Who Will Pay for Free 2 & 4 Year Degrees?

It's an election year and some have touted "free tuition" or "free education" for graduating high school seniors. Just a quick question! If community college becomes "free" for everyone, who pays the bill? If this is extended to colleges/universities, who pays the bill?

 

Short answer - we do.

Not. A. Fan.

 

maybe this thread should go down to the politics forumh::yes(1):

 

I can also imagine a plan that involves a choice. Pay your own way, if you can or allow the taxpayers to pick up the bill. BUT, if you choose the latter then you agree to repay their generosity with some period of service in the community interest. Perhaps 1 year of school = 1 year of service. If handled properly we taxpayers might feel we are actually getting repaid in full.

 

Same people who pay for free K through 12. Presumably it pays off in increased productivity and other benefits.

 

Right on! There will be more tax revenue without increasing tax rates. Most revenues meant social security and free prescription drugs will be around when I need it. And for good measure increase the spending on the military.

 

There are already a number of government jobs and programs that work that way.

There's the National Health Service Corps, the G.I Bill, and Americorps. There are also several government agencies that will repay your student loans as a recruitment incentive. I suspect we may already maxed out on the number of people we can accommodate that way.

 

I am a big fan of the general concept of mandatory national service, including but not limited to military service so I see the opportunities everywhere. I accept that not everyone feels the way I do.

 

Didn't Obama propose a plan where people can attend college for free if they serve in the military, Americorps, or some other public service agency after graduation? I think he even proposed creating new agencies for graduates to serve in. Currently, the Americorps award is tied to the max Pell Grant award. Right now, you can get a max of two full-time education awards of $5,775 totaling $11,550. That's about one year at a 4-year college.

Texas has a scholarship that requires graduates to serve in the Texas National Guard or Texas State Guard after graduation. Being in the Texas State Guard does not require engaging in combat or being deployed overseas. They mostly respond to natural and man-made disasters.

 

There are FREE higher educational programs, but the millennials do not want to go through those.
- I got FREE college, but I have to agree to put my life in the line first. I think the social programs should be responsible for people up to 18 years old from healthcare, education, college preps, and other activity programs. As the person soon turn 18, he or she must responsible for their own life.

 

I want to agree with you that there should a cut-off age. But why 18 instead of 15,17, 25, or 30? If not by age then by levels. I think the cut-off is up to free secondary, but why could it not just stayed at primary, or be undergraduate or even graduate? A 100 years from now people will look back with amazement of paying for a public education. It is the same thing we do, looking back a 100 years.

 

My two masters degree were free; they were fully funded by my former employer who is a large government contractor.

 

but it's free

 

As with all such things, we do. The question is whether or not that particular investment is worth it, and whether our society supports it.

I would prefer a targeted approach based on the needs of our society going forward. It's more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

 

My own view is that free college education is a solution in search of a problem. The problem with higher education isn't that its expensive, the problem is that we as a society don't know what we want from it. Back in the 1950s a college education was seen as a means of social mobility, but that was when college educated people made up less than 5% of the population. The fact is that in most cases higher education will not result in a vast increase in a person's social mobility today. There are exceptions, of course, but looking at the big picture a college degree isn't the ticket to a middle class life the way it was in the 1970s.

So if the reason to get a college degree isn't social mobility, what is it? Is it education as an investment? If so, the problem of cost can't be separated from the problem of return. So making something free is just a back door way of increasing returns. If the purpose of a college education is for democratic participation, is higher education really necessary to achieve that?

There seems to be this attitude in some quarters that more education is better because more education s better. This is a definition of insanity: redoubling effort when we have forgotten our aim.

 

I disagree. All the way up to the 1980s, it was relatively easy to reach the middle class without a college degree. There were a lot of high-paying factory jobs and white collar jobs that would let you work your way up without a degree. These days, you need a degree to even have a decent chance of reaching the middle class or maintaining your middle class status. Outside of the trades and corrections/law enforcement, you need an associate's degree, at minimum, to have a good chance at a good job. Most of the allied health fields require or prefer an associate's degree. A few of the major healthcare fields have moved up to the master's or doctoral level. There is a push to move nursing up to the bachelor's level and nurse practitioners up to the doctoral level. It used to be easy to move up in IT without a degree, but a lot of experienced people are going back to school now because of limited advancement opportunities without a degree.

There are other licensed/certified fields where the educational requirements are increasing. I believe almost every state requires 150 credit hours for CPAs now. My state used to only require a high school diploma/GED for chemical dependency counselors, but now requires an associate's degree. There are talks on bumping that up to a bachelor's degree. Because CACREP accreditation is becoming a standard, there is a nationwide push to require 60 credit hours for professional/mental health counselors. My state will be requiring 60 credit hours for LPCs and LMFTs this year. There is a professional organization trying to make a bachelor's degree the standard requirement for police officers, but there's been a lot of resistance. In 20 years or less, they might start getting some traction. Two states have made it mandatory for police officers to have an associate's degree.

 

The disagreement over free education is not base on the math. The math is easy, there is a positive return on education, so it pays for itself. The disagreement is on ideology, or the personal experience of paying for ones education therefore everyone should pay for his/her education.
Personally education has save my life. I paid for every bit of it out of my pocket, with a little reimbursements here and there. However, it came at other great sacrifices just a valuable as my life. My education is now free because the return on the investment has taken care of it.
However, there are so many more deserving people where finance is a barrier to education and who can't make those sacrifices. These people may not just be in their teens or 20s, but in their 30s, 40s, or even 50s. We are losing the tax revenues from these people because of an ideology that says if you can't afford an education then you should not have it. We preferred to take care of you on welfare and social security when you are unemployed(able) and living poverty.

 

In CA state government, I have seen some jobs starting to require a bachelor's where previously a A.A. may have sufficed. There are so many people trying to get in to government work because of the many good benefits, retirement, etc. that the State is starting to ramp up job requirements. It's a buyers market.

I could picture cops being required to have a bachelor's in the long term future. I know the put their life on the line and they deserve good pay. Many work over time and are able to make at least six figures. Plus perks like being able to retire as early 50 with lifetime medical and dental (plus nice pensions) will eventually cause the powers to be to question education requirements and make them more stringent. This will be met with great resistance from police unions, however. They tend to have endless war chests, as well as strong political influence.

 

Here's some facts:

1. Notwithstanding failure to resolve the federal government’s budgetary challenges, the U.S. economy will grow from 140 million to 165 million jobs by 2020.
2. By 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.
3. There will be 55 million job openings in the economy through 2020: 24 million openings from newly created jobs and 31 million openings due to baby boomer retirements.
4. By educational attainment: • 35 percent of the job openings will require at least a bachelor’s degree; • 30 percent of the job openings will require some college or an associate’s degree; • 36 percent of the job openings will not require education beyond high school.
5. Job openings in healthcare, community services, and STEM will grow the fastest among occupational clusters.
6. Judgment/decision-making, communications, analysis, and administration will be the four most in-demand competencies in the labor market.
7. The demand for physical skills has continued to decline over time, except for “near vision,” which is necessary to read computer screens and other types of documentation.
8. The United States will fall short by 5 million workers with postsecondary education—at the current production rate—by 2020.

https://cew.georgetown.edu/rank-your-college-coverage-by-report/