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Posted Sep 5, 2003 by Advocatus Diaboli
We already have a system (albeit heavily simplified of late) of progressive taxation, whereby the more you are paid, the more, proportionately, you pay. This would already seem to adequately cope with the notion of graduates financially benefitting from their education: that benefit directly translates into a benefit for the state.
I would support the idea of state-funded education to whatever level the individual can demonstrably benefit from: broadly speaking, as long as you can pass the exams. The problem area then becomes adult education: courses taken in later life. Do we separate those catching up on a missed opportunity from earlier in their lives from those using it as a leisure facility, and if so, how?
 
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Posted Sep 5, 2003 by Yvonne
I work in an education environment, administration and stuff. All our courses are chargable though fees may be reduced or cleared entirely for assorted reasons ie benefits. One of the ways that course costs are covered is by an employer paying some or all of the fees for the student. This will only work for some students but it all helps.
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Posted Sep 6, 2003 by gareis
To whom must the students demonstrate the benefits they would gain through that degree? Current admissions systems work well: they only accept the best of the available students. That's how it works around here. Out in California, on the other hand, there's a racial bias, and white people are discriminated against.
Of course, that sort of discrimination happens everywhere and all the time. There are national councils for black people of every profession, for Hispanic people of many professions, but none for Jewish people or Slavs or Germanic people...
Anyway, about colleges and financing them. Most students are not wealthy enough to go through college without taking out loans or working to pay for it. That prevents some who do not truly wish to attend from attending. It's a good thing.
Should universities have more funding? Yes, they probably should. What government programs should suffer for this? (I'm against raising taxes. It's my money; I earned it, not the government.) Well, let's put it another way. What should the government be doing?
- Defense. The country must be safe from foreign invaders.
- Police. The citizens have to be protected from criminals.
- FDA. The citizens should not have dangerous products sold to them as cures.
- Roads. Travel is integral to the economy.
- Medical aid. It shouldn't cost an arm and a leg to stop an infection.
- Education. The citizens should be able to get a good education at a fair cost.
Note that it's "a good education", not "the best education available". That would require a large amount of money, and the marginal cost outweighs the marginal gain. Also note that it's "a fair cost". It isn't unreasonable to ask someone to pay for their postsecondary education; otherwise, everyone would go to uni without thought as to whether it would be a good thing, whether he'd benefit.
~gareis
Join the Coalition of Latvian Plumbers today!
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Posted Sep 8, 2003 by Advocatus Diaboli
Your point on racism would be a valid one if only the playing field had been levelled by the Civil War and Emancipation Declaration, or even the Equal Rights Amendment. The sad fact is that it hasn't.
I think I gave passing exams as a measure of deriving benefit from education: it seems reasonable as at least prima facie evidence that you're learning something: if only "how to pass exams". Financial gain may be harder to measure and probably non-existent for a lot of cases, but life is about more than money.
Interesting priorities for a US citizen (as I gather from the references and spelling). It's arguable that the US is vastly over-defended for the actual risk of invasion; given the long-standing peace treaties with the only two nations that have ever tried it in the past. It is also arguable that a better educated populace would be less criminally inclined, less susceptible to false advertising and quackery, more cognisant of the benefits of staying put and healthier....
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Posted Sep 10, 2003 by gareis
I don't think race should be factored at all. I think the university shouldn't even ask what race you are. That way, they couldn't possibly be accused of or victim to racism.
I've never seen racism hurting black people or Chinese or Hispanics or even Latvians. (Don't get me started on left-handed Lithuanians, though.) I've never seen physical harm done to anyone for racist reasons, and I've only heard of it sporadically. It's not a big problem. There are isolated incidents, but there will always be such incidents as long as people have belly buttons.
Point taken about passing exams.
Note that those priorities were in no particular order. Here's an ordered list:
- Defense
- Police
- Education
- Medical aid
- Roads
- FDA
You wouldn't have a country if you didn't defend it at need, and you wouldn't have much of one without police. Education is required for an enlightened country, and medical care helps the people out. Good roads allow you to fund everything else, and a food-drug organization helps with medcare.
What benefits are there to staying put? And the rest can be solved if the average person becomes more suspicious.
~gareis
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Posted Sep 10, 2003 by Advocatus Diaboli
Race would not be a factor in an ideal world, but then we don't live there. It will take time for the legacy of past iniquities to pass away, if indeed it ever does. At some point isolated incidents shade over into a serious endemic problem. Where that point is depends who the incidents happen to.
I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with the need to defend your nation (although nationalism is not an unalloyed benefit to humanity to put it mildly) merely gently trying to point out that the resources devoted to it are somewhat in excess of requirement.
The problem of left-handed Lithuanians is clearly a case for UN intervention
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Posted Sep 10, 2003 by gareis
The legacy of past iniquities will never fade. Someone will always try to benefit from the most recent until there's another one, after which another group of victims' descendants displaces the previous one. People seek benefit wherever they can find it. Some seek it at the expense of others, and sometimes they target a particular portion of the population--usually the upper middle class or small business owners, the type of people who would have a good amount of money and little protection. Sometimes, people are stupid and strike out at what's different. I don't understand it.
If the universities ignore race completely rather than "striving to create a diverse learning environment" -- note that "diverse" can mean "chaotic" due to lack of sameness and reliability -- they'll have better reputations academically. Of course, a large amount of liberals would then attack those universities for only accepting deserving students. It isn't a charity, even though state schools don't operate to make money. Prestige is the goal.
Nationalism doesn't benefit the whole of humanity. On the other hand, a single country shouldn't look out for the whole of humanity; it should only care for its own citizens. When human rights are being violated on a large scale, though, an organization such as the UN has a responsibility to call for action against the people violating those rights.
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