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juliaoceania -> RE: Free College. (5/29/2011 3:14:16 PM)
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quote:
Only because we choose where to draw the line. The difference is only in perception, and what we are willing to accept. I believe that the quality of life for everyone would benefit from the populace being better educated.
Educating people is a boon to business. They do not have to pay for their own workforce to be educated. Everyone knows an educated slave is worth more than an unskilled uneducated one.
Usually it is people who have been educated that innovate... it is why research dollars flow into research universities... some are private, and some are not. What we subsidize when we subsidize universities is an infrastructure to innovate, and that in turn generates dollars.
As a society we tend to absorb the cost of things that provide a public good that cannot necessarily be shown to provide a profit. Higher education is a public good. Cities are even rated by the percentage of people that have a college education, and the higher that number is, the more livable the community with more to offer.
Generally speaking, for a country to be competitive, its people need to be educated. If the price becomes prohibitive, then more and more people have to opt out. The amount of student debt out there is astonishing, and it can be crushing to a young person to start their life with a 50k debt for a 4 year degree. I think that it is pretty sad that young people start their life out that way, and their only other option would be to compete in a job market that keeps the really good jobs out of their reach.
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