Posted on 02/09/2012 10:49:12 AM PST by outpostinmass2
While in my office, preparing for the new semester, I had the opportunity to watch the president’s speech on college affordability delivered at the University of Michigan. I was interested in the speech in part because I am a political scientist, in part because I am a college professor, and in part because I am an alumnus of the University of Michigan. But most importantly I was interested in the speech because my oldest daughter will be leaving for college in just seven short months. And although being a Johns Hopkins college professor has its benefits (Hopkins gives a generous tuition benefit applicable to any college in the nation) I still worry about my daughter and her four younger brothers and sisters. In his speech President Obama focused on three components designed to ease the burden of middle-class families—reducing interest on college student loans, maintaining the tuition tax credit, and creating incentives to make universities lower their costs. Now I understand for some politics is the art of the possible. He proposes these things knowing that as hard as it will be to pass them legislatively, these things are at least possible to get past both houses of Congress. (It isn’t likely, particularly during an election year, but it’s possible.) But for me, politics isn’t just about the art of the possible—about what we can pass in the here and now. Politics is about expanding and extending that art, about pushing the borders to create space for even more change in the future. How can we do that here? What if, instead of proposing policies geared towards individual middle-class tax-payers that revolved around the assumption that higher education was an individual’s responsibility, the president instead proposed policies geared towards embedding higher education as an individual right.
(Excerpt) Read more at schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com ...
My cousin works part time at Western Michigan University. She wants to work full time because all full time employees get a full paid hour per day to work out in the gym.
I wonder how much money that wastes overall in a week?
State universities _were_ free in California, a long time ago.
It’s amusing, sort of, to watch Californians pine for more “free” stuff, as they circle the drain.
Someone does not have a “right” to insist I teach them everything I know about Molecular Biology without compensation.
Nobody has a “right” to insist that you fix their car for free.
Nobody has a “right” to insist a Doctor perform a procedure on them for free.
Nobody has a “right” to the compelled and non-compensated labor of another.
Teaching is a labor. Some students are more laborious to teach than others.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before” the government.
With emphasis on the "no brain" part...
It appears to me that the writer is nothing more, or less, than a VERY typical spoiled, selfish, narcissistic, socialistic, anti-capitalist liberal. His 'thesis' boils down to: "I want everything to be given to me and mine, free of charge; I want everything to be given to me and mine right NOW; and I want everything to be given to me and mine without any personal effort or personal sacrifice on the part of me and/or mine..."
But who pays for the government?
I want to take the socialism critique first. The reality is that even here we routinely spend a significant amount of our government’s resources on subsidies, on what tea party supporters might call “socialist policies.” For instance, in 2009 the government spent almost $86 billion on home ownership subsidies in the form of the mortgage interest deduction, subsidizing the home purchases of almost 35 million citizens. In 2010 the government spent almost $104 billion.
These guys can never see the difference between allowing one to keep a bit more of what he has earned, and a gift of money not earned. When you never contribute anything to society, I guess your sense of value diminishes.
“as long as ALL college professors and administrators agree to work for free...”
Or, at least, make it like the USMA Cadets and USNA Midshipmen are obligated to, i.e., doing five years service to pay back the ‘free’ education.
; - )
Along with your “right” to a college education will come the government’s “right” to specify what degree you pursue.
So, if the government decides there aren’t enough Lesbian poetry majors, that’s where you might find yourself.
While he’s at it, I want the right to be a millionaire. And a pony.
because the world needs ditch diggers and garbage men too ???
or how about, if *everybody* has a degree, who will be the employees in the company when *everybody* is the CEO ???
and this dumbass is a teacher...heheheh...
In the American context--the traditional American context--political proposals should start with reasoned analysis. What distinguishes the American way from much of the world's--and especially every form of Socialism--is that our ideals & values were grounded on experience driven reason. (See America Grounded On Experience & Reason.)
The Founding Fathers clearly learned from the experiences of their immediate forebears, who had literally built social/political economies from the ground up. They understood that the Government was not just something, mystically available to solve human problems, but something created by men, to serve specific needs. And they understood that for a society to work well, it needed to rely at every stage, and in every area of concern, on a maximum degree of individual responsibility.
That, of course, applies to education, as to everything else.
What the Professor seems not even to grasp, is that his proposal is not some whimsical idea; not some altruistic reform; but a complete inversion of concepts that once were literally axiomatic to Americans. In brief, he would turn things upside down, without any serious recognition of the key factors involved. This, unfortunately, is a good picture of the academic mind, today, in much of America. It would probably also represent the thinking of Mrs. Pelosi & Harry Reid.
What it is not, is a rational analysis of any educational problem or solution.
William Flax
If he wants to reduce the cost of college, he should offer to teach for free.
As the great Walter Williams phrased it, “In order for one person to get something without paying for it, another person must pay for something without getting it”.
Somehow, I suspect our esteemed author is not interested in working for free to provide free education, but has no problem with demanding other people work for free to provide a free education.
One good way to reduce the cost of college would be to eliminate tenure.
From one college professor to the Free republic group. I disagree with this professor at John Hopkins. I, too, teach political science and educate my students about the value of limited government; constitutional republic and free-markets.
Let me say why I’m opposed beyond just the immoral aspects of granting money to students to go to college and not do anything to pay it back. A lot of college students are apathetic and use financial aid for basic living expenses. These funds are designed to PAY FOR a student to earn a college degree, not to be an income stream.
From my vantage point - more federal money inflates the cost of an education and lowers the quality of education in many ways. Students don’t believe they have to put forth an effort, instead, they think attend and a degree is handed to them. In their world a degree equals a great job and salary with no work.
Students at my institution are apathetic, ignorant and ill prepared to handle college course work. A right to a college degree only cheapens the college degree that others have really struggled to earn.
The World needs Ditch Diggers Too!!!
Part of the problem is the cost of education at the University level. Tuition is going up every year and far outpaces inflation. When tuition goes up government raises the amount that can be borrowed on student loans. This cycle goes on year after year, when you throw in the mix of the University’s supporting and pushing the socialist agenda with everything from political correctness to global warming and they keep getting government grants to study these things and they keep finding results that lend credence to the socialist in the government you begin to understand why it is so expensive and we have so many communist professors with tenure and nothing to do other than promote their agenda.
Someone has to pay for the new 5 million dollar student center and 15 million dollar athetic complex you know!
These idiots going to these schools are going on nothing more than a 1k a week 4 year vacation.
Mandatory education should end at 8th grade.
High school should be free, conditional on an entrance exam, good behavior, and satisfactory performance. Only about 35% of the population will graduate, based on IQ and behavior.
College is for less than 10% of the population - given the current state of high schools, probably much less. I’m fine making it free AS LONG AS you demonstrate an IQ of 110 or above, pass a rigorous entrance exam (SAT 1100 or equivalent) and take at least 16 credits/semester with GPA>2.5, and sign an agreement to serve in the military for 3 years after graduation, if invited.
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