Posted on 07/18/2019 5:14:36 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Democratic candidates for president, in their impressive expansiveness, are promising free college. Some limit their proposals to community colleges, others to state-run schools, and a few, going for broke, want also to forgive student debt for private-college tuition. Since no realm of American life has undergone greater inflation in recent decades than higher education, this is no piddling promise. The cost to taxpayers could be in the trillions, though the prospect would please a nephew of mine who this autumn is sending a son to Dartmouth at the annual price of $76,000.
If government is going to pay for college, at least it ought to try to bring down the cost. I taught at a university for 30 years and have a few suggestions. Start at the top: I would reduce the salaries of university presidents by, say, 90%. (At the institution where I taught, the president made more than $2 million when last I checked.) I would also evict them from their rent-free mansions and remove their cadres of servants. The contemporary university president, after all, has little or nothing to do with education, but is chiefly occupied with fundraising and public relations. If universities were restaurants, the president would be a maître d’. To encourage their fundraising skills, perhaps they could be paid a small commission on the money they bring into their schools—cash, so to speak, and carry—excepting that on money used to erect more otiose buildings filled with treadmills, computers and condom machines.
The next big cut in the cost of higher education would be in superfluous administrative jobs, for the contemporary university is nothing if not vastly overstaffed. All those assistant provosts for diversity, those associate deans presiding over sensitivity programs, those directors for student experience—out, out with them.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
... AKA the Starship Troopers model.
Although that movie was a parody, the model is possible
Free college is about a pay raise for the Establishment Left. Nothing else.
One who has served honorably, under command, such as military
One cannot work for the government otherwise, or hold office.
How ‘bout we 1st return to the Constitutionally constrained and sized GOVT??
ZERO welfare. Eliminate property taxes (restore property RIGHTS) and those that wish to utilize the service(s) of ‘education’, can personally WRITE the check??
The whole ‘fiddling w/ the edges’ is more than asinine and NEVER will correct a thing.
Most companies already know this....that is why internships and temporary workers are exploding....this allows employers to train their own and keep only those that do the work.
Never saw the movie, read the book ~45 years ago.
I would also argue that business owners and managers have fallen prey to decades of propaganda from the education establishment that their grads require little to no training, and hence employers can shift those costs to someone else by hiring degreed candidates.
I have a better idea. Nearly everyone serving in Congress is proud of the fact (they say) they are performing a public service. Then how about giving up THEIR salaries - kind of putting their money (or ours) where their mouth is? Does the Constitution specify payment must be made for legislators?
OR even a bill that would reduce their salaries by half!!! “Oh! But it’s too expensive to live in DC, we couldn’t do that”. Then choose another profession where you can stay home and OUT OF OUR HAIR!
That is because so many GED holders are illiterate and mathematically challenged.
Colleges are spending more and more time on remedial courses that students should have learned in public school, but did not.
Bottom line: Our educational system from daycare to graduate programs is an outdated, socialist mess that needs to be destroyed.
They will until “free college” is presented at their local community college or online classes. Community college is affordable and available. And if you work at it year round, you can knock it off in 18 months.
The kids think they get to go to a nice private college in some hidden valley in New England. They are going to be hugely mistaken.
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