Posted on 05/20/2015 2:26:13 AM PDT by nathanbedford
Nathan Bedford's Maxim:
The remedy for failed socialism is invariably more socialism
I am a father who has two children attending universities in Europe, tuition free, and one child attending university in America in which the tuition costs about $40,000 per year. I have had personal experience with both sides of this debate so I feel I can comment from that experience.
Obviously, free is nicer. But why does education in America cost so much? For much the same reason that health care costs have run out of control, because third-party payers are held responsible rather than the consumer so there is simply no effective check on raising prices or increasing capital expenditures. Since World War II, the federal government has been increasingly subsidizing higher education with the result that higher education has become a profitable growth industry which farms the federal government and exists virtually free of control by the consumer or by the federal government. State governments, for the record, are equally culpable.
The consumer lost interest in controlling prices for a long period of time because the government was providing scholarships and loans which obscured the real costs and further obscured the need to determine whether the degree was worth the cost in economic terms. For generations since World War II it was accepted simply as an article of faith by the American middle class that the way up the economic ladder was to climb the academic ladder.
This is no longer true. Not just because socialist policies have inflated the costs associated with ascending the academic ladder but because there are too few jobs available and that brings us to the next failed socialist program. Socialists want open borders and they want to subsidize uncontrolled hordes of immigrants with education and with healthcare. These immigrants whether legal or illegal, whether educated in America or abroad, are taking Americans' jobs. Big business has engaged in crony capitalism eagerly provided by socialists in the Democrat party and opportunists in the Republican Party by which these politicians open the floodgates to immigrants of high station as well as low to take American jobs. Worse, those jobs which remain in America are likely not to remain here long because these same politicians are rubber stamping trade treaties guaranteed to further hollow out the American economy just as previous treaties have hollowed out our manufacturing sector. The middle-class is providing politicians with campaign contributions at the cost of their jobs.
The jobs going abroad now include doctors jobs, your x-ray might well be read in India, accountants jobs, these functions might well be done in India and the goods you buy might well be designed as well as manufactured in China, a country producing engineers while we produce angry women studying lesbianism. Our competitors are educating based on merit and directing the education toward useful knowledge and they are succeeding in taking American jobs which we previously had considered secure.
My two sons attending university in Europe tuition free were admitted without competitive exam but that is a deceptive fact. They were admitted because they had graduated from an elitist gymnasium which had already in effect triaged students and identified the capable and earmarked them for University. The socialists' proposal for free tuition certainly would not be tied to merit rather it would in effect open the floodgates to mediocrity and thoroughly degrade the educational experience-or what is left of it.
What is left of the educational experience is a residue after the bulk of the arts curriculum is devoted to indoctrination rather than education. So long as a government entity is funding higher education it will remain a battleground over who controls the indoctrination.
The European version works better, there are fewer frills, no multimillion dollar football teams, no imposing facility, etc. In Germany, education for medical degree is more competitive requiring almost perfect grades in gymnasium but otherwise the system is reasonably open to gymnasium graduates. Invariably, the system is geared not so much to produce a Renaissance man as to produce competent practitioners of one discipline or another.
The remedy for the crushing burden pressing down on the middle-class? More…
I propose that we taxpayers be free from paying this moron’s salary. What a waste of our money.
What Sanders is proposing (a per-transaction tax on Wall Street to fund “free” college tuition) will garner nothing less than 73% approval in polling among the low-infos.
This will eventually become law. And more than a few Republicans will vote yea.
“There is NOTHING more expensive than a FREE government program” (P.J. O’Rourke).
Centralized “expert planned” economies are usually badly planned... and more to benefit the ruling political class than the folks. Most all economic activity is licensed, permitted, taxed and regulated… innovation is discouraged, and entrepreneurship strangled as business seeks not to please customers, but keep the regulators at bay. The only people who prosper are those with political connections and who can buy access to the ruling class (big corporations Liberals “despise” can do it, small business notso much)… socialism is really a huge Ponzi scam. And treats its ordinary citizens like human livestock! Like the Serpent in the Garden it promises utopia, but often delivers Hell. GOD SAVE US FROM THE “PROGRESSIVE” EXPERTS!
Free won’t be quality.
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