San Francisco Considers Making College Free

Meh. I have my opinions. Other people have their's. It's a discussion.

That's true. However, my point is that as the cost of that investment goes up and the expected return either remains the same or goes down, then the economics don't work past a certain point. It's one of the reasons for-profits specializing in certificates and associate programs tend to fail. Say the average pay for a pharmacy technician is $13/hr. We have all generally agreed here that it would be foolish to pay Everest $20k+ for a certificate to become a pharmacy technician. There are cheaper alternatives in terms of formal education. Not to mention you don't need a formal education to do that job in most places.

The problem is that many jobs have greater barriers to entry than "just go get hired by one of the myriad employers willing to train you to do that thing." There, the education (and expense) go up significantly but the expected return remains the same. The government cannot (or should not, generally) try to manipulate the labor market directly. The government might license some professionals but they aren't going to put up barriers such as hiring quotas to prop up wages. The government, in short, cannot directly manipulate market demand. It CAN, however, have a positive impact on the supply of labor by investing in education and training.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. Saying to a public school "Hey, you're not charging tuition, here's your funding" is not asking an institution to write a blank check. The system we currently have, however, encourages institutions NOT to lowball themselves. If you know you can expect $5,000 from the government for, say, moderating this forum then are you going to send the government an invoice for $250? Because what's happening now is for the service that they used to make $1,500 for, they know they can count on the government to pay them $5,000 and then they figure they can get the consumer to pay at least $5,000 on top of that.

Again, we don't want the government interfering in how private institutions price their products. But if the government is in that business I don't see why it would be controversial to say "Yeah, we're subsidizing this for the good of our society."

State parks in New York typically provide free firewood to anyone camping there (or who otherwise has access). The result is that anyone selling firewood nearby can only charge a certain amount before people either stop paying the upcharge or only purchase from them when they are very desperate. Go to a state park where they don't provide firewood and, well, you might find the people who live nearby selling bundles of wood for rather exorbitant prices.

I haven't offered a solution. The people of San Francisco by extension of their elected government have proposed a solution for their local community. That proposed solution was promptly crapped on by some members of this forum and I simply pointed out that societies choose which basic services they value. I've stated this a number of times already.

To flip this around, you haven't presented a case for why you think this is a bad idea or what alternatives you might propose for this city or one in a similar position.

The problem is broad and is influenced by federal and state and local factors. Here, a locale that has virtually priced out anyone who isn't making hundreds of thousands of dollars wants to make some higher ed available to its populace. I don't see a problem with that. I was simply pointing out the irony of people coming up with the same "somebody's gotta pay for it" argument when they, themselves, have relied on taxpayer dollars funding their salaries, pensions and healthcare for years and have faced the exact same criticism.

I am generally suspicious of any proposal in which we make something less accessible to those with lower incomes.

 

Yes, Steve. Do you know what we call that when all of the individuals are in general agreement and move in the same general direction together? A society.

Not at all. I'm saying that when it does exist it will respond to market forces in a way that is unfavorable to a society. Insulin is cheap to produce. There is no government regulated source of it in this country and so it is priced beyond the means of many diabetics. This does not mean that insulin is simply more valuable just that other countries do a much better job of ensuring people receive it.

I think you might need to take a step away from the keyboard and take a walk or try some breathing exercises. You seem to be ascribing far more malice to this otherwise pleasant conversation than really should be the case.

Almost everything, in this country at least, can trace its roots back to a private source. So what? This is a great observation if you view our country in a vacuum. Meanwhile, the rest of the world had some of these services managed by government for centuries.

We already are throwing taxpayer money at it and that's the problem. Federal financial aid, in my opinion, drives up the cost of education. It would be significantly cheaper if we actually just funded public schools. That means, of course, that private institutions would still exist. But many would close because they can only afford to stay open today because of tuition inflated by taxpayer dollars. That also means that we would have to go back to regulating admission based on qualification for many things. No more just going to many (thought certainly not all) colleges and just signing up.

But let's think about this objectively. Why is higher education where we draw the line? Why do we provide a full 12 years of public education? We know that system is bloated and a money drain. Why not just cut it off at 10th grade or even 9th grade? By the time you hit the end of middle school you can read competently and do complex enough math for a good many life paths. So graduate from middle school and then immediately commence trade or further education. It was done historically. Why not now? It's a cultural construct. Whether we provide 12 years of education or 16 years of education or four years of education isn't really determined by individuals, as you state, but by culture. The norm of a 12 year educational system predates all of us so we take it at face value.

Canada kicked and screamed its way into universal healthcare. Now it's part of their culture and most Canadians would never willingly give it up. This could just be the same thing.

You're going to pay taxes as long as you live and work in the US. That's all there is too it. The question is do you prefer those dollars be spent on providing us with services that make our lives more enjoyable or in handing out billions of dollars to other countries, trillions of dollars for wars and another few billion dollars in farm subsidies?

It's like having a person who cannot pay their electric bill and complaining about how taxes eat up most of their money but seeing no problem with the toll their smoking habit takes on their discretionary income...

 

Love passionate discussions... but come sometimes... we just need a...

 

Can you point to an example where the pharmaceutical industry is not regulated as heavily as the US and where costs have gone down purely by market force rather than government intervention?

My only point here is that if the government is going to have schools then the government should fund schools. I would kill Title IV as well. But I would also ensure that state schools weren't left to their own devices to raise money. My go-to here is CUNY. Those are some really good schools. I cannot imagine any sensible employer taking issue with a graduate from, say, Hunter College. That school in particular has taken on a spirit and pride of its own to rival schools like Vasser just for a lot less in the tuition department. It works well. Could it work better? Yeah, sure. And having Hunter and Baruch and CUNY Law has not adversely affected enrollments in the far more expensive Yeshiva, NYU, Columbia et al. Just like I can rely on city transit through the subway or bus OR opt into a private industry built around ferrying my person about the city. I get that we're coming at this from two philosophically different positions.

But, for me, that philosophical position is based on having lived in NYC. There is nothing that says a city should provide no charge kayaking to its populace. Yet, New York does that. A kid without a dollar to his name can go out kayaking on the Hudson. To me, that's one of the ways we bridge income gaps and provide opportunities, even if just for recreation, to more people so that it isn't just the upper echelon enjoying the fruits of living in a civilized society.

I get what you're saying, but I feel like you're conflating "culture" with homogeneity.

And some from the US flea to Canada because Canada has taken the leading edge in certain procedures. I can get an MRI tomorrow if I want one. In Canada I can get that MRI but, depending on the severity of my injury or illness, I might have to wait a while. From my colleagues in Ottawa I got some real world examples. One colleague broke her hip when she fell in the snow. She had an MRI within 24 hours. Another had a chronic back problem. Not debilitating but dang it, he had a bad back. He waited three months for his MRI. I don't mean to quibble here. But US media makes it sound like you can have your foot hanging on by ligaments and Canada is telling you to come back in a few weeks. They triage according to severity. If you can physically wait then you go behind someone who cannot. Here, we triage based on need but also on ability to pay.

I digress. Most people don't do a full analysis of every aspect of their life for better or worse. If a politician got up tomorrow and said "I'm just straight up ending Social Security and no, you're not getting refunds" I think we can all agree that that politician's political days would be numbered. What, if anything, they intended to do instead would be important for you or I to know before forming a judgment. Most people would just vote based on that headline.

Of course the tax structure can change. We can starve the beast. But where do you, personally, draw the line? Do I have to sign a contract for police protection? Is every road a toll road? Must I rely on churches and private organizations to provide museums and lovely gardens through which I can stroll? Honestly, I'm curious. Again, two different philosophies here. For me, I would rather pay taxes and receive something for it that I, and everyone, can enjoy rather than just taking home more money to select my services a la carte.

 

You know, I got laid off from a job days before my oldest child was born. It was quite liberating not to worry about healthcare access, at that time, along with everything else. Moving south, there are few (if any) things I'll miss more than my OHIP card - even if a fairly decent employer coverage is available.

There's no law of nature that says "government must only provide things Steve would define as a public good". Things like public skating rinks - or a free community college.

 

As someone who have had both (and in fact will have access to both, technically, starting March 21st) - nope. This is just wrong. I actually had wider access to healthcare, and utilized it more, right after OHIP kicked in - even though my last plan in Florida was considered "good". But it's not even the point.

Just count all the ways your anecdote doesn't apply to my anecdote. It doesn't matter how good your employer-provided insurance is in a situation when you are laid off when you need it. Or how good your coverage is when mine is crappy (like the one I had between 2003 and 2006). I needed a minor surgery while having coverage, and the in network clinic quoted a hospital fee $40,000 more than the coverage I had - so I had to hustle to convince them to cover far less costly clinic instead. And, oh, even if I had your policy - guess whether I had 40 U. S. dollars handy, when my TAship amounted to $740 a month (to feed two)?

Despite surface similarities, a universal healthcare coverage is fundamentally different, far superior product compared to private coverage. Can't buy it for any price, in fact. And Americans pay, on average, higher price for their inferior product, even though Canadian version is far from perfect. I am far from feeling that Canada is good at getting things right, generally; do not particularly want to continue living there, in fact. Yet, they managed to dodge this particular bullet.

P. S. US actually has a version of universal coverage, in that the people bankrupted by the regular system can fall back to Medicaid. Imagine removing that safety net. Of course, this aragement is VASTLY worse than true universal coverage - more expensive, too.

Irrelevant. Being a public good (any definition) is a good argument for the thing to be provided by the government - but NOT the only possible good argument.