[Novalug] [OT] The farce of the cost of college

Peter Larsen peter@peterlarsen.org
Tue Jun 9 16:43:47 EDT 2015


On 06/08/2015 08:40 PM, Bryan J Smith wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 8, 2015 at 8:17 PM, Peter Larsen via Novalug
> <novalug@firemountain.net> wrote:
>> The way I look at it is, that as a society we cannot afford to have a
>> caste system.
> Caste systems are instituted by governments, not the other way around.  ;)

Rubish - and completely taken out of context. Unless you can find me a
law states you have to stay poor or middle class in the US, let's keep
on topic here. Caste here "simply" means that you're born into a role,
that society gives you means to break out of. Even though there are
exceptions, most poor people stay poor. Most middle-class stay so and so
on.

Caste in this sense is the issue of being judged based on who your
parents where or how you were born. It's being judged because of your
skin color, gender, age, where you live, the state you were born in etc.
and solely based on that, you're put in a box of what you should be able
to do. As recent as the 1950's women taking higher eds weren't really
expected to work in their chosen field - they were still baby machines,
but just educated ones for the educated men. Dare the woman who wanted
to take her hard earned MD and become a surgent at a hospital. Or a
black person trying to get a business permit in the "good part of town".
We have a ton of examples of this system, a system that only slowly is
being fixed. And that system still exists in the educational system.

We've created a caste system based on wealth when it comes to education.
It's what your parents have that determines what future you can have,
regardless of skills and abilities. If you're born in the slum you have
bad schools and you'll be lucky if you graduate with a GED. If you're
born to parents in a well off suburb there's a good chance you'll have
access college but you may not have been given the skills to move up the
ranks, the network etc. in the political and commercial leadership. And
if you're born to the wealthy you'll be sure you'll get access to all
education, all the networking needed to get access to the best jobs and
best opportunities. It's built into the core of our society - that's how
we have chosen to live. We accept that we have a (large) portion of the
populous who's primary concern is if they'll have something to eat
tonight. We accept that a large portion of youth will grow up with no
promise of a productive and happy life. And we accept the cost of that
by spending a huge amount of our tax dollars on governmental force -
from police, prison to military. We still have a majority of people who
still think that threatening a poor person with prison or a fine will
make them not do crime. And we think that by putting a high price on
education only "the right people" goes there to begin with.

I only agree with you that we're talking about a society based issue
that only gets solved with an active governmental component. But you
cannot solve this with laws only. You have to change culture and
behavior of people who's family has followed these bad patterns for
generations. It will take generations to change - and in the mean time
we have only one choice to make: Should we apply some of that force we
have accumulated to enforce a fair system or should we pretend that
eventually people will change if we do nothing?

> In fact, one should argue that you don't want government to grow big
> enough so it can be manipulated by other governments and well as
> global corporations, to enact such to suit it's needs.

You've conflating people with government. If you see a difference, then
that's the problem. We as people use government as a tool. If the
government doesn't reflect the people, it's not the people's government
so why keep it? You can call them ministers or administrators - I don't
care. If they enforce/execute the will of the people they are the
government.

> Your use of the term "caste" only goes to re-emphasize this point
> throughout history.  Including the reason for the formation of the
> United States itself.  ;)

See above to see how silly that comment really is. England had lots of
casts before 1776. The US didn't give women the rights to even vote
until around 100 years ago. Not to speak of "all men are created equal"
was understood to be white men with property. From the get go - before
AND after - the establishment of the US we have had castes of those with
the means and those without the means to effect and define their own life.

>> We should be able to groom and grow our pool of talent,
>> regardless of their background. Should we really deny the next Einstein
>> or Hawkings a higher education just because his background does that he
>> cannot afford it? Everyone should be given the same chance and if we
>> spot talent we - the tax payers - should step in an help them develop it.
> Not at the expense of propping up private colleges that are
> overpriced.  And _that's_ where the government comes in.

No disagreement here. In the end how we create the institutions to
educate our young (and those of us who want to go back and learn new
stuff) doesn't matter to me. Call them public or private - I couldn't
care less, as long as the access is the same based on your abilities.
Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever get a system where we'll have
enough capacity to handle everyone's primary wishes so something will
have to be established not to lose someone just because we ran out of
engineering spots.  Europe uses a election - your name goes into a pile
and if your name is drawn you get to go. The rest are put in piles for
their second, third (and so on) choices and the process is repeated. And
you (in theory) don't get into the pile unless you have the necessary
qualification to enter.

> It's helped facilitate such loaning, extensively, to for-profit
> universities.  Look up the history here.  Sure, some of it falls on
> the student too, for sucking at math, never learning future monetary
> value, but overall, the government was the enabler.

I don't think Student loans are necessarily bad - but our implementation
of them sucks. The fact you cannot forgive the debt, and that we have
people who'll take 20+ years to just pay back the loan means we have to
rethink this. I really like the idea that a student is given free access
in return for civil service in X number of years. It's at least one way
to elliminate the needs for kids to take on huge amounts of debt just to
get an education.

> We've gone from the government being the "basic" provider to education
> to the "end-all, be-all" for all learning ... including an indirect
> subsidy of private colleges, on the back of foolish, young people who
> didn't learn how to apply math to their real situations.

Hmmm - not sure I agree that it's the end-all/be-all. No more than it
always was. Learning never stops - even after you graduate. Someone who
hasn't kept up for 10 years with the industry they're in are going to
have a hard time finding a job.  If you meant that not everyone does
well with book based learning, and tradesman apprenticeship would be an
alternative to them, I tend to agree if combined with a 3rd party school
so we can ensure that someone isn't just given a free ride if we're to
take the tradesman graduation as something serious.

I agree that unless we fix basic educational institutes first we can't
do much later on to solve the bigger problem. I think part of the
problem is that schools are managed locally. That means poor
neighborhood school with parents who has poor education to begin with,
are tasks with managing a school to make a better outcome for their
kids. That model just doesn't work. In many ways we have to take those
parents back to school too with their kids which of course is hard since
a lot of them earn so little they have to work multiple jobs to just put
food on the table and have no time to break the pattern at all.

> So I'm all for supporting all the degrees at a public college, but not
> paying $200K for a private college in Arts History.

Art should certain be taught even in public colleges. We need artists. I
also don't mind if there are private alternatives as long as the public
colleges can handle giving kids the amount of education needed for their
field. Today we tend to take away from public schools assuming that
private schools will take over - and that just doesn't hold up.

> We used to be nation that was like that, and used common sense.

Say what?  Have you read post WWII history at all? We even had the
national guard sent to make sure black kids would be allowed IN??  Women
were denied access on a regular basis pre WWII and if you look at the
schools "made available" to blacks post the civil war it was not exactly
"common sense" that governed. They were given just enough to ensure they
would remain subservant to everyone else and if they tried to take their
education further than just basic school they were of course denied
because they weren't given an education by an accredited school. I see
very little common sense in the US history. Heck post WWI we didn't even
allow most science subjects to be taught. It was so bad we had to STEAL
scientists from Germany to get to the moon? And now we're on our way
back to the "good old days" where science is a bad word. It seems the US
has been good at importing the skilled labor - including professors to
teach. Not so much in producing it. And we're paying for it every day as
we have to import skilled labor because we simply do not generate young
people with a high enough quality of education. An 8th grade student
immigrating from Taiwan can jump all the way to HS senior or even
college in the US system. We are pretty much last in every way you
measure quality of students across the world - last compared to the rest
of the industrialized world. It's numbers that make me cry every time I
see them.

If we can just for one year swap the funding of the US military with the
funding for our schools - put all of that in a trust fund, and use it to
pay teachers a living wages (we don't even buy books for our kids! The
teachers have to purchase them on their own???!); ensure that bad
teachers get replaced with good ones we can hire from industry - just
one year funded at "pentagon levels"  would fund a decade or two of high
quality schools.

>   Now
> we have iPhone wielding, privileged kids who believe they are entitled
> to the top, private college.  No.  That was always what you were
> "awarded" by select, private colleges if you were a top or noted
> student, subsidized by the more wealthy attendees.

There were privileged students before the iPhone generation. Look at a
picture from the 1930 or 1920 from a university and you'll see a picture
of a few privileged given the rare chance to get a higher education.
>From what I've read most of them were pretty well aware of how
privileged they were and would show everyone their distane and disgust
of those who weren't "in their league". Remember the management system
we had back then, and what privilege bought these (white) men (very few
if any were women).

The only difference is that they were subsidized by rich parents.

> I mean ... is that any different than Red Hat?  Well 90% of Red Hat's
> "users" don't pay it a dime, for all of the software it creates, which
> is subsidized by more wealthy customers and a small, but significant,
> amount of government.  

How did we go from privilege to this? I think you know better than that
Bryan - you know very well that CentOS and RHEL aren't the same with
different logos - and you also know that Red Hat doesn't sell the
software - it sells the services around it. But that aside lets continue.

> Now legislate institutionalize what Red Hat
> must create and who it must serve, and what would happen?

Huh? How does that relate to the first statement? Who uses Red Hat
products and who works there aren't really related? 
If you're trying to convince me socialism doesn't work, try no more -
I'm a firm believer in capitalism. But I also believe that we cannot saw
the branch over that supports us - that society is much better off with
well educated and trained people vs. spending a lot of money battling
the consequences of poverty that we do today.

> People blame corporations and entities for things government causes by
> various non-sense it instigates, including monopolies, sole-source
> providers and other things out of that balance.

And yet without legislation you wouldn't see many benefits to society.
Child labor anyone??

>
>> There's a lot of "buts" and "ifs" here of course. There's a balance. A
>> lazy talented person should not be able to eternally be in school (paid
>> for by the tax payers); an extravagant life style shouldn't give you a
>> free pass else-where in life. I agree with Bryan that we all are
>> responsible for our own lives. But we have to acknowledge that for quite
>> a large part of the US population even if you make all the right choices
>> (which rarely happens) access to education is limited.
> I disagree, very much so.
>
> Yes, some people have to make far more sacrifices than others, to get
> there.  No argument.  That's the first thing I look for in a
> candidate, how they got where they were.

Regardless of what system we have for education some will have to work
harder. When you barely have enough to eat it's quite a lot harder to
work on learning how to do math, reading etc. And we will always have
those who fail for one reason or another. It's a different discussion in
regards to handling those who think society owns them something without
giving anything in return. So yes I also admire people who's had to
overcome hardships to get where they are. Absolutely. The trick here is,
that we shouldn't have that many who had hardships to just get a basic
college degree.

> But no, if you want to go to college, you can do it.
>
> Understand I was born with no silver spoon, but at least I had food on
> my table.  My wife did not always, and she put herself through, with
> me helping her only in her final years.  People can do it.

Bryan - you've said this several times during this thread. I admire that
you were able to do this - you have done something a lot of others could
NOT do. Please realize that - your situation is just that. Yours. That
doesn't mean everyone had the same background as you, the same
self-confidence, the same core skills, the same foundation etc. etc.
etc. - there's so much at play here that makes a difference. Your
experience is yours - be proud of it sure. But please don't hold it up
as something that reflects on everyone else and their options.

> And that's the thing.  The more we help people a little, the farther it goes.

We agree there. As long as we don't restrict the definition of "we" - to
me that includes government (but isn't JUST government).

> We make fun of people on food stamps, but yet, that's actually one of
> the best and most effective welfare programs.  But I've seen others
> abuse everything from shelter to disabled benefits in comparison.

We make fun of them? I guess we don't agree there what so ever. As to
being a cheap and efficient way to manage a society like ours, we agree
there.

> Same thing here, a little money goes a long way with local and state
> education and ... most importantly ... reaches more people, not a
> select few.

We need a heck of a more than "a little money' to fix this. But I agree
that we get a lot of bang for the bucks - in particular if we can
restructure how schools are run and managed while we're at it. Let the
teachers TEACH - and let us evaluate the teachers based on their success
or failure in doing their job. The rest makes no sense.

> I'm honestly tired of having this debate with very, and i mean very,
> privileged young Americans who think the taxpayer should pay their
> 6-figure education.  There's not only absolutely no need for it, but
> there are often 3-6 other people doing it ... but all, aggregately, on
> the same amount of money that the 1 person is arguing for.

You're conflating a few issues here. To me the problem is that the
education cost 6 figures to begin with.  Beyond that, anyone with the
abilities have the right to an education. Regardless of their
background. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy, nor that someone
may be able to get exactly the education they want to. But in principle
they have the human right to an education that guarantees them the
pursuit of happiness and all that jazz.

>
>> I have really appreciated reading this thread. As someone who did not
>> take his degrees in the US I guess my perspective is someway unique
>> here. What I do experience is that kids with a brand new degree knows
>> nothing of relevance - at least in the IT field. Often I even find that
>> someone who wants to be a programmer NEVER learned how to program while
>> they took their degree. It was activities they took upon themselves
>> outside the class.
> All the more reason I think a college degree is _wholly_unnecessary_
> when it comes to technology.  I'm the first person arguing with HR
> departments over this.

Nope - not even close to agreeing. Just because it's done wrong, doesn't
mean we cannot do it right. MOST need education/training. It's not
everyone that can sit down and just hack their way to a lot of knowledge
and experience. You need to know the building blocks, the history and
the core of the industry to be able to improve it. Just like we do with
doctors and other types of engineers. IT isn't any different in that
regard. My beat is that we don't give our young students practical
experience at all. That doesn't mean I don't see the need for higher
education in technology.

>
>> As long as you find a system that also makes them responsible for those
>> decisions I don't have a problem with it. The issue with direct
>> "democracy" is that nobody is responsible when things go wrong. Ie.
>> voting for everyone gets a free house, and nobody pays taxes is a
>> perfect viable choice in that kind of a system.
> Which is why you have several organizations -- competing organizations
> -- that evaluate and limit the types of organizations and donations,
> continually evaluating the value.  It's a heck of a lot better than
> the "cost" of what we're seeing out of alleged "charity" in the
> government.

We can still experiment and improve with central control. Education can
be done right - we have lots of industrialized countries showing us that
- and it can be done with a central goal and control of what education
is. That way, commercial entities know what a degree means when it comes
time to actually perform a job.

> When the President talked about "fair share" with regards to gross
> income _before_ removing charity, I realized then the government now
> sees charity as "competition."  And it clicked on me then.

Education isn't a charity.

>
>> Compared to what? How much is wasted in non-governmental organizations?
>> If waste is defined as non-optimal then pretty much every aspect of your
>> life wastes resources.
> Again, there are already several, private organizations that not only
> track this, but compare it average charities and how many dollars
> reach those organizations.  Towers of Babel.
>
> And that's the thing ... anytime something is guaranteed, there is a
> gluttony that occurs -- whether it's a government agency (left-leaning
> mindset, socialism economics) or "privatization" but not actually
> because it's government monopoly/mandated (right-leaning mindset,
> facscism economics, not free-market at all).
>
> Real charities have to produce, or they are gone.  They do go under.

LMAO - sorry but that's funny. Have you seen how many charities are
around that barely give 5% to the cause they claim they support? The
rest is "overhead"? You're taking about a human problem - not a
governmental problem. Checks and balances. We've removed all the checks
so why is it a wonder that things are done?
>
>> If you don't manage it, then what's the point of having a system and a
>> promise of support/aid?
> The difference is ... the government doesn't go out of business.
>
> Right now the government is a perfect example of how the civil
> servants paid the least, with the least benefits, are the most at
> risk, and the most harmed ... and those other civil servants honestly
> don't care.  And yes, I'm talking the VA as of late.  The sad thing
> is, both parties are responsible for that mess.
>
> One of the best examples I saw of how little other civil servants care
> is someone who did the math and ask if all those other civil servants
> would give up just 5% of their salary to make things right, for
> veterans.  And the answer is in the answer they give, statistically.
> That people no longer see themselves as accountable to not just the
> taxpayer, but not to other civil servants either.

And we went way away from education here ... another OT on top of the
other OTs :)

>
> And the problem is never solved.
>
> -- bjs


-- 
Regards
  Peter Larsen






More information about the Novalug mailing list