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On December 15 2012 13:44 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:25 sam!zdat wrote:
I would adamantly oppose the notion that the function of education is job training, and that its value can be measured in those terms. You cannot have a functional democracy if you do not educate your citizens. It is therefore the responsibility of any polity that wants to call itself democracy to educate its citizens. Everything you said is wholly subjective. Also, I didn't state that it's necessarily the function of education. I did state it's [close enough of] a necessity for the poor to move up in society in terms of wealth, which is a necessity. The issue with your statement is there is no definitive point at which you can call someone "educated" by what you're implying, as apparently a high school education is not enough. But then would you say someone without a masters isn't educated? A PhD? Don't get me wrong, education should definitely be encouraged.
Because I am not bamboozled by this chimaera of objectivity, I have no problem with making "subjective" statements. Would you like to make a subjective statement of your own? Or perhaps an objective one. I will of course hold you to the most exacting standards of objectivity. My statements are both subjective and correct, and by making them I additionally implicitly demand that you accept them as well. You are welcome to make a rebuttal. This is what we in the biz call "discourse."
The arbitrariness of a dividing line does not imply the arbitrariness of the category. The amount of education required to be a participant in a functional democracy increases with the complexity of the problems facing the polity. Because we live in an increasingly complex world, we will have educate our populace to an increasing degree. A high school degree is not enough. A business degree is not enough, and doesn't even cover the correct subjects. At the bare minimum, I think that, if we were to have a functional democracy, you would need to have most voters attain at least a well-rounded bachelor's in the liberal arts.
Of course education is never complete. That's why one should avoid at all costs wasting time and effort doing anything else.
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On December 15 2012 13:53 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:44 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 sam!zdat wrote:
I would adamantly oppose the notion that the function of education is job training, and that its value can be measured in those terms. You cannot have a functional democracy if you do not educate your citizens. It is therefore the responsibility of any polity that wants to call itself democracy to educate its citizens. Everything you said is wholly subjective. Also, I didn't state that it's necessarily the function of education. I did state it's [close enough of] a necessity for the poor to move up in society in terms of wealth, which is a necessity. The issue with your statement is there is no definitive point at which you can call someone "educated" by what you're implying, as apparently a high school education is not enough. But then would you say someone without a masters isn't educated? A PhD? Don't get me wrong, education should definitely be encouraged. On December 15 2012 13:33 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:20 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ArvickHero wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 ArvickHero wrote:
I don't think my freshman dorm experience was "crucial", though it was a huge convenience and a lot of fun. In fact, I know quite a few ppl who got negatively impacted by it .. just my personal perspective Yes this is a very good point actually... I would be interested to see how many people aren't really well-matched with the on campus freshman experience, and were hurt for it in the long run. I assume you could take the drop out rate as the base of the number of ppl negatively impacted by the freshman dorm experience (a lot of assumption I know, but gotta start somewhere), and then there's those who graduate in the end but struggled. I know that for a few of my friends, they dropped out because they were exposed to too much partying/drugs via the freshman dorms, and others fell behind in school work because they felt like they had infinite free time (since you didn't have to cook or commute, and friends really close by, no self control because there's no parents). And there's those who just didn't fit in at all, and felt like even more of an outcast/loner .. resulting in either a negatively impacted psyche or a dropout. Regardless of it having a positive impact, it's still a luxury. Many things that have positive impacts on your lives can be defined as luxuries. Massages/vacations reduce stress, but are a luxury. Video games can be an outlet for those without many friends, but are a luxury. Freshman dorms can be a great way to meet new people a new friends (how exactly is it great for actually networking? Because these friends go places? Don't call that networking then - call it a great place to meet new friends). On December 15 2012 13:19 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:12 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 12:52 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 12:45 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 12:27 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 12:15 FabledIntegral wrote:
[quote]
Hardly. The freshman experience is a luxury, not a necessity. I don't understand how you can argue it's a necessity anymore than Spring Break in Cancun. It's a really fun experience, and that's it. Your arguments are based on such loose premises of "well what if something awesome happens from it?" I mean, what if something awesome happens at community college? What if you network with someone there?
These "what ifs" are silly. None of these are even remotely pivotal in obtaining the degree to propel yourself upward in society. A degree is. It will, objectively, eliminate an incredibly important prerequisite required for tens of thousands of more jobs out there than if you had not gotten said degree.
The important factor is enabling our youth to pursue a higher education and get a degree without being swamped in unnecessary amounts of debt, not pay for them to have a fun time and great experience in their free time when they aren't in school. They can do that on their own perogative, with their own money, if they have it. I never said the 'fun' had anything to do with it. And I agree having a degree is more important than most of the other things in terms of empowering the less-fortunate to be successful as adults. It is not the only relevant thing though. I definitely think living on campus has much more potential to contribute towards your success than an April vacation in Cancun (even in my own life I have several examples of this). I don't think I emphasized enough that 'the freshman experience' which I've defined loosely is still only one advantage of starting at the 'good' school you plan to graduate from. As I'm trying to say, the main idea of this thread has to do with enabling poorer citizens to get useful college degrees without lots of debt, but the underlying goal is to empower these citizens without massive debt, and thus a degree from school X is not the only thing that matters. Just a guess, but are you someone who chose to go to a commuter school to save money, transferred later, and now are defending such a decision? It might explain why you are so passionately arguing on this issue. Most of my friends/etc went away to the school of their choice from the getgo, often without the funds to pay for it easily, and I see how they all benefited (myself included), and how some of them have suffered as well. Except nothing about the freshman experience is critical to one's life. It's a positive experience for many, yes, at a very costly price. However it's a complete luxury, as I've pointed out multiple times. A degree is not considered a luxury in today's society. How 'crucial' something is is a value on a spectrum.... you don't need a good college degree to be successful, and you won't be successful just because you have a good degree. However, there's a reason why I'm agreeing getting a good degree is more important than any other of the things I've brought up individually. You, however, seem to think that anything that isn't individually very important is so negligibly unimportant that it should never be brought up in your presence. Everything else being equal, you are more likely to be financially successful in life (to pick a common metric) if you spend four years at a good college prior to getting a good bachelors than you are if you spend two years at a local small college and then transfer. If you think I am wrong, then in lieu of some serious data/statistics this is a good point to just agree to disagree. If you think I'm not necessarily wrong, but it's irrelevant, then once again this is simply a good point to agree to disagree. Any reason why you didn't address my last question in the previous post? Was I wrong? No, I think that the government itself should only provide necessities, not luxuries. Because degrees are becoming a necessity for much of society, it is crucial a viable method is in place to ensure people can achieve these degrees. The value argument is super weak in this case because anyone can say something is of value to them. Which is why, once again, it's a luxury. As I said, necessity is a degree of intensity thing... not a binary value. It's certainly more of a necessity to get a good degree if you want a good job than it is to live on campus freshman year, by a long shot. I haven't denied that. The 'value argument' doesn't depend on what people think is of value to them; it's a question of what actually is of value to them. I won't deny this is a tricky thing to quantify. I would love to see any stats you have referring to transfer vs nontransfer students, beyond the insane amount of lurking variables that one would suspect would skew results towards nontransfer students being more financially successful. For example, nontransfer students is more likely to be comprised of the top performing high school students who received scholarships. Nontransfer students are more likely to come from a wealthy background. Nontransfer students (just a guess), being more likely to come from a wealthy background, probably have to spend less time dedicated to a job while simultaneously attending school. Yea this would not be an easy thing to study, but it's possible it's been done... I do not know. You are half right - I attended a four year university without going to community college, but commuted 45 minutes away from home to do so as I could not afford to live on campus without taking out student loans. I am under the impression that the vast majority of people in the United States are financially responsible. I would have loved the freshman experience; in fact, I really, really wanted it. But it was something I recognized as a luxury and not a necessity. Nothing about it was crucial to be a successful person financially. You had to decide where to draw the line... was it worth spending an extra 5-10k a year for you to live on campus? This will vary from person to person. Thus, it's more difficult to justify having the government get involved in making it easier for a student to live on campus freshman year if they choose to (just as an example, once again), but far from impossible, as compared to justifying having the government make good degrees at least attainable in some way by poorer students. You can objectively define degrees by the amount of jobs that require a 4-year bachelors as a prerequisite. How does this counter what I was saying? Your objective definition of 'degrees' is simply a higher number for getting a bachelors than many other things I feel are important to consider when it comes to empowering citizens through education. Just because it's the 'best' doesn't mean it's the only thing that the government should consider having a hand in. Also, you're failing to miss the point I'm making. You're asking "is it of value to the individual." THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION!! The question is "is this financially feasible?" I don't care how much value it is to you - if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. If you take out loans, you have to pay them back - simple. There's no arguing that it's a necessity brought upon by society and thus incurring that debt was unavoidable, which is the premise of the entire argument of this topic! Do you think the government should somehow use public money to help make college more affordable for poorer people? If no, then that explains why I can't understand the point you are making. Whether something is 'avoidable' or not is also not a binary value... there are degrees to which something is avoidable. I unfortunately don't understand your first paragraph how it was written at all... would you mind revising or rewording it maybe? I'm of the opinion government involvement should generally be at a minimum. The government also has used public money to make college significantly more affordable, namely at community colleges where the cost is incredibly small, which is awesome. I am not against making the cost of public (emphasizing as private universities were brought up earlier) much more affordable, as long as it is the tuition cost that is decreased (well, and maybe books). I am wholly against subsidizing the cost of living on campus, etc, although the reducing the most of tuition should relatively make living on campus more affordable, which is a plus/plus. Okay I understand your overall stance better then. The thing I was talking about earlier is really just rehashing the same discussion so I don't think it's even worth clarifying it. You think having access to a four year degree is important enough to justify some government subsidization. You don't think living on campus or starting at your four year school of choice is important enough to justify some government subsidization. That's fine, but I insist that the distinction between the two is still a degree of intensity thing: it's not that one is truly necessary and the other isn't; it's that one has a big affect on your ability to get a job and the other doesn't (have a big affect), among other reasons. Many countries do have the government subsidize university study to the point that even poor students can live on campus. You probably think that's going overboard. I don't think the list of what is/isn't worthy of government subsidization, when it comes to college-level education, that you employ, is non-negotiable. edit to your edit: I've never been trying to justify over-borrowing... just justifying the motivation to take more risk with borrowing than is wise... there is motivation there. another edit: remember, our discussion started because you took a passing comment I was making about why people might feel motivated to enter a debt-heavy lifestyle as a college student... but not why they were justified in doing so.
It's not a degree of intensity, as you constantly put it. It's a distinction between necessity and luxury. Yes, I do realize, as you've pointed out, they aren't quite binary. Maybe I should put it this way, and see if we can just see our differences here.
Economically speaking, I think the government should be very limited. It should exist to the point where it provides a framework in society for anyone to be successful and achieve at minimum a "middle class" socioeconomic status.
Economically speaking, you believe government should go beyond merely providing reasonable avenues for the public to increase their socioeconomic status, but also believe they should, at the taxpayers expense, go beyond this by also paying for/subsidizing entertainment matters that people may or may not find value in.
I don't necessarily disagree with what I just (possibly incorrectly) stated your viewpoint is, as there are things that can fall into that category such as museums, public libraries, etc. (which goes to your point of "things being relative in degree"). While necessity vs luxury (at least in economics) can be made binary fairly easily, I'm still going to have to disagree with you in your points. The matter we are talking about, I see it completely 100% as a luxury.
On December 15 2012 13:54 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:44 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 sam!zdat wrote:
I would adamantly oppose the notion that the function of education is job training, and that its value can be measured in those terms. You cannot have a functional democracy if you do not educate your citizens. It is therefore the responsibility of any polity that wants to call itself democracy to educate its citizens. Everything you said is wholly subjective. Also, I didn't state that it's necessarily the function of education. I did state it's [close enough of] a necessity for the poor to move up in society in terms of wealth, which is a necessity. The issue with your statement is there is no definitive point at which you can call someone "educated" by what you're implying, as apparently a high school education is not enough. But then would you say someone without a masters isn't educated? A PhD? Don't get me wrong, education should definitely be encouraged. Because I am not bamboozled by this chimaera of objectivity, I have no problem with making "subjective" statements. Would you like to make a subjective statement of your own? Or perhaps an objective one. I will of course hold you to the most exacting standards of objectivity. My statements are both subjective and correct, and by making them I additionally implicitly demand that you accept them as well. You are welcome to make a rebuttal. This is what we in the biz call "discourse." The arbitrariness of a dividing line does not imply the arbitrariness of the category. The amount of education required to be a participant in a functional democracy increases with the complexity of the problems facing the polity. Because we live in an increasingly complex world, we will have educate our populace to an increasing degree. A high school degree is not enough. A business degree is not enough, and doesn't even cover the correct subjects. At the bare minimum, I think that, if we were to have a functional democracy, you would need to have most voters attain at least a well-rounded bachelor's in the liberal arts. Of course education is never complete. That's why one should avoid at all costs wasting time and effort doing anything else.
At this point we are so far at the opposite end of the spectrum on this matter it's not worth even debating.
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United States24651 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:57 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:53 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:44 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 sam!zdat wrote:
I would adamantly oppose the notion that the function of education is job training, and that its value can be measured in those terms. You cannot have a functional democracy if you do not educate your citizens. It is therefore the responsibility of any polity that wants to call itself democracy to educate its citizens. Everything you said is wholly subjective. Also, I didn't state that it's necessarily the function of education. I did state it's [close enough of] a necessity for the poor to move up in society in terms of wealth, which is a necessity. The issue with your statement is there is no definitive point at which you can call someone "educated" by what you're implying, as apparently a high school education is not enough. But then would you say someone without a masters isn't educated? A PhD? Don't get me wrong, education should definitely be encouraged. On December 15 2012 13:33 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:20 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ArvickHero wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 ArvickHero wrote:
I don't think my freshman dorm experience was "crucial", though it was a huge convenience and a lot of fun. In fact, I know quite a few ppl who got negatively impacted by it .. just my personal perspective Yes this is a very good point actually... I would be interested to see how many people aren't really well-matched with the on campus freshman experience, and were hurt for it in the long run. I assume you could take the drop out rate as the base of the number of ppl negatively impacted by the freshman dorm experience (a lot of assumption I know, but gotta start somewhere), and then there's those who graduate in the end but struggled. I know that for a few of my friends, they dropped out because they were exposed to too much partying/drugs via the freshman dorms, and others fell behind in school work because they felt like they had infinite free time (since you didn't have to cook or commute, and friends really close by, no self control because there's no parents). And there's those who just didn't fit in at all, and felt like even more of an outcast/loner .. resulting in either a negatively impacted psyche or a dropout. Regardless of it having a positive impact, it's still a luxury. Many things that have positive impacts on your lives can be defined as luxuries. Massages/vacations reduce stress, but are a luxury. Video games can be an outlet for those without many friends, but are a luxury. Freshman dorms can be a great way to meet new people a new friends (how exactly is it great for actually networking? Because these friends go places? Don't call that networking then - call it a great place to meet new friends). On December 15 2012 13:19 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:12 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 12:52 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 12:45 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 12:27 micronesia wrote:
[quote]
I never said the 'fun' had anything to do with it. And I agree having a degree is more important than most of the other things in terms of empowering the less-fortunate to be successful as adults. It is not the only relevant thing though. I definitely think living on campus has much more potential to contribute towards your success than an April vacation in Cancun (even in my own life I have several examples of this). I don't think I emphasized enough that 'the freshman experience' which I've defined loosely is still only one advantage of starting at the 'good' school you plan to graduate from.
As I'm trying to say, the main idea of this thread has to do with enabling poorer citizens to get useful college degrees without lots of debt, but the underlying goal is to empower these citizens without massive debt, and thus a degree from school X is not the only thing that matters.
Just a guess, but are you someone who chose to go to a commuter school to save money, transferred later, and now are defending such a decision? It might explain why you are so passionately arguing on this issue. Most of my friends/etc went away to the school of their choice from the getgo, often without the funds to pay for it easily, and I see how they all benefited (myself included), and how some of them have suffered as well. Except nothing about the freshman experience is critical to one's life. It's a positive experience for many, yes, at a very costly price. However it's a complete luxury, as I've pointed out multiple times. A degree is not considered a luxury in today's society. How 'crucial' something is is a value on a spectrum.... you don't need a good college degree to be successful, and you won't be successful just because you have a good degree. However, there's a reason why I'm agreeing getting a good degree is more important than any other of the things I've brought up individually. You, however, seem to think that anything that isn't individually very important is so negligibly unimportant that it should never be brought up in your presence. Everything else being equal, you are more likely to be financially successful in life (to pick a common metric) if you spend four years at a good college prior to getting a good bachelors than you are if you spend two years at a local small college and then transfer. If you think I am wrong, then in lieu of some serious data/statistics this is a good point to just agree to disagree. If you think I'm not necessarily wrong, but it's irrelevant, then once again this is simply a good point to agree to disagree. Any reason why you didn't address my last question in the previous post? Was I wrong? No, I think that the government itself should only provide necessities, not luxuries. Because degrees are becoming a necessity for much of society, it is crucial a viable method is in place to ensure people can achieve these degrees. The value argument is super weak in this case because anyone can say something is of value to them. Which is why, once again, it's a luxury. As I said, necessity is a degree of intensity thing... not a binary value. It's certainly more of a necessity to get a good degree if you want a good job than it is to live on campus freshman year, by a long shot. I haven't denied that. The 'value argument' doesn't depend on what people think is of value to them; it's a question of what actually is of value to them. I won't deny this is a tricky thing to quantify. I would love to see any stats you have referring to transfer vs nontransfer students, beyond the insane amount of lurking variables that one would suspect would skew results towards nontransfer students being more financially successful. For example, nontransfer students is more likely to be comprised of the top performing high school students who received scholarships. Nontransfer students are more likely to come from a wealthy background. Nontransfer students (just a guess), being more likely to come from a wealthy background, probably have to spend less time dedicated to a job while simultaneously attending school. Yea this would not be an easy thing to study, but it's possible it's been done... I do not know. You are half right - I attended a four year university without going to community college, but commuted 45 minutes away from home to do so as I could not afford to live on campus without taking out student loans. I am under the impression that the vast majority of people in the United States are financially responsible. I would have loved the freshman experience; in fact, I really, really wanted it. But it was something I recognized as a luxury and not a necessity. Nothing about it was crucial to be a successful person financially. You had to decide where to draw the line... was it worth spending an extra 5-10k a year for you to live on campus? This will vary from person to person. Thus, it's more difficult to justify having the government get involved in making it easier for a student to live on campus freshman year if they choose to (just as an example, once again), but far from impossible, as compared to justifying having the government make good degrees at least attainable in some way by poorer students. You can objectively define degrees by the amount of jobs that require a 4-year bachelors as a prerequisite. How does this counter what I was saying? Your objective definition of 'degrees' is simply a higher number for getting a bachelors than many other things I feel are important to consider when it comes to empowering citizens through education. Just because it's the 'best' doesn't mean it's the only thing that the government should consider having a hand in. Also, you're failing to miss the point I'm making. You're asking "is it of value to the individual." THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION!! The question is "is this financially feasible?" I don't care how much value it is to you - if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. If you take out loans, you have to pay them back - simple. There's no arguing that it's a necessity brought upon by society and thus incurring that debt was unavoidable, which is the premise of the entire argument of this topic! Do you think the government should somehow use public money to help make college more affordable for poorer people? If no, then that explains why I can't understand the point you are making. Whether something is 'avoidable' or not is also not a binary value... there are degrees to which something is avoidable. I unfortunately don't understand your first paragraph how it was written at all... would you mind revising or rewording it maybe? I'm of the opinion government involvement should generally be at a minimum. The government also has used public money to make college significantly more affordable, namely at community colleges where the cost is incredibly small, which is awesome. I am not against making the cost of public (emphasizing as private universities were brought up earlier) much more affordable, as long as it is the tuition cost that is decreased (well, and maybe books). I am wholly against subsidizing the cost of living on campus, etc, although the reducing the most of tuition should relatively make living on campus more affordable, which is a plus/plus. Okay I understand your overall stance better then. The thing I was talking about earlier is really just rehashing the same discussion so I don't think it's even worth clarifying it. You think having access to a four year degree is important enough to justify some government subsidization. You don't think living on campus or starting at your four year school of choice is important enough to justify some government subsidization. That's fine, but I insist that the distinction between the two is still a degree of intensity thing: it's not that one is truly necessary and the other isn't; it's that one has a big affect on your ability to get a job and the other doesn't (have a big affect), among other reasons. Many countries do have the government subsidize university study to the point that even poor students can live on campus. You probably think that's going overboard. I don't think the list of what is/isn't worthy of government subsidization, when it comes to college-level education, that you employ, is non-negotiable. edit to your edit: I've never been trying to justify over-borrowing... just justifying the motivation to take more risk with borrowing than is wise... there is motivation there. another edit: remember, our discussion started because you took a passing comment I was making about why people might feel motivated to enter a debt-heavy lifestyle as a college student... but not why they were justified in doing so. It's not a degree of intensity, as you constantly put it. It's a distinction between necessity and luxury.
What is a necessity and what is a luxury is an opinion, or requires a subjective rating system. By the way I made a couple of minor edits since you quoted, although I don't think it changes anything significantly.
What you consider a necessity and what you consider a luxury is not what every other person in this discussion would. If there was an absolute way to decide what isn't necessary and what is, then I would agree with you 100%.
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On December 15 2012 13:57 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:53 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:44 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 sam!zdat wrote:
I would adamantly oppose the notion that the function of education is job training, and that its value can be measured in those terms. You cannot have a functional democracy if you do not educate your citizens. It is therefore the responsibility of any polity that wants to call itself democracy to educate its citizens. Everything you said is wholly subjective. Also, I didn't state that it's necessarily the function of education. I did state it's [close enough of] a necessity for the poor to move up in society in terms of wealth, which is a necessity. The issue with your statement is there is no definitive point at which you can call someone "educated" by what you're implying, as apparently a high school education is not enough. But then would you say someone without a masters isn't educated? A PhD? Don't get me wrong, education should definitely be encouraged. On December 15 2012 13:33 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:20 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ArvickHero wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 ArvickHero wrote:
I don't think my freshman dorm experience was "crucial", though it was a huge convenience and a lot of fun. In fact, I know quite a few ppl who got negatively impacted by it .. just my personal perspective Yes this is a very good point actually... I would be interested to see how many people aren't really well-matched with the on campus freshman experience, and were hurt for it in the long run. I assume you could take the drop out rate as the base of the number of ppl negatively impacted by the freshman dorm experience (a lot of assumption I know, but gotta start somewhere), and then there's those who graduate in the end but struggled. I know that for a few of my friends, they dropped out because they were exposed to too much partying/drugs via the freshman dorms, and others fell behind in school work because they felt like they had infinite free time (since you didn't have to cook or commute, and friends really close by, no self control because there's no parents). And there's those who just didn't fit in at all, and felt like even more of an outcast/loner .. resulting in either a negatively impacted psyche or a dropout. Regardless of it having a positive impact, it's still a luxury. Many things that have positive impacts on your lives can be defined as luxuries. Massages/vacations reduce stress, but are a luxury. Video games can be an outlet for those without many friends, but are a luxury. Freshman dorms can be a great way to meet new people a new friends (how exactly is it great for actually networking? Because these friends go places? Don't call that networking then - call it a great place to meet new friends). On December 15 2012 13:19 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:12 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 12:52 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 12:45 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 12:27 micronesia wrote:
[quote]
I never said the 'fun' had anything to do with it. And I agree having a degree is more important than most of the other things in terms of empowering the less-fortunate to be successful as adults. It is not the only relevant thing though. I definitely think living on campus has much more potential to contribute towards your success than an April vacation in Cancun (even in my own life I have several examples of this). I don't think I emphasized enough that 'the freshman experience' which I've defined loosely is still only one advantage of starting at the 'good' school you plan to graduate from.
As I'm trying to say, the main idea of this thread has to do with enabling poorer citizens to get useful college degrees without lots of debt, but the underlying goal is to empower these citizens without massive debt, and thus a degree from school X is not the only thing that matters.
Just a guess, but are you someone who chose to go to a commuter school to save money, transferred later, and now are defending such a decision? It might explain why you are so passionately arguing on this issue. Most of my friends/etc went away to the school of their choice from the getgo, often without the funds to pay for it easily, and I see how they all benefited (myself included), and how some of them have suffered as well. Except nothing about the freshman experience is critical to one's life. It's a positive experience for many, yes, at a very costly price. However it's a complete luxury, as I've pointed out multiple times. A degree is not considered a luxury in today's society. How 'crucial' something is is a value on a spectrum.... you don't need a good college degree to be successful, and you won't be successful just because you have a good degree. However, there's a reason why I'm agreeing getting a good degree is more important than any other of the things I've brought up individually. You, however, seem to think that anything that isn't individually very important is so negligibly unimportant that it should never be brought up in your presence. Everything else being equal, you are more likely to be financially successful in life (to pick a common metric) if you spend four years at a good college prior to getting a good bachelors than you are if you spend two years at a local small college and then transfer. If you think I am wrong, then in lieu of some serious data/statistics this is a good point to just agree to disagree. If you think I'm not necessarily wrong, but it's irrelevant, then once again this is simply a good point to agree to disagree. Any reason why you didn't address my last question in the previous post? Was I wrong? No, I think that the government itself should only provide necessities, not luxuries. Because degrees are becoming a necessity for much of society, it is crucial a viable method is in place to ensure people can achieve these degrees. The value argument is super weak in this case because anyone can say something is of value to them. Which is why, once again, it's a luxury. As I said, necessity is a degree of intensity thing... not a binary value. It's certainly more of a necessity to get a good degree if you want a good job than it is to live on campus freshman year, by a long shot. I haven't denied that. The 'value argument' doesn't depend on what people think is of value to them; it's a question of what actually is of value to them. I won't deny this is a tricky thing to quantify. I would love to see any stats you have referring to transfer vs nontransfer students, beyond the insane amount of lurking variables that one would suspect would skew results towards nontransfer students being more financially successful. For example, nontransfer students is more likely to be comprised of the top performing high school students who received scholarships. Nontransfer students are more likely to come from a wealthy background. Nontransfer students (just a guess), being more likely to come from a wealthy background, probably have to spend less time dedicated to a job while simultaneously attending school. Yea this would not be an easy thing to study, but it's possible it's been done... I do not know. You are half right - I attended a four year university without going to community college, but commuted 45 minutes away from home to do so as I could not afford to live on campus without taking out student loans. I am under the impression that the vast majority of people in the United States are financially responsible. I would have loved the freshman experience; in fact, I really, really wanted it. But it was something I recognized as a luxury and not a necessity. Nothing about it was crucial to be a successful person financially. You had to decide where to draw the line... was it worth spending an extra 5-10k a year for you to live on campus? This will vary from person to person. Thus, it's more difficult to justify having the government get involved in making it easier for a student to live on campus freshman year if they choose to (just as an example, once again), but far from impossible, as compared to justifying having the government make good degrees at least attainable in some way by poorer students. You can objectively define degrees by the amount of jobs that require a 4-year bachelors as a prerequisite. How does this counter what I was saying? Your objective definition of 'degrees' is simply a higher number for getting a bachelors than many other things I feel are important to consider when it comes to empowering citizens through education. Just because it's the 'best' doesn't mean it's the only thing that the government should consider having a hand in. Also, you're failing to miss the point I'm making. You're asking "is it of value to the individual." THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION!! The question is "is this financially feasible?" I don't care how much value it is to you - if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. If you take out loans, you have to pay them back - simple. There's no arguing that it's a necessity brought upon by society and thus incurring that debt was unavoidable, which is the premise of the entire argument of this topic! Do you think the government should somehow use public money to help make college more affordable for poorer people? If no, then that explains why I can't understand the point you are making. Whether something is 'avoidable' or not is also not a binary value... there are degrees to which something is avoidable. I unfortunately don't understand your first paragraph how it was written at all... would you mind revising or rewording it maybe? I'm of the opinion government involvement should generally be at a minimum. The government also has used public money to make college significantly more affordable, namely at community colleges where the cost is incredibly small, which is awesome. I am not against making the cost of public (emphasizing as private universities were brought up earlier) much more affordable, as long as it is the tuition cost that is decreased (well, and maybe books). I am wholly against subsidizing the cost of living on campus, etc, although the reducing the most of tuition should relatively make living on campus more affordable, which is a plus/plus. Okay I understand your overall stance better then. The thing I was talking about earlier is really just rehashing the same discussion so I don't think it's even worth clarifying it. You think having access to a four year degree is important enough to justify some government subsidization. You don't think living on campus or starting at your four year school of choice is important enough to justify some government subsidization. That's fine, but I insist that the distinction between the two is still a degree of intensity thing: it's not that one is truly necessary and the other isn't; it's that one has a big affect on your ability to get a job and the other doesn't (have a big affect), among other reasons. Many countries do have the government subsidize university study to the point that even poor students can live on campus. You probably think that's going overboard. I don't think the list of what is/isn't worthy of government subsidization, when it comes to college-level education, that you employ, is non-negotiable. edit to your edit: I've never been trying to justify over-borrowing... just justifying the motivation to take more risk with borrowing than is wise... there is motivation there. another edit: remember, our discussion started because you took a passing comment I was making about why people might feel motivated to enter a debt-heavy lifestyle as a college student... but not why they were justified in doing so. It's a distinction between necessity and luxury.
Is that an.... objective distinction?
Think carefully before you answer.
On December 15 2012 13:57 FabledIntegral wrote:
At this point we are so far at the opposite end of the spectrum on this matter it's not worth even debating.
lol k
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On December 15 2012 13:59 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:57 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:53 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:44 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 sam!zdat wrote:
I would adamantly oppose the notion that the function of education is job training, and that its value can be measured in those terms. You cannot have a functional democracy if you do not educate your citizens. It is therefore the responsibility of any polity that wants to call itself democracy to educate its citizens. Everything you said is wholly subjective. Also, I didn't state that it's necessarily the function of education. I did state it's [close enough of] a necessity for the poor to move up in society in terms of wealth, which is a necessity. The issue with your statement is there is no definitive point at which you can call someone "educated" by what you're implying, as apparently a high school education is not enough. But then would you say someone without a masters isn't educated? A PhD? Don't get me wrong, education should definitely be encouraged. On December 15 2012 13:33 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:20 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ArvickHero wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 ArvickHero wrote:
I don't think my freshman dorm experience was "crucial", though it was a huge convenience and a lot of fun. In fact, I know quite a few ppl who got negatively impacted by it .. just my personal perspective Yes this is a very good point actually... I would be interested to see how many people aren't really well-matched with the on campus freshman experience, and were hurt for it in the long run. I assume you could take the drop out rate as the base of the number of ppl negatively impacted by the freshman dorm experience (a lot of assumption I know, but gotta start somewhere), and then there's those who graduate in the end but struggled. I know that for a few of my friends, they dropped out because they were exposed to too much partying/drugs via the freshman dorms, and others fell behind in school work because they felt like they had infinite free time (since you didn't have to cook or commute, and friends really close by, no self control because there's no parents). And there's those who just didn't fit in at all, and felt like even more of an outcast/loner .. resulting in either a negatively impacted psyche or a dropout. Regardless of it having a positive impact, it's still a luxury. Many things that have positive impacts on your lives can be defined as luxuries. Massages/vacations reduce stress, but are a luxury. Video games can be an outlet for those without many friends, but are a luxury. Freshman dorms can be a great way to meet new people a new friends (how exactly is it great for actually networking? Because these friends go places? Don't call that networking then - call it a great place to meet new friends). On December 15 2012 13:19 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:12 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 12:52 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 12:45 FabledIntegral wrote:
[quote]
Except nothing about the freshman experience is critical to one's life. It's a positive experience for many, yes, at a very costly price. However it's a complete luxury, as I've pointed out multiple times. A degree is not considered a luxury in today's society. How 'crucial' something is is a value on a spectrum.... you don't need a good college degree to be successful, and you won't be successful just because you have a good degree. However, there's a reason why I'm agreeing getting a good degree is more important than any other of the things I've brought up individually. You, however, seem to think that anything that isn't individually very important is so negligibly unimportant that it should never be brought up in your presence. Everything else being equal, you are more likely to be financially successful in life (to pick a common metric) if you spend four years at a good college prior to getting a good bachelors than you are if you spend two years at a local small college and then transfer. If you think I am wrong, then in lieu of some serious data/statistics this is a good point to just agree to disagree. If you think I'm not necessarily wrong, but it's irrelevant, then once again this is simply a good point to agree to disagree. Any reason why you didn't address my last question in the previous post? Was I wrong? No, I think that the government itself should only provide necessities, not luxuries. Because degrees are becoming a necessity for much of society, it is crucial a viable method is in place to ensure people can achieve these degrees. The value argument is super weak in this case because anyone can say something is of value to them. Which is why, once again, it's a luxury. As I said, necessity is a degree of intensity thing... not a binary value. It's certainly more of a necessity to get a good degree if you want a good job than it is to live on campus freshman year, by a long shot. I haven't denied that. The 'value argument' doesn't depend on what people think is of value to them; it's a question of what actually is of value to them. I won't deny this is a tricky thing to quantify. I would love to see any stats you have referring to transfer vs nontransfer students, beyond the insane amount of lurking variables that one would suspect would skew results towards nontransfer students being more financially successful. For example, nontransfer students is more likely to be comprised of the top performing high school students who received scholarships. Nontransfer students are more likely to come from a wealthy background. Nontransfer students (just a guess), being more likely to come from a wealthy background, probably have to spend less time dedicated to a job while simultaneously attending school. Yea this would not be an easy thing to study, but it's possible it's been done... I do not know. You are half right - I attended a four year university without going to community college, but commuted 45 minutes away from home to do so as I could not afford to live on campus without taking out student loans. I am under the impression that the vast majority of people in the United States are financially responsible. I would have loved the freshman experience; in fact, I really, really wanted it. But it was something I recognized as a luxury and not a necessity. Nothing about it was crucial to be a successful person financially. You had to decide where to draw the line... was it worth spending an extra 5-10k a year for you to live on campus? This will vary from person to person. Thus, it's more difficult to justify having the government get involved in making it easier for a student to live on campus freshman year if they choose to (just as an example, once again), but far from impossible, as compared to justifying having the government make good degrees at least attainable in some way by poorer students. You can objectively define degrees by the amount of jobs that require a 4-year bachelors as a prerequisite. How does this counter what I was saying? Your objective definition of 'degrees' is simply a higher number for getting a bachelors than many other things I feel are important to consider when it comes to empowering citizens through education. Just because it's the 'best' doesn't mean it's the only thing that the government should consider having a hand in. Also, you're failing to miss the point I'm making. You're asking "is it of value to the individual." THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION!! The question is "is this financially feasible?" I don't care how much value it is to you - if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. If you take out loans, you have to pay them back - simple. There's no arguing that it's a necessity brought upon by society and thus incurring that debt was unavoidable, which is the premise of the entire argument of this topic! Do you think the government should somehow use public money to help make college more affordable for poorer people? If no, then that explains why I can't understand the point you are making. Whether something is 'avoidable' or not is also not a binary value... there are degrees to which something is avoidable. I unfortunately don't understand your first paragraph how it was written at all... would you mind revising or rewording it maybe? I'm of the opinion government involvement should generally be at a minimum. The government also has used public money to make college significantly more affordable, namely at community colleges where the cost is incredibly small, which is awesome. I am not against making the cost of public (emphasizing as private universities were brought up earlier) much more affordable, as long as it is the tuition cost that is decreased (well, and maybe books). I am wholly against subsidizing the cost of living on campus, etc, although the reducing the most of tuition should relatively make living on campus more affordable, which is a plus/plus. Okay I understand your overall stance better then. The thing I was talking about earlier is really just rehashing the same discussion so I don't think it's even worth clarifying it. You think having access to a four year degree is important enough to justify some government subsidization. You don't think living on campus or starting at your four year school of choice is important enough to justify some government subsidization. That's fine, but I insist that the distinction between the two is still a degree of intensity thing: it's not that one is truly necessary and the other isn't; it's that one has a big affect on your ability to get a job and the other doesn't (have a big affect), among other reasons. Many countries do have the government subsidize university study to the point that even poor students can live on campus. You probably think that's going overboard. I don't think the list of what is/isn't worthy of government subsidization, when it comes to college-level education, that you employ, is non-negotiable. edit to your edit: I've never been trying to justify over-borrowing... just justifying the motivation to take more risk with borrowing than is wise... there is motivation there. another edit: remember, our discussion started because you took a passing comment I was making about why people might feel motivated to enter a debt-heavy lifestyle as a college student... but not why they were justified in doing so. It's not a degree of intensity, as you constantly put it. It's a distinction between necessity and luxury. What is a necessity and what is a luxury is an opinion, or requires a subjective rating system. By the way I made a couple of minor edits since you quoted, although I don't think it changes anything significantly. What you consider a necessity and what you consider a luxury is not what every other person in this discussion would. If there was an absolute way to decide what isn't necessary and what is, then I would agree with you 100%.
As I edited in my previous post as well, sure, there's a grey area if you want. But the entire area is not grey. I cannot possible imagine anyone being able to argue that the "freshman experience" is not a luxury. And if they could, I'm sure they could argue that "Spring Break in Cancun" is just as much a necessity.
The point is you have to be a realist on the matters, especially when it concerns finance. We are a financially irresponsible nation, not keeping within our budget in the remotest of sense, because of overspending. Spending needs to be limited to necessities to keep the budget balanced. Only after its balanced can we look at luxuries. And no, you cannot use "well it's because of defense spending!!" to justify financial irresponsibility elsewhere. Whether or not defense spending or whatever else is actually necessary is irrelevant to the fact it's being spent anyways, and that it's not an available portion of the budget until that's changed. And until it's changed, you have to accept that and realize we don't have the money to spend on what are absolute necessities. As mentioned, it's all about being realistic.
And for the love of god, please do not say "what's realistic to you might not be realistic to someone else."
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United States24651 Posts
On December 15 2012 14:12 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:59 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:57 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:53 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:44 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 sam!zdat wrote:
I would adamantly oppose the notion that the function of education is job training, and that its value can be measured in those terms. You cannot have a functional democracy if you do not educate your citizens. It is therefore the responsibility of any polity that wants to call itself democracy to educate its citizens. Everything you said is wholly subjective. Also, I didn't state that it's necessarily the function of education. I did state it's [close enough of] a necessity for the poor to move up in society in terms of wealth, which is a necessity. The issue with your statement is there is no definitive point at which you can call someone "educated" by what you're implying, as apparently a high school education is not enough. But then would you say someone without a masters isn't educated? A PhD? Don't get me wrong, education should definitely be encouraged. On December 15 2012 13:33 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:20 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ArvickHero wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:02 ArvickHero wrote:
I don't think my freshman dorm experience was "crucial", though it was a huge convenience and a lot of fun. In fact, I know quite a few ppl who got negatively impacted by it .. just my personal perspective Yes this is a very good point actually... I would be interested to see how many people aren't really well-matched with the on campus freshman experience, and were hurt for it in the long run. I assume you could take the drop out rate as the base of the number of ppl negatively impacted by the freshman dorm experience (a lot of assumption I know, but gotta start somewhere), and then there's those who graduate in the end but struggled. I know that for a few of my friends, they dropped out because they were exposed to too much partying/drugs via the freshman dorms, and others fell behind in school work because they felt like they had infinite free time (since you didn't have to cook or commute, and friends really close by, no self control because there's no parents). And there's those who just didn't fit in at all, and felt like even more of an outcast/loner .. resulting in either a negatively impacted psyche or a dropout. Regardless of it having a positive impact, it's still a luxury. Many things that have positive impacts on your lives can be defined as luxuries. Massages/vacations reduce stress, but are a luxury. Video games can be an outlet for those without many friends, but are a luxury. Freshman dorms can be a great way to meet new people a new friends (how exactly is it great for actually networking? Because these friends go places? Don't call that networking then - call it a great place to meet new friends). On December 15 2012 13:19 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:12 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 15 2012 12:52 micronesia wrote:
[quote]
How 'crucial' something is is a value on a spectrum.... you don't need a good college degree to be successful, and you won't be successful just because you have a good degree. However, there's a reason why I'm agreeing getting a good degree is more important than any other of the things I've brought up individually. You, however, seem to think that anything that isn't individually very important is so negligibly unimportant that it should never be brought up in your presence.
Everything else being equal, you are more likely to be financially successful in life (to pick a common metric) if you spend four years at a good college prior to getting a good bachelors than you are if you spend two years at a local small college and then transfer. If you think I am wrong, then in lieu of some serious data/statistics this is a good point to just agree to disagree. If you think I'm not necessarily wrong, but it's irrelevant, then once again this is simply a good point to agree to disagree.
Any reason why you didn't address my last question in the previous post? Was I wrong? No, I think that the government itself should only provide necessities, not luxuries. Because degrees are becoming a necessity for much of society, it is crucial a viable method is in place to ensure people can achieve these degrees. The value argument is super weak in this case because anyone can say something is of value to them. Which is why, once again, it's a luxury. As I said, necessity is a degree of intensity thing... not a binary value. It's certainly more of a necessity to get a good degree if you want a good job than it is to live on campus freshman year, by a long shot. I haven't denied that. The 'value argument' doesn't depend on what people think is of value to them; it's a question of what actually is of value to them. I won't deny this is a tricky thing to quantify. I would love to see any stats you have referring to transfer vs nontransfer students, beyond the insane amount of lurking variables that one would suspect would skew results towards nontransfer students being more financially successful. For example, nontransfer students is more likely to be comprised of the top performing high school students who received scholarships. Nontransfer students are more likely to come from a wealthy background. Nontransfer students (just a guess), being more likely to come from a wealthy background, probably have to spend less time dedicated to a job while simultaneously attending school. Yea this would not be an easy thing to study, but it's possible it's been done... I do not know. You are half right - I attended a four year university without going to community college, but commuted 45 minutes away from home to do so as I could not afford to live on campus without taking out student loans. I am under the impression that the vast majority of people in the United States are financially responsible. I would have loved the freshman experience; in fact, I really, really wanted it. But it was something I recognized as a luxury and not a necessity. Nothing about it was crucial to be a successful person financially. You had to decide where to draw the line... was it worth spending an extra 5-10k a year for you to live on campus? This will vary from person to person. Thus, it's more difficult to justify having the government get involved in making it easier for a student to live on campus freshman year if they choose to (just as an example, once again), but far from impossible, as compared to justifying having the government make good degrees at least attainable in some way by poorer students. You can objectively define degrees by the amount of jobs that require a 4-year bachelors as a prerequisite. How does this counter what I was saying? Your objective definition of 'degrees' is simply a higher number for getting a bachelors than many other things I feel are important to consider when it comes to empowering citizens through education. Just because it's the 'best' doesn't mean it's the only thing that the government should consider having a hand in. Also, you're failing to miss the point I'm making. You're asking "is it of value to the individual." THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION!! The question is "is this financially feasible?" I don't care how much value it is to you - if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. If you take out loans, you have to pay them back - simple. There's no arguing that it's a necessity brought upon by society and thus incurring that debt was unavoidable, which is the premise of the entire argument of this topic! Do you think the government should somehow use public money to help make college more affordable for poorer people? If no, then that explains why I can't understand the point you are making. Whether something is 'avoidable' or not is also not a binary value... there are degrees to which something is avoidable. I unfortunately don't understand your first paragraph how it was written at all... would you mind revising or rewording it maybe? I'm of the opinion government involvement should generally be at a minimum. The government also has used public money to make college significantly more affordable, namely at community colleges where the cost is incredibly small, which is awesome. I am not against making the cost of public (emphasizing as private universities were brought up earlier) much more affordable, as long as it is the tuition cost that is decreased (well, and maybe books). I am wholly against subsidizing the cost of living on campus, etc, although the reducing the most of tuition should relatively make living on campus more affordable, which is a plus/plus. Okay I understand your overall stance better then. The thing I was talking about earlier is really just rehashing the same discussion so I don't think it's even worth clarifying it. You think having access to a four year degree is important enough to justify some government subsidization. You don't think living on campus or starting at your four year school of choice is important enough to justify some government subsidization. That's fine, but I insist that the distinction between the two is still a degree of intensity thing: it's not that one is truly necessary and the other isn't; it's that one has a big affect on your ability to get a job and the other doesn't (have a big affect), among other reasons. Many countries do have the government subsidize university study to the point that even poor students can live on campus. You probably think that's going overboard. I don't think the list of what is/isn't worthy of government subsidization, when it comes to college-level education, that you employ, is non-negotiable. edit to your edit: I've never been trying to justify over-borrowing... just justifying the motivation to take more risk with borrowing than is wise... there is motivation there. another edit: remember, our discussion started because you took a passing comment I was making about why people might feel motivated to enter a debt-heavy lifestyle as a college student... but not why they were justified in doing so. It's not a degree of intensity, as you constantly put it. It's a distinction between necessity and luxury. What is a necessity and what is a luxury is an opinion, or requires a subjective rating system. By the way I made a couple of minor edits since you quoted, although I don't think it changes anything significantly. What you consider a necessity and what you consider a luxury is not what every other person in this discussion would. If there was an absolute way to decide what isn't necessary and what is, then I would agree with you 100%. As I edited in my previous post as well, sure, there's a grey area if you want. But the entire area is not grey. I cannot possible imagine anyone being able to argue that the "freshman experience" is not a luxury. And if they could, I'm sure they could argue that "Spring Break in Cancun" is just as much a necessity. The point is you have to be a realist on the matters, especially when it concerns finance. We are a financially irresponsible nation, not keeping within our budget in the remotest of sense, because of overspending. Spending needs to be limited to necessities to keep the budget balanced. Only after its balanced can we look at luxuries. And no, you cannot use "well it's because of defense spending!!" to justify financial irresponsibility elsewhere. Whether or not defense spending or whatever else is actually necessary is irrelevant to the fact it's being spent anyways, and that it's not an available portion of the budget until that's changed. And until it's changed, you have to accept that and realize we don't have the money to spend on what are absolute necessities. As mentioned, it's all about being realistic. And for the love of god, please do not say "what's realistic to you might not be realistic to someone else."
Hahaha don't worry I wasn't planning on saying that. I agree with you in a general sense about financial responsibility for the country.
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college is not what's irresponsible about our nation. we can debt finance mindless consumption but we can't educate our fucking children? give me a motherfucking break
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United States24651 Posts
On December 15 2012 14:13 sam!zdat wrote:
college is not what's irresponsible about our nation. we can debt finance mindless consumption but we can't educate our fucking children? give me a motherfucking break
Yes there is definitely a lot of preferential treatment of other people/entities over 18 year old non-wealthy people, when it comes to financial backing by the government.
I'm looking forward to the college debt bail-out that will never happen XD
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On December 15 2012 14:13 sam!zdat wrote:
college is not what's irresponsible about our nation. we can debt finance mindless consumption but we can't educate our fucking children? give me a motherfucking break
You have massive reading comprehension issues. Also you typically aren't a child by the time you hit college.
I will give you the break you requested. I suggest you utilize it to read prior posts.
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You're not even a good sophist.
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we can't change things until they change, so lets change these other things until the other things change.
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On December 15 2012 14:23 sam!zdat wrote:
we can't change things until they change, so lets change these other things until the other things change.
My initial statement appears to be correct. Your problem lies with reading comprehension issues. It being accompanied by some nonsensical dribble makes it even more amusing.
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this one is my favorite:
On December 15 2012 14:12 FabledIntegral wrote:
We are a financially irresponsible nation, not keeping within our budget in the remotest of sense, because of overspending.
a fine mind for the perception of causation! We do not keep within our budget! Why??? overspending!!!!
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On December 15 2012 14:33 sam!zdat wrote:this one is my favorite: Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 14:12 FabledIntegral wrote:
We are a financially irresponsible nation, not keeping within our budget in the remotest of sense, because of overspending. a fine mind for the perception of causation! We do not keep within our budget! Why??? overspending!!!!
Apparently I need some "redundant repetition" for you to grasp the meaning. Duly noted.
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English-Creative Writing Major winging it =D
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The biggest problem to me seems to be that prospective students are not very good at deciding if a particular education is a good investment. So we see people spending hundreds of thousands going to an ivy league school getting a degree in Women's Studies (to take an extreme example). And then complain that they can't pay off their loans. How in the world did these people ever imagine that they would pay off their loans? Or did they just not think about it at all?
Prices for tuition have skyrocketed, but prospective students seem willing to keep paying. This I don't understand. There needs to be a real shift in they way people look at education. Many people seem to have the philosophy that they'll just go to school and figure out the purpose later. In fact I did that -- but my tuition was only $5,000 per year so it was a bit more reasonable.
People who are thinking about going to school should have a good hard look at whether the program will be worth it. Will it increase their earning potential enough to justify the cost and the time away from their current opportunities? Or, if not, will the enrichment they get make it "worth it" in a non-monetary sense? But I don't think people who can't afford to pay back their loans have any right to complain if they didn't think ahead.
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On December 15 2012 14:56 ziggurat wrote:
The biggest problem to me seems to be that prospective students are not very good at deciding if a particular education is a good investment. So we see people spending hundreds of thousands going to an ivy league school getting a degree in Women's Studies (to take an extreme example). And then complain that they can't pay off their loans. How in the world did these people ever imagine that they would pay off their loans? Or did they just not think about it at all?
Prices for tuition have skyrocketed, but prospective students seem willing to keep paying. This I don't understand. There needs to be a real shift in they way people look at education. Many people seem to have the philosophy that they'll just go to school and figure out the purpose later. In fact I did that -- but my tuition was only $5,000 per year so it was a bit more reasonable.
People who are thinking about going to school should have a good hard look at whether the program will be worth it. Will it increase their earning potential enough to justify the cost and the time away from their current opportunities? Or, if not, will the enrichment they get make it "worth it" in a non-monetary sense? But I don't think people who can't afford to pay back their loans have any right to complain if they didn't think ahead.
More or less what I've been advocating the past few threads.
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On December 14 2012 06:22 chenchen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2012 05:59 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 14 2012 01:01 Stratos_speAr wrote:On December 14 2012 00:22 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 14 2012 00:06 micronesia wrote:
You can get pretty much unlimited student loans, unlike almost any other type of loan which requires credit worthiness, collateral, etc. The reason why is because there's no way for a college student to become credit worthy by 18, but we still need people getting college degrees, and don't want a caste system. It's kind of a no-in situation, though.
edit: By the way, I agree that you can save a lot of money by attending a local community college but there are two drawbacks:
1) Less prestige meaning harder to get a good job down the road
2) You miss that freshman year on campus experience which can be an important part of a person's life
One of my friends by the way got his undergrad pretty much for free on academic merit, then financed a masters from Carnegie Mellon U entirely on loans, and owes a LOT of money now... he immediately got a six figure job upon graduating and won't have any trouble paying it back.... this is the system we have right now. 1) is irrelevant with guaranteed transfer programs to a 4-year university.2) is a terrible argument. They don't get an awesome experience...? I've never been to Hawaii.... should that be covered?? If you can't afford it, you can't afford it. The purpose of covering people's education isn't so they can have a good time, it's so they can get a quality education. It isn't irrelevant because any guaranteed transfers are transfers to places that give you little to no competitive edge aside from actually having the degree (and in some cases, employers will think, "Why did he get a degree from such an easy school when so many other applicants went to better schools?") What? Some of the best public schools in the nation are guaranteed transfer schools (TAG - Transfer Admission Guaranteed). Just in California, UCSD (ranked 8th in the nation), UCD (also tied for 8th in the nation), UCSB (10th in the nation), UCI (12th in the nation), UCSC (32nd in the nation), UCR (46th in the nation) all participate. Univeristy of Virginia, ranked 3rd in the nation, has TAG. Georgia Institute of Technology, ranked 7th in the nation, has TAG. University of Wisconsin - Madison, ranked 10th in the nation, has TAG. Before I manually check anymore for your blatant disregard for fact checking, that means out of the top 12 univerisities in the nation, 7 of them have guaranteed transfer programs. Please don't tell me you're limited. And that's not to mention beyond the most prestigious univeristies, the general state schools all have them as well. Not to mention these are only the schools with guanteed transfer programs - nothing is preventing you from applying to other premier schools like UC Berekely (#1) or UCLA (#2) that have ~26-29% transfer acceptance rates. On December 14 2012 00:27 micronesia wrote:On December 14 2012 00:22 FabledIntegral wrote:On December 14 2012 00:06 micronesia wrote:
You can get pretty much unlimited student loans, unlike almost any other type of loan which requires credit worthiness, collateral, etc. The reason why is because there's no way for a college student to become credit worthy by 18, but we still need people getting college degrees, and don't want a caste system. It's kind of a no-in situation, though.
edit: By the way, I agree that you can save a lot of money by attending a local community college but there are two drawbacks:
1) Less prestige meaning harder to get a good job down the road
2) You miss that freshman year on campus experience which can be an important part of a person's life
One of my friends by the way got his undergrad pretty much for free on academic merit, then financed a masters from Carnegie Mellon U entirely on loans, and owes a LOT of money now... he immediately got a six figure job upon graduating and won't have any trouble paying it back.... this is the system we have right now. 1) is irrelevant with guaranteed transfer programs to a 4-year university. 2) is a terrible argument. They don't get an awesome experience...? I've never been to Hawaii.... should that be covered?? If you can't afford it, you can't afford it. The purpose of covering people's education isn't so they can have a good time, it's so they can get a quality education. I was pointing out drawbacks, not arguments for why you should have to pay for me to go to college, or anything like that. No need to be so argumentative. They are both indeed drawbacks. Transferring to a school is not as good as being there, as it messes up the progression of your program in many cases, and gives you less seniority for lots of other things they offer such as, for example, being a resident assistant, which can save you lots of money. Furthermore you miss out on the experience I referred to in #2. Again, you shouldn't be calling it an 'argument' as it was just an advantage of going to a four year 'away' school off the bat, not an argument. Drawbacks in the sense that you "don''t get a fun experience" is wholly irrelevant to this topic. Just like I'm not bringing up it's a drawback I didn't ever go to Cancun for Spring Break and get the "experience" during college. The discussion is revolving around opportunities and alternatives available to students/prospective students and their ability to finance education. Transferring to a school has negligible disadvantages, I can't even believe you brought up RA as an example, which makes up an insanely minute proportion of the population that it becomes negligble. Also, most schools give transfer students seniority over existing students for class selection. Beyond that, there really aren't almost any distinguishable differences I'm aware of. All of the schools you named with "TAG" are complete crap except maybe UVA in terms of employment opportunity, rigorous curriculum, and graduate admissions opportunity compared to schools that are actually good. Berkeley and UCLA are decent, but admissions for community college transfers is far from guaranteed and transfer students start at such awful positions that it is almost impossible though not entirely unlikely to match the academic rigour of the schedules of students admitted directly from high school. While name dropping these "top universities," you fail to consider the fact that top private universities and liberal arts colleges in the US are much more competitive, much more selective, oftentimes much more rigorous despite accusations of grade inflation, and provide much more opportunities in post-undergrad life. UCSD and UCD aren't "top 12," . . .they wouldn't even be top 50 if you consider "good" private universities like the eight ivies, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Hopkins, WashU, Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Rice, Georgetown, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, and the hordes of good liberal arts colleges that provide excellent undergrad education . . . . So no, going to community college is not a very good path into good universities. I guess it can be a decent path into decent universities, but good universities draw undergrads overwhelmingly exclusively from high schools.
ucsd (and i believe UCD)
are both top 50 universities. even considering those schools...at least based on the metric that US news provides which is what most universities (and students) are going by.
if ur talking about highly selective schools with good education (smith, swathmore, pomona college, etc..., those aren't even ranked in the same category (due to them not offering Ph.D. programs, not being 'research universities'. the only reason its not as important to major in a 'harder major' in these schools is because the re they have built is enough to get their 'liberal arts majors' hired at big companies that other students at other univeriities typically don't get.
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On December 15 2012 14:56 ziggurat wrote:
The biggest problem to me seems to be that prospective students are not very good at deciding if a particular education is a good investment. So we see people spending hundreds of thousands going to an ivy league school getting a degree in Women's Studies (to take an extreme example). And then complain that they can't pay off their loans. How in the world did these people ever imagine that they would pay off their loans? Or did they just not think about it at all?
Prices for tuition have skyrocketed, but prospective students seem willing to keep paying. This I don't understand. There needs to be a real shift in they way people look at education. Many people seem to have the philosophy that they'll just go to school and figure out the purpose later. In fact I did that -- but my tuition was only $5,000 per year so it was a bit more reasonable.
People who are thinking about going to school should have a good hard look at whether the program will be worth it. Will it increase their earning potential enough to justify the cost and the time away from their current opportunities? Or, if not, will the enrichment they get make it "worth it" in a non-monetary sense? But I don't think people who can't afford to pay back their loans have any right to complain if they didn't think ahead.
Pretty much sums it up nicely here.
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On December 15 2012 14:56 ziggurat wrote:
The biggest problem to me seems to be that prospective students are not very good at deciding if a particular education is a good investment. So we see people spending hundreds of thousands going to an ivy league school getting a degree in Women's Studies (to take an extreme example). And then complain that they can't pay off their loans. How in the world did these people ever imagine that they would pay off their loans? Or did they just not think about it at all?
Prices for tuition have skyrocketed, but prospective students seem willing to keep paying. This I don't understand. There needs to be a real shift in they way people look at education. Many people seem to have the philosophy that they'll just go to school and figure out the purpose later. In fact I did that -- but my tuition was only $5,000 per year so it was a bit more reasonable.
People who are thinking about going to school should have a good hard look at whether the program will be worth it. Will it increase their earning potential enough to justify the cost and the time away from their current opportunities? Or, if not, will the enrichment they get make it "worth it" in a non-monetary sense? But I don't think people who can't afford to pay back their loans have any right to complain if they didn't think ahead.
I agree that if someone is spending that much for that subject, that it's crazy. But once you move away from the extremes its a little more tricky. In the UK, a lot of our greatest rock bands (and those most successful commercially) took Fine Art degrees, which are the posterchild for 'degrees that sound like a waste of money'.
There are a lot of people who by living in the university environment, and studying something they find fascinating, eventually do turn out to have made a good investment. But it's one that's hard to predict, and asking 18 year olds to view university in terms of earning potential, or 'true value' is something few will be able to do. It's something a lot of graduates with the benefit of hindsight still find hard to gauge.
But, with the modern day fees being so high, something does need to change...maybe online learning will lead to some kind of cheaper hybrid universities, which will let people expand their mind without putting themselves into debt for the next 20 years.
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EPT
