Countries with "Free Tuition" Often Have Fewer College Graduates

[rangerrebew]

Countries with "Free Tuition" Often Have Fewer College Graduates


04/26/2019Ryan McMaken

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren says she wants to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. That is, she wants free college for anyone willing to attend a public higher education institution.

Presumably, an important goal of this policy change — other than getting Elizabeth Warren elected, of course — would be to increase the total number of students that graduate from college.

But is there any reason to believe that "free" college would actually increase graduation rates? Not really. In fact, there are several reasons why the opposite may be true.

https://mises.org/wire/countries-free-tuition-often-have-fewer-college-graduates

[LMAO]

Countries with "Free Tuition" Often Have Fewer College Graduates


04/26/2019Ryan McMaken

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren says she wants to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. That is, she wants free college for anyone willing to attend a public higher education institution.

Presumably, an important goal of this policy change — other than getting Elizabeth Warren elected, of course — would be to increase the total number of students that graduate from college.

But is there any reason to believe that "free" college would actually increase graduation rates? Not really. In fact, there are several reasons why the opposite may be true.

https://mises.org/wire/countries-free-tuition-often-have-fewer-college-graduates

 That’s because they become what’s called “professional students.”  I am of the belief that you should have a financial stake in your college or vocational education. If you want to major in International Lesbianism studies that’s your choice but it should cost you and not the taxpayers

[goatprairie]

Many state tech and trade schools are far cheaper than four year liberal arts institutions and far more likely to reward a graduate with a good job/career.
We should be encouraging more high school grads to go the tech/trade route rather than waste their parent's money on degrees in victim studies and other crap courses.

[Absalom]

A degree is a credential akin to a visa; having
nothing to do w/creativity and/or wisdom.
The greatest minds, among them Aristotle, Euclid,
Cicero, Shakespeare and Haydn; were self-taught.
But we moderns, consumed w/pretentiousness,
know better. Why of course!!!

[jmyrlefuller]

When was the last time you ever heard anyone say "Well, I'd like to go to college, but I can't afford it"?

Probably not in a few decades. The fact is, right now, anyone who wants to go to college usually can in some way, shape or form, even if they can't afford it. The consequences of doing so, on the other hand, are what caused a lot of the student loan issues we have today.

Free college for all won't increase attendance at universities. Most of them reject at least 40% of their applicants already, so there arguably isn't enough room at most of them even if there were an increase in prospective students. It will just shift the burden of educating the ones in college on someone else. Of course, we already have issues with employing the students we do graduate, especially in STEM fields, a vastly under-appreciated crisis.

Our broken college education system won't be solved by making it free.

[Smokin Joe]

A degree is a credential akin to a visa; having
nothing to do w/creativity and/or wisdom.
The greatest minds, among them Aristotle, Euclid,
Cicero, Shakespeare and Haydn; were self-taught.
But we moderns, consumed w/pretentiousness,
know better. Why of course!!!

Unfortunately, sans credentials, one will only rarely attain the status needed to be considered a 'great mind' as access to the marketplace of ideas is often curtailed in the absence of those higher degrees, by those pretentious (and credentialed) folks who guard the libraries and gates to information.
I am all for learning what you wish, for being self-taught, and figuring things out. I despise the idea that we somehow must limit ourselves to a single area of academic or other pursuit.

[Absalom]

Unfortunately, sans credentials, one will only rarely attain the status needed to be considered a 'great mind' as access to the marketplace of ideas is often curtailed in the absence of those higher degrees, by those pretentious (and credentialed) folks who guard the libraries and gates to information.
I am all for learning what you wish, for being self-taught, and figuring things out. I despise the idea that we somehow must limit ourselves to a single area of academic or other pursuit.

--------------------------------
Smokin, on the sound point you raise;
who decides the greatness of any achiever?
Is it the 'guardians of information' or history itself?
While we are at a low point now, Nature being
cyclical, is our savior in the long run if we listen.

[jmyrlefuller]

--------------------------------
Smokin, on the sound point you raise;
who decides the greatness of any achiever?

Human resources departments. At least that's who decides to get paid for their 'greatness'.

[Absalom]

Human resources departments. At least that's who decides to get paid for their 'greatness'.

---------------------------------------
JMF,
Do you really believe the Aristotles of history, are motivated by money?

[Smokin Joe]

--------------------------------
Smokin, on the sound point you raise;
who decides the greatness of any achiever?
Is it the 'guardians of information' or history itself?
While we are at a low point now, Nature being
cyclical, is our savior in the long run if we listen.

It depends on whether the guardians allow the mention of the achiever in their history.
Otherwise, like certain Soviets, now you see them, now you don't, and someone else is always eager to take the credit if it worked.
Unfortunately, there are so many versions of the MBPA out there (Mutual Back-Patting Association) which hinge their assessments on the conformity of the individual to the groupthink, true greatness must be spectacularly undeniable in order to achieve note.