college or refusing to pay for a course of study that does not leave them with marketable skills. Like I said in my previous post, if students don't want to be bound by my two conditions, they are free to pay their own way.

A thing is typically more valued this way, in the end, in my experience. For example, my parents paid my “first” freshman year (which I was not ready for, but that is another story). My second freshman year and subsequent years I paid for…….I tried much harder when I was paying. Maybe that’s just me, though.
 
Supporting education is a good idea. Here is how to it in a free market way.

Every us citizen under gets a 529plan and the federal government funds it with $7500 which is the average tuition for 2yrs of community college. The money for this comes partly from a tax on college endowment funds and college and NCAA football and basketball revenue.

The student can spend this on ANY qualified education expense including trades training. The student is in control of the shopping and choices
 
A good friend of mine had just got out of LSU when I met him. I was managing my first gas processing plant (I'd spent 10 years helping build and start them up) and he was our new engineer. This was almost 4 decades ago (that seems really odd to me). I told my boss that I didn't need an engineer, I needed mechanics! The boss said - He's the President of the company's best friends son :/ you're getting an engineer. We ended up hitting it off. He made it to Sr VP of Engineering of a large company that I worked at for 22 years. He recently retired. He is the best engineer I've ever known because he spent the time in the field that he needed to learn engineering. I have always worked closely with engineers. I wanted to know what they knew. I was set to go to Texas A&M when I graduated from high school but I couldn't. There were few, if any, "free rides" back then and my dad was battling Hodgkins disease Lymphoma). There was no way I was going to ask them for help. So I ended up working at "Dub Miller Ford"... I thought I was going to be a mechanic but instead I just cleaned up... so I hired on with a company that built the underground utilities in subdivisions (the Woodlands in north Houston). I drove a grease truck. It had a 500 gallon diesel tank on it that didn't have baffles, an air compressor, and various fluid and grease pumps on the back. The drive back to the shop always felt like I was in a cartoon choo choo train (in Houston traffic). The equipment drivers loved parking their equipment out in the middle of a mud flat because they knew I wouldn't be able to get the truck there. So I would mush my way out to the grader, BAK (big ass Komatsu) dozer, scraper, whatever. Fire it up and drive it to my truck for service. No training required (to drive it, cutting grade is a skill that I never acquired). Then put it back. If it's within my power... I don't let things get in the way of doing my job... Winter came, work slowed, and I moved back home to work for a local lease service (worked on oil and gas production sites). That was a nowhere job but it paid the bills. My dad's health was better and he was working again. He asked my how long I was going to stay at the lease service. Idk... Then he said, quit that job, you're coming to work for me. You'll be my helper. At that time he'd "gone back to his tools" and was an instrument fitter. Damned good one it turns out. That was the best thing I could have done. I got to know and understand him better. I only got 15 more years with him so that was irreplaceable time. Within I year I "busted out" as an instrument fitter. Engineers got to know me and vice versa. They kind of took me under their wing (mostly because I hounded them with questions), got me on the startup team, and that began my real education. There's a lot of math, chemistry, and physics used in the oil and gas business. Since then I've managed a small plant, a million square mile gas field with 6 plants and two fractionators, got transferred to the General Manager position in a large energy company (direct report to the VP of ops, who was an "8th grade educated, 2 tour Vietnam Marine vet (grunt as he called it), that had one of the sharpest minds of anyone I've ever known. He could read through a legal brief and when in a meeting he could pull "x vs y" precedents out of what seemed like thin air. Today he's almost 80 and isn't the same... bums me out to write that ), got divorced, kept the 4 kids so I took a large bump down so I could raise them, moved to TX and managed 4 pipeline systems, then down to Falfurrias to manage a plant, then did a little project management on a large plant build, and managed (also did the work) a small team that specialized in designing and installing process controls. The company changed to something I wasn't fond of so from there I partnered up with 2 friends and did control system design and programming. They are still friends but partnerships are messy sometimes so I'm glad that I'm out of that. Now I work for an independent oil and gas company. I manage the project group (all self starters that don't need managing), the SCADA group (same deal, self starters), the warehouse (self starter), and lab (amazing lady that gets more work done in 1/2 a day than some people do in a week), Soo, I'm kind of in a "rocking chair job" and not all that fond of it :D So there you go, 1976 to 2021 in one really long paragraph...

The moral of the story is, you can get where you want to get to if you put the time, INTEREST, and effort into it. You don't "need" a college degree but it will carry you a little further up the ladder these days, if you have the right major. The problem that I've seen with that is sometimes they put the engineer into a managing role before he or she gets to fine tune their people skills. They'll need people skills... They also lose the opportunity to learn the nuances of the business. Every engineer I know, if he or she is honest, will tell you that they came out of college with a lot of useless knowledge. Their education begins in the field, where I have spent my life.
 
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Are you saying that 70% of college students in California drop out? That does not sound right. It definitely was not the case when I was in college. Where is that info from and how are they calculating that rate?

That was for California community colleges.

"A shocking 70% of California’s community college students fail to graduate or transfer."

https://www.communitycollegereview....of-california-community-college-students-fail
The national average is 40%, which is almost half of those enrolled.

"In the United States, the overall dropout rate for undergraduate college students is 40%."

https://educationdata.org/college-dropout-rates
 
If 70% of community college students are dropping out or failing, that tells me that 50% of them probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.

When a goodly percentage of High School graduates can't effectively read, write do simple math or construct a coherent sentence, that 70% figure doesn't surprise me in the least.
 
If the 70% dropout rate is community college, that's a much bigger deal. A lot of apprenticeship and blue collar training programs reside in community college now. I'm not sure what percentage of community college students are in degree transfer programs headed for 4-year university versus job training type programs. I'm sure it varies a lot by location and programs available at the college.
 
In this state, community college students going into a state university to finish a 4 year degree are almost all counted as dropouts from the community college. Our CCs offer many associates degrees in various fields and a general transfer associates degree for those going on to a bachelor's program. That degree is a waste for 99% of transfer students but it is pushed by the CCs to drive up graduation rates for federal student aid qualification. I'm not saying the same is true in California, but I certainly dropped out of CC when transfering to university. The CC advisor begged me to complete the transfer degree and the University advisor strongly suggested that I not. In the end I saved my pennies and became dropout (at least on paper).
 
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