That said, university level education needs a symbolic cost attached to it and stern time constraints or people just pretend to study while partying and slacking.
Should education be free? - Page 8
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Do not derail the thread with discussions about other topics like global warming. | ||
Kickboxer
Slovenia1308 Posts
That said, university level education needs a symbolic cost attached to it and stern time constraints or people just pretend to study while partying and slacking. | ||
bayside871
United States13 Posts
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Carras
Argentina860 Posts
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nBk
174 Posts
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sluggaslamoo
Australia4494 Posts
Only problem is elections run on a 3 or 4 year cycle, so they only see that far ahead. Seems like every country is cutting on education funding these days because it doesn't get them votes. | ||
Talin
Montenegro10532 Posts
But yes, education at all levels should definitely be a right, not a privilege. | ||
obesechicken13
United States10467 Posts
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Mecker
Sweden219 Posts
On March 13 2012 19:31 obesechicken13 wrote: A full meritocracy has flaws as well. For one it allows foreigners to overpopulated the best schools leading to diasatisfaction from the locals. For another merit can often be games through sat classes and grade inflation. There's a lot of corruption and guidelines that need to be set on the mission statement of schools before all schools can be funded by taxes, research and endowments solely. Yeah that's a given. Not very hard to accomplish though. | ||
Batch
Sweden692 Posts
The state pays for the education: Higher taxes. Everyone is able to get a good education. Possibility to climb to a higher social class through education. Students can be lazy and draw out on their education without being affected by it. Students pays for their own education: Lower taxes. Not everyone will be able to get a good education. The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. (more or less) Students get pressured to complete their educations since they are spending their own money on it. | ||
Archie_Lewis
Czech Republic87 Posts
I think there is one big problem with tuition fees. You can say "oh well, we can afford to pay a bit." But once the fees are established, they will start rising. Eventually, education will be only for the rich, just like few centuries ago. The problem of USA is that they spend all they money on military so there are no money left for the people. | ||
Vinland
Argentina136 Posts
Having your choice to be whatever the fuck you want, despite of your initial economic/social status is amazing, and even if it means getting raped with taxes later, i wouldnt change that for nothing. It gives you the chance to get as far as you want in life, depending on the effort you put in the things you do, and not on where were you born/if your family can afford, so i think its a really positive thing for any society. We have free college here, and its pretty damn good education. Most medics/buisnessmen/scientists here studied on Buenos Aires university. There are some private choices, but most of them are "pay for easy title" and are for rich kids who dont give a fuck about learning anything. We do have some heavy taxes though. | ||
paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On March 13 2012 16:01 Ercster wrote: I'm cool with the theoretical American version of public schooling. This is were your taxes pay for the public education system, only k-12, though (I would want it to go through to the public colleges as well). And private schooling requires the individual to pay for their education. The current problem America has is that the government keeps spending money poorly, and education is suffering because of it. On to an unrelated problem I have with the education process in America. In k-8, you learn the basic knowledge of important subjects such as math, english, and science. And in 9-12, it gets more advanced with those subjects, and you get a variety of other classes which help you determine what you want to major in when you attend college. However, when you attend college, you have to do the same thing as you did in 9-12. I'm majoring in engineering, yet one of the english requirements has to deal with poetry. This serves no purpose for me. I don't see the need for poetry, and 10 engineers that I've spoken with have never used poetry in their entire career, yet I'm still required to take it. These useless classes are a waste of not only my money, but my time. Another problem I have is with homework. Homework, in its literal form, is practice. Why is it required that I practice? Teachers have agreed with me on this point, yet they still tell me I needed to do it. We go to school to learn, and are graded by how well we retained that knowledge. So, if I choose not to practice, yet am capable of retaining all of the information that was given, I shouldn't be punished. I don't know what weirdo uni you go to, but I've never had to do a course that I found had absolutely no educational value, like poetry for engineers (lol). I've also never been forced to do homework at uni, no one cares if you do it or not. On the topic of this thread, uni probably shouldn't be free, otherwise you'd get some people feeling like they are obligated to go to uni, while they have no place being there. Uni isn't for everyone. I like the Australian system, where the only thing that determines entries is your mark, and the government offers everyone a loan to defer all costs. You don't have to pay back this loan until you earn over ~$40k a year And since it automatically comes out of your tax, uni feels free. | ||
Psychobabas
2531 Posts
Everyday we see money wasted by our government while education is just pushed back on the to-do list. I was one of the lucky ones, I only paid £1,000 per year for my Bachelor 13 years ago. Now, students are paying almost £9,000 per year. The way I see it, a degree or equivelant qualification has become an absolute requirement to enter the job market. And since there is so much competition in the UK, young people cant go anywhere without it, hence the prices get inflated. Sad state of affairs to be a 22 year old and begin your life with £30,000 of debt. | ||
Zariel
Australia1277 Posts
Australia is awesome in terms of university education as poster mentioned above. I just got my accounting degree and the only shit i had to fork out for was parking permit and textbooks. Education should be entirely free up to tertiary. School is important as it lays the foundation of intelligence (essentially a bottom line). Countries without free education will have a severe income gap where a few portion of people would be filthy rich and everyone else struggling to eat. | ||
Uldridge
Belgium4255 Posts
But that's because my father is quite poor.. Nonetheless.. I'm comfortably gaining money each year to study and I love it. It's to cover expenses (dorm, food, ..) but I waste so little money I can save a very large sum to my bank account. Plus I work a little here and there so I hardly spend any money. Also, I think education should be free or fees should be held as low as possible. If a government is smart they should spend less money (indeed like some previous posters have mentioned) on military and more on education, so their students won't flee the country for better opportunities. That being said, I think the USA is still running on it's "golden image of wealth and prosperity" to keep these educational fees running. But this will not keep going forever. Once the world becomes more united and war, violence and all that bad shit becomes rare, the US should reflect upon their military budget and perhaps make their glorious nation of once shine again. | ||
Tdelamay
Canada548 Posts
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Chaosvuistje
Netherlands2581 Posts
Education itself shouldn't put you into an enormous debt like in the U.S. You have to educate yourself to even compete with the world, so it's pretty backward to get in the workforce that drives a nation forward, you have to be in debt for a long period of time, putting you in a disadvantageous spot from the getgo in both situations. | ||
DarkPlasmaBall
United States42223 Posts
On March 13 2012 19:49 Batch wrote: In the end someone always pays for the education. The question is more about if education should be available to everyone or just the ones in the upper social classes. The state pays for the education: Higher taxes. Everyone is able to get a good education. Possibility to climb to a higher social class through education. Students can be lazy and draw out on their education without being affected by it. Students pays for their own education: Lower taxes. Not everyone will be able to get a good education. The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. (more or less) Students get pressured to complete their educations since they are spending their own money on it. I like how you broke down each side into the pros and cons, rather than a simple Yes or No answer. It makes it a lot easier to assess the situations. As an American educator who's taking the full route of graduate studies (all the way to the doctoral level), I'd love for education to be free all across the board, because I believe it's one of the most important things a person can have. That being said, I find your counterpoint of motivation a very good one. When people have to spend their own money on a product, they best understand the benefit of it and are most motivated to use it. I hope that people will take education as seriously as possible, even if it's free/ very cheap (and I think there are a few countries that exhibit this behavior and support this idea, like Sweden and Finland). | ||
SnipedSoul
Canada2158 Posts
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Cereb
Denmark3388 Posts
Though I do have to pay for my own books! Oh the horror! | ||
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