• Obama to propose 2 free years of community college for everybody
    98 replies, posted
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;46896218]Look, I think your forgetting one huge important factor here. Time. Lots of people would not go through college simply because it takes away 4+ years. If America is something, it's fucking lazy. I mean look at the Scandinavian countries. They have free Secondary education and they aren't the way you described. This is not even mentioning the fact that any college degree is already extremely devalued.[/QUOTE] That's exactly the point. Americans are lazy. College is easier than work by a fairly large margin. If the case was simply that most people will choose the easiest route, that route would be taking 2 years of community college for free, where they can be a "full time student" and have an excuse to stay with their parents and not work (or stay on campus and party every weekend - some community colleges do offer on campus housing). I won't disagree with the fact that college degrees are already devalued, but this would cause an associates degree to lose any amount of value whatsoever. It will simply become a requirement to work. And even if what you said was true, I still don't see any merits in the idea. It will still be paid for, and more importantly, you will continue paying for it long after you have your degree. Hell, whether you get a degree or not, you will be paying for it anyways. It's not going to cut down on costs. It's just going to cause a massive influx of new students, and inevitably lower the quality of education at community colleges to an even more abysmal level than it already is. Even if "lots of people" don't go to college, it would be absurd to assume the number of students attending community college wouldn't increase dramatically if it suddenly became free. I'm going to go ahead and clear this up by saying I wouldn't be entirely upset with this if the education that would be obtained through attending two years of community college was even worth batting an eye at. I legitimately can't understand for the life of me why an employer would even care about a degree considering the information students get in a college setting. Most of the things I've learned in college have actually been more detrimental than helpful in my career. The current level of education obtained in community college does not benefit the average person whatsoever. As a result, this policy would simply force the working public to attend community college against their will, wasting 2 years of their life for information that (most likely) isn't even remotely useful in their field. I would probably think somewhat differently if the quality of education in community colleges was even a little bit decent. As it stands, like I've said, I see no merits in this idea whatsoever. Whether or not my speculations turn out to be correct (as most of what I've said is just speculation), there will certainly be a cost involved in this. Most likely, the cost will be roughly equivalent or potentially greater than simply paying for your two years in community college, just spread out over the course of your taxpaying life. And for what? A free two years of wasted time? I just don't understand the point.
[QUOTE=Bonde;46899876]A good way to make it capitalist again is making it [I]paid[/I], like here in Denmark for example. Seriously, I get [I]paid [/I]1000$ a month for taking a Candidate degree in Computer Science and I don't have to pay the University anything.[/QUOTE] Does the university get paid for how many students it graduates or something?
[QUOTE=tidus1112;46903462]-words-[/QUOTE] I still very much disagree with this. I have learned far more at my current community college than I ever did at my 4 year university. Almost all my classes are extensive labs that I get direct experience with tons of different hardware. We've got racks and racks of routers and switches running the latest IOS with instructors working in field able to guide me through hours of labs a week, as well as running anything we may need in VM's, as all the systems I have access to have i7 920's or i5 2500's with midrange GPU's and 6-8gb of RAM. I get experience in many areas that directly translates to on the job activities. I have classes that have me setting up and managing active directory, large networks, hardening and exploring vulnerabilities in the most recent server OS's. Granted yes, there are community college two year degrees that are worthless, if you get a basic AA it will not help you anywhere in life, but I think it's rather idiotic to dismiss education at the community college level as a whole. If these two years were free, I would be able to take even more classes a semester, and it would greatly reduce financial strain of even just paying for 7-10 credit hours a semester from my hard earned money.
Like others, I've had great experiences with community colleges. While very different from a university, academically the class content and the quality of education is just as good (if not better considering teacher to student ratios at some community colleges). Why not save yourself thousands of dollars? Not to boast but I'm going to a community college and working part time at a job that pays extremely well. My plan is to save up for the next year and a half so I can transfer to a four year university where I'll finish my major and maybe pick up a minor. If I do things right, I'll be able to pay for an entire year without loans, and the next year I'll rely on some minimal loans to help me through. That way any of the loans I do have to pay off will be short-term and free of debt. Then I can focus on my career, my house, wife, car, dog, luxuries, whatever's going on at that point in my life. I'm going into a field with an average middle-class salary (50-70k), so to me my path seems manageable and appropriate in what I think would provide me financial and personal success and stability. Not that anyone really gives a shit, but there's my personal input on why I think this could be a very good step for many people. Even if this doesn't work out, why not issue more grants? Either way the government would have to spend money.
Fuck I'm already half way done :v:
Even if people didn't benefit off of an associates degree job-wise(which they don't), having a more educated population has many benefits when we are a country governed by its people.
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;46904375]Does the university get paid for how many students it graduates or something?[/QUOTE] They get paid by the government depending on how many students they have enrolled and how many professors they have doing research. That means the universities are purely funded by the taxpayers. People get accepted to their line of study based on their previous grades and experience (Think grades from High School and such). The more popular the line of study is, the higher the average grade is required to get in, so it is only affected by "supply" and demand.
[QUOTE=Ignhelper;46887405]Watch as Republicans call him a communist for making education free[/QUOTE] Define 'free'. Will he pay for it himself? What a good guy. OH you mean it will be financed through taxation.
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