Universal Public Higher Education

There is no such thing as a "free" service. Someone always pays for it.

 

I could probably invent a scenario where some type of service was free but I understand your point. But I think the issue is "Who is actually paying and is it OK with them?" In this situation it seems that it would be the taxpayers footing the bill and range of opinions on the favorability continuum. After all, the government spends money on all sorts of things that we think is stupid/bad or smart/good. This wouldn't be any different (at least in some regards).

 

There is no such thing as "free." However, there are investments that draw sufficient returns; this might be one of them.

Or it might not.

I'm in favor of education, and I lean towards more education rather than less.

But I'm against the idea of making college free for everyone. College is completely different from high school. High school is compulsory, both in terms of content and attendance. College is neither. With high school, the public knows what it's getting, which is why completing high school has become--since WWII--a part of our ethos.

We value going to and completing college, and are even willing to help with state universities and student aid. But we have not yet decided to commit fully to college. I think the lack of those two compulsories has a lot to do with. We just don't like the idea of someone taking an irrelevant (in our minds, it varies) course and/or not completing it. In other words, the decision-maker (the student) isn't the one footing the bill. But again, with high school, the decision-maker (the taxpayer) is.

This is why I support a strong national qualifications framework to replace the weak one we have now. Right now, we're focused almost exclusively on college at the tertiary level. But we pay no attention to the technical/performance side. Some professions (accounting, law, medicine) and some other lines of work (HR, Project Management, talent development) have put in place some structure, but a comprehensive system it is most certainly not.

For the taxpayer to foot the bill, he/she has to be confident that what's being paid for is a good idea. If we were channeling students towards lines of study needing emphasis in our culture and economy (satisfying one compulsory) and requiring those who quit (not fail, but quit) to pay it back (the other compulsory), then we might have something. Of course, everyone else wanting to study subjects outside the framework would still be free to do so, but we might want to re-think some of the state-sponsored education and financial aid we offer them.

Who decides what goes in the framework? How about a public/private partnership between the government, private industry, and tertiary providers? Who would do all of this? Well, I have weekends free for the most part....

 

The problem with this is that the argument for access to higher education is actually an argument for increased access for additional schooling. Yet, it is important to note that access to additional education/schooling has accomplished little to justify this demand. Despite the fact there is a proliferation of colleges and universities and an endless stream of students, there is a decline in critical thinking and intellectual standards. I do not see how increasing access is going to elevate performance. Moreover, access to higher education has not reduced the gap between the rich and poor as hoped. Instead, there are thousands of students crippled by debt for buying into this false promise.


Free education is available to anyone through internet and public libraries. This proposal instead seems to be intended to address the issue of "credentialism" that has grown so rampant. While well-intended, it will most likely have an adverse impact on the overall quality of higher education, student intellectual development, and the economy. I do not understand why it is considered sacrilegious to state that higher education is not for everyone.

 

I, for one, didn't make that argument. I argued for a more constructive use of tertiary education and training.

I'm not willing to take this at face value. For example, more universal education is a key to our transition from a low-tech mining/agriculture/manufacturing economy to a high-tech, information-based one. Otherwise, we'd be competing with India and China (with comparable wages and living conditions). No thanks.

Again, I'm not willing to accept this at face value. It's easy to fall back on a time when higher education was truly elitist and then decry falling standards related to a massive post-WWII increase in access and attendance. Perhaps it was "right sized" instead. Additionally, the best universities in this country continue to be the envy of the world, with 16 of the top 20 in the world right here in the USA.

You don't see the relationship to performance? Ouch. My entire professional career is based on that very premise, as is the fields of human resource development, human capital management, higher education, etc. Triple ouch.

The gap isn't a result of higher education's failures. It is a macroeconomic and sociological issue. Getting back to the tie between education and performance, workers today are far more productive in the workplace than they were, say, in the 1960s. In fact, if the minimum wage had tracked with increases in worker productivity, it would be more than $20 an hour now. No, the gap is due to a lot of other things, but not human performance.

I agree with the crippling debt part, and I've suggested in this thread an approach that would better align spending with need. But it isn't a "false promise." Higher education correlates strongly and positively with income. We need to align the costs better with demand and usage, both of which come from employers, not students.

This completely ignores the andragogical and pedagogical aspects of education. What you're describing is access to information. Users may or may not be able to turn it into an education. Access to information makes one educated about the same as access to a kitchen makes one a chef. (Hint: No. There's something that happens in between.)

While that's one way to look at it, I think you're examining the symptom and not the problem. Without credentialing, how would potential employers know whether or not job candidates are qualified and capable? If I've got 200 applicants for a job, I can't give each one a tryout! I have to use other information. Prior experience is one factor, but so is schooling. In fact, I know more about your capabilities based on your credentials--verifiable and understandable--than I do from your experience--easily falsified, exaggerated, and opaque.

This is such a sweeping and broad statement that I'll just accept it as your assessment and not try to deconstruct it.

This is a strawman argument. No one is saying everyone should go to university. We're talking about access and opportunity. If you're against that, say so.

This is just my perspective. YMMV! :smile:

 

I was thinking of myself as one of those riff raffs that need to be kept out of Harvard so as not to damage their prestige value.