Why Free College is Bad Idea

[May90]

Of course college should be free

But maybe we don't need to be teaching weird subjects like television studies, gender studies, history of art, video game playtesting etc - things that aren't useful

I even think we should go easy on some of the humanities like philosophy, poetry or theology

Hard sciences, social sciences like economics or accounting, mathematics, even astronomy being free is great

Meritocracy > all

Without philosophy, mathematics and physics wouldn't exist historically. Just saying.

[Elegiac]

People act like a college degree is necessary. Its not.

Clearly you have neither looked for a job recently or are totally unacquainted with contemporary HR recruitment practices.

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If your Poor. And you want to go to college. Then get up off your ass. get a job, get 2 jobs. Work your ass off and save up. Go to a community college. Get a Associates Degree. Transfer to a 4 year school. Get some scholorships, loans, and work another job. Pay your own way through.

Exactly how are they supposed to be attending college while working two jobs? Especially since higher paying jobs require tertiary qualification and there is no way you can 'save up' sufficient money even by working two jobs.

[Aphrel]

Everyone who wants to should be able to get a college degree.
What will filter out the pests will simply be the difficulty of it. There will never be a scenario where everyone has a phd because the majority of ppl simply dont have what it takes for it (lack of ambition, lack of will, to lazy or in some rare occasions lack of intellect).
Gettign a degre is something you need to work for but it should definetly be availible for everyone. To have a system where only the rich can get an education is horrible.

[Cthulhu 2020]

See, I would be more inclined to support increased subsidization of college if that was the case here. I'm not down with giving "free" (not free for anyone else) college for every C average student going for a lesbian dance theory degree

The amount of people who go for useless liberal arts degrees are greatly exaggerated, often for the purpose of arguing against the state paying for college.

But sure, I'd be all for the state funding mostly what you consider "useful" degrees and then like 0.1% dance theory degrees... since that's currently the norm anyway.

[Deleted]

We get 3000 kr a month for studying in Sweden. And you got oil money, shame on your government.

yeah in denmark we get around 6300 kr/month while studying (for americans to relate this is around 950-1000 dollars). We also get the option to take a very low interest loan which you don't have to start paying back until 2 years after the education has ended.

This doesn't mean everybody gets a college degree though. But most people do get some sort of education after the equivalent to highschool.

[Deleted]

"Things that aren't useful", i.e. "things I don't like and don't think are socially useful because of a metric I pulled out of my ass".

The humanities are as important to society's function as STEM subjects, point in fact. Moreso, since the economy is largely service based.

No, they really aren't

Things like television studies, gender studies, etc are really just a complete waste of time and money made to give spoiled untalented brats degrees in useless things

It's better to teach those same students plumbing, joinery, carpentry and other useful trades

[Cthulhu 2020]

"Things that aren't useful", i.e. "things I don't like and don't think are socially useful because of a metric I pulled out of my ass".

The humanities are as important to society's function as STEM subjects, point in fact. Moreso, since the economy is largely service based.

That and humanities are already largely a minor percentage of degrees sought. People whining about funding women's studies seem to like to exaggerate just how many of those degrees are actually being handed out.

In my graduating class, the business school was like half the people at the ceremony, and science school was 1/3. It was funny though, when they called the social worker degree, the degree for people who go around and help the poor and disadvantaged, one person stood up. Kind of sad actually. I consider that something that's more needed than the millions of business degrees handed out every year.

I don't see these people whining about business majors who work at McD's though, which is kind of the norm now. It happens all the time, and then they say that degrees aren't needed to get good employment, meanwhile job positions that advertise as needing a bachelor's are hiring masters and PhD's.

[mittacc]

Wait what. I knew you guys in the US had to pay for your education but is that it? You don't need any actual grades? Our universities are free of charge but you compete for the limited spots each year with everyone else that want to go for said program and the ones with the best grades gets them.

[Elegiac]

No, they really aren't

Things like television studies, gender studies, etc are really just a complete waste of time and money made to give idiots degrees in useless things, and better to teach those same students plumbing, joinery, carpentry and other useful trades

Because you say so, right?

Fundamentally what you're saying is that critical analysis of society should be a privilege of the rich, and the plebeians should stick to manual labor.

[Deleted]

"If everyone is special, then no one is special," is literally arguing "if p, then non-p," which is a contradiction and therefore false.

Anything else or can we be done here?

If everyone has a degree, the value of the degree is lower, leading to inflation in degrees.
Jobs that used to require a HS diploma now require a bachelor, for the same job.

[Garnier Fructis]

Wait what. I knew you guys in the US had to pay for your education but is that it? You don't need any actual grades? Our universities are free of charge but you compete for the limited spots each year with everyone else that want to go for said program and the ones with the best grades gets them.

There's definitely steep competition to get into good universities. And some programs that are really popular have some kind of mechanism to weed people out. During my undergrad, the 1st/2nd year physics courses were designed to be very hard in order to force the un-dedicated to drop. I've also heard of CS programs where you have to maintain a high GPA in the first two years or get kicked out of the program.

[Deleted]

Because you say so, right?

Fundamentally what you're saying is that critical analysis of society should be a privilege of the rich, and the plebeians should stick to manual labor.

No - quite the opposite

What I'm saying is those degrees don't do any critical analysis of society and instead are just foolish unrigorous cenjuctural psychobabble for the rich to send their low IQ untalented kids to college

[Elegiac]

What I'm saying is those degrees don't do any critical analysis of society

Clearly you've neither taken media studies or gender studies.

[Deleted]

Clearly you've neither taken media studies or gender studies.

No, I took mathematics/statistics and economics/finance

You know, academic disciplines that aren't made up

[Elegiac]

No, I took mathematics/statistics and economics/finance

You know, academic disciplines that aren't made up

You're aware economics is a social science, yes?

[mittacc]

There's definitely steep competition to get into good universities. And some programs that are really popular have some kind of mechanism to weed people out. During my undergrad, the 1st/2nd year physics courses were designed to be very hard in order to force the un-dedicated to drop. I've also heard of CS programs where you have to maintain a high GPA in the first two years or get kicked out of the program.

How harshly do they weed out people? I'm studying mechanical engineering at our royal institute of technology for one year and so far all our courses has had about a 25% fail rate. It is pretty consistent(so far back I can check) so I suppose that they're trying to weed out people, how does this compare to your university?

[Theinquisition]

The amount of people who go for useless liberal arts degrees are greatly exaggerated, often for the purpose of arguing against the state paying for college.

But sure, I'd be all for the state funding mostly what you consider "useful" degrees and then like 0.1% dance theory degrees... since that's currently the norm anyway.

Well, id be happy finding the reasons college is so expensive in the first place (i.E. gov't backed loans, bloated administration, demand out stripping supply), and work on fixing those instead of just raising everyone's taxes to throw money at a problem.

[Garnier Fructis]

How harshly do they weed out people? I'm studying mechanical engineering at our royal institute of technology for one year and so far all our courses has had about a 25% fail rate. It is pretty consistent(so far back I can check) so I suppose that they're trying to weed out people, how does this compare to your university?

Not that bad. About <10% fail. But mostly that's due to curves at the end of the class. The goal was to get people to leave of their own volition by making tests so difficult as to be demoralizing: average scores below 40%, high scores frequently not being above 80%, etc.

[Deleted]

You're aware economics is a social science, yes?

Yes - there are decent social sciences like economics, finance, accounting, etc

Gender studies, media studies, art appreciation etc are not that - they have zero academic content, and zero usefulness

They are pretty much just a way of sending untalented kids to uni if they can't get degrees in science / econ type subjects

[Garnier Fructis]

Well, id be happy finding the reasons college is so expensive in the first place (i.E. gov't backed loans, bloated administration, demand out stripping supply), and work on fixing those instead of just raising everyone's taxes to throw money at a problem.

I went to a community college where they spent a bunch of money and a lot of years constructing a state of the art... administration building, complete with a tower that literally served no purpose except to look nice. And all we had to give up in return was the majority of summer classes, summer classes that a lot of people desperately needed because they also cut the number of slots in those classes during the normal academic year.