Andylusion
Platinum Member
Obama s Free Community College Plan What Students Need to Know - US News
So, Obama recently proposed free tuition for the first 2 years of community college. This proposal was based on the Tennessee program that provides tuition for two years of community college. In 2003, Tennessee created the Tennessee Lottery.
Elder Statesmen Politics Feature Memphis News and Events Memphis Flyer
In the process, the 2004 HOPE Scholarship was created, based on the revenue from the lottery. The HOPE scholarship, provided a chunk of money to pay tuition, which at the start covered 2/3rd of a years tuition.
That system ran for 10 years until 2014, the governor Bill Haslam decided that if a scholarship is good, then free tuition is even better.
Eyes on Tennessee as it begins free community college plan
The new program will provide free tuition for two years at community colleges.
My first issue with this is.... This isn't going to happen.
Not only has Obama proposed a program that has absolutely zero track record, but we don't have any money for it. The previous program, had 10 years of success. This program is in it's first year right now. It hasn't even worked for ONE YEAR. And unlike Tennessee with a surplus of lottery money to spend on free education, the Federal Government has $18 Trillion in debt.
Not to mention that the HOPE program was limited to recent high school grads, with minimum requirements on GPA. Obama plans has far fewer limitations. How exactly are we going to pay for that? Well of course we're not, because the plan had zero chance of being passed, and Obama knew it. It was nothing more than a political ploy.
So let's talk about the Lottery for Education method in general.
I'm against the lottery for a number of reasons. The lottery does not create anything. It's not a method of growing the wealth of the country. If anything, it is a system to reduce the wealth of the country.
Wealth is not money. Wealth is stuff. Stuff can be anything, from a service, to making a ceramic plates, to delivering top soil.
Money has no value, except what you can trade money for. To illustrate that, take two people and place them on deserted islands. Give one person $1 Trillion in US hard currency, and give the other one, a life time supply of everything he could want. Food, water, generators, building supplies, anything.
Who is wealthy? The guy with the stuff. The guy with green bits of paper, with dead presidents on it, has nothing more than kindling. With nothing to buy with the money, the money has no value, other than to burn.
The Lottery, doesn't produce anything. If I give you a dollar, and you give me a dollar, how much wealth was produced? None. Oh, but we forgot to make a "game" out of it. Ok, so let's get a pair of dice. When we roll the dice, if they land on even numbers, you give me a dollar, and if it lands on odd numbers, I'll give you a dollar. If one is odd, and the other is even, then reroll. After 100 rolls, how much wealth was produced by this? None.
But the lottery does consume wealth. The people who run the lottery that produces nothing, all still have to be paid, to produce nothing. Dozens of sales reps, selling tickets across the state. Running the Ohio Lottery TV show, "Cash Explosion" must cost thousands to produce. Cash Explosion Show
So while resources and wealth are consumed, nothing is produced. This makes the entire nation poorer.
To think about it the other way, a mining company consumes resources to dig up silicon. Silicon has value, and it's production makes the country more wealthy. The amount of wealth consumed in producing the silicon, is less than the value of the silicon. Raw silicon is purchased by a company which refines it and purifies it, and makes it into Monocrystalline silicon. This has even more value, and makes the country wealthy. Another company buys the Monocrystalline silicon, and uses it to make electronic processors, which have even more value. Someone buys the micro processors, and makes a computer. That has even more value. The computer is used to provide a service like a internet forum, which has the value of letting us discuss issues like how is wealth created.
Wealth creation, tends to result in more wealth creation. The lottery only consumes, and produces nothing.
I also find it interesting who tends to support the lottery. It's amazing to watch people talk about wealth inequality, and how we need to be a more equal society, and yet support something, that by definition, results in inequality. You are making millions of people poorer, and one single individual extremely wealthy. While talking about trying to stop the richer getting richer, and the poor getting poorer, they support a system that directly creates that dynamic.
So I have a problem with how the lottery works in general, but then I also have a problem with how Lottery for Education, works out practically.
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ngisc/reports/lotfinal.pdf
Thanks to Duke University, we know that the poorest 2/5ths of the country spend the most money on the lottery of any group.
At the same time, who typically receives those scholarships?
Drowning in Debt The Emerging Student Loan Crisis Education Sector
Most scholarship money goes to the wealthy by any measure. But specifically State level scholarships, which are funded by lottery revenue, 2/3rds go to middle and upper class students.
To recap, the poorest people are funding the upper and middle class students.
Once again, how many times have heard the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer? This is it right here! This is the system that creates that dynamic.
Lastly, is free-education the solution?
I am skeptical of this.
First there is no such thing as free education. We are going to have to pay for it with higher taxes. It's amazing how often people get screwed over in taxes, and then government hands them a 'free cookie', and people start singing the praises. How about we let people keep more of their own money, and then they'll be able to afford education themselves?
Also, simply having a degree, in and of itself, is not a solution to anything.
How Bad Is the Job Market For College Grads Your Definitive Guide - The Atlantic
So roughly half of all college grads have jobs that don't require college degrees.
I have personally seen this dozens of times. People with 2-year and 4-year degrees, working jobs that barely require anything. For example, when I was working at Wendy's, there was a lady there who had a degree in architecture. She said very openly she got a job doing that, but decided she wanted the flexibility and work closer to home to spend more time with her family.
At the same time, when you look at some of the real life reasons people can't get jobs, it's not a degree that holds them back.
Top 10 Reasons Why College Graduates Can t Get a Job - Think Deep
Work experience.
Real skills.
Having connections. Networking.
People skills.
If you think handing out degrees is going to fix poverty and unemployment, then feel free to print out thousands of them, and hand them out in the street.
In reality, the key is hard work, and effort. Making a degree easier to get, doesn't mean that it translated to anything good.
Another aspect is that I like the idea of there being a penalty for doing dumb things, because that will create an incentive for others to do smart things.
For example, paying $80,000 for a degree in social work... which gets you an income of just $30,000. This is dumb. I want people to not get degrees for jobs that they could earn more driving a truck.
Another example was a girl I knew who got a degree in Art History, and couldn't find a job. Again, just handing out degrees is a solution to nothing. When you look at help wanted ads, I haven't seen an ad yet for "Need Degree in Physics" as the title. Now some might say "need chemist. Degree in chemistry preferred", but there's a difference. The key is the skill, not the bit of paper.
Lastly, not all students finish the degree.
Why college students stop short of a degree Reuters
Interestingly, this article, spot lights a girl who dropped out, and got a job in journalism. Which is one of the most expensive, and least paying degrees out there.
But only 47% of students actually get a degree. I don't want to pay for all the college educations, for those who drop out. This, be the way, is one of the reasons Merit Based scholarships focus on students with good grade point averages, and Pell Grants don't.
However, the real danger, is that we end up like Briton. Briton had free college schooling, and we've seen what happened. They had a crisis in the bond market, couldn't raise money for the government. Were forced into cutting education funding, and the result were massive student riots.
Student protest over fees turns violent Education The Guardian
When you give people "free" stuff, and give them the impression they are entitled to it, and then when the money runs out you have no choice but to take it away, people freak out. Better to never give them the impression they are entitled to something to begin with.
So, Obama recently proposed free tuition for the first 2 years of community college. This proposal was based on the Tennessee program that provides tuition for two years of community college. In 2003, Tennessee created the Tennessee Lottery.
Elder Statesmen Politics Feature Memphis News and Events Memphis Flyer
In the process, the 2004 HOPE Scholarship was created, based on the revenue from the lottery. The HOPE scholarship, provided a chunk of money to pay tuition, which at the start covered 2/3rd of a years tuition.
That system ran for 10 years until 2014, the governor Bill Haslam decided that if a scholarship is good, then free tuition is even better.
Eyes on Tennessee as it begins free community college plan
The new program will provide free tuition for two years at community colleges.
My first issue with this is.... This isn't going to happen.
Not only has Obama proposed a program that has absolutely zero track record, but we don't have any money for it. The previous program, had 10 years of success. This program is in it's first year right now. It hasn't even worked for ONE YEAR. And unlike Tennessee with a surplus of lottery money to spend on free education, the Federal Government has $18 Trillion in debt.
Not to mention that the HOPE program was limited to recent high school grads, with minimum requirements on GPA. Obama plans has far fewer limitations. How exactly are we going to pay for that? Well of course we're not, because the plan had zero chance of being passed, and Obama knew it. It was nothing more than a political ploy.
So let's talk about the Lottery for Education method in general.
I'm against the lottery for a number of reasons. The lottery does not create anything. It's not a method of growing the wealth of the country. If anything, it is a system to reduce the wealth of the country.
Wealth is not money. Wealth is stuff. Stuff can be anything, from a service, to making a ceramic plates, to delivering top soil.
Money has no value, except what you can trade money for. To illustrate that, take two people and place them on deserted islands. Give one person $1 Trillion in US hard currency, and give the other one, a life time supply of everything he could want. Food, water, generators, building supplies, anything.
Who is wealthy? The guy with the stuff. The guy with green bits of paper, with dead presidents on it, has nothing more than kindling. With nothing to buy with the money, the money has no value, other than to burn.
The Lottery, doesn't produce anything. If I give you a dollar, and you give me a dollar, how much wealth was produced? None. Oh, but we forgot to make a "game" out of it. Ok, so let's get a pair of dice. When we roll the dice, if they land on even numbers, you give me a dollar, and if it lands on odd numbers, I'll give you a dollar. If one is odd, and the other is even, then reroll. After 100 rolls, how much wealth was produced by this? None.
But the lottery does consume wealth. The people who run the lottery that produces nothing, all still have to be paid, to produce nothing. Dozens of sales reps, selling tickets across the state. Running the Ohio Lottery TV show, "Cash Explosion" must cost thousands to produce. Cash Explosion Show
So while resources and wealth are consumed, nothing is produced. This makes the entire nation poorer.
To think about it the other way, a mining company consumes resources to dig up silicon. Silicon has value, and it's production makes the country more wealthy. The amount of wealth consumed in producing the silicon, is less than the value of the silicon. Raw silicon is purchased by a company which refines it and purifies it, and makes it into Monocrystalline silicon. This has even more value, and makes the country wealthy. Another company buys the Monocrystalline silicon, and uses it to make electronic processors, which have even more value. Someone buys the micro processors, and makes a computer. That has even more value. The computer is used to provide a service like a internet forum, which has the value of letting us discuss issues like how is wealth created.
Wealth creation, tends to result in more wealth creation. The lottery only consumes, and produces nothing.
I also find it interesting who tends to support the lottery. It's amazing to watch people talk about wealth inequality, and how we need to be a more equal society, and yet support something, that by definition, results in inequality. You are making millions of people poorer, and one single individual extremely wealthy. While talking about trying to stop the richer getting richer, and the poor getting poorer, they support a system that directly creates that dynamic.
So I have a problem with how the lottery works in general, but then I also have a problem with how Lottery for Education, works out practically.
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ngisc/reports/lotfinal.pdf
Thanks to Duke University, we know that the poorest 2/5ths of the country spend the most money on the lottery of any group.
At the same time, who typically receives those scholarships?
Drowning in Debt The Emerging Student Loan Crisis Education Sector
Most scholarship money goes to the wealthy by any measure. But specifically State level scholarships, which are funded by lottery revenue, 2/3rds go to middle and upper class students.
To recap, the poorest people are funding the upper and middle class students.
Once again, how many times have heard the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer? This is it right here! This is the system that creates that dynamic.
Lastly, is free-education the solution?
I am skeptical of this.
First there is no such thing as free education. We are going to have to pay for it with higher taxes. It's amazing how often people get screwed over in taxes, and then government hands them a 'free cookie', and people start singing the praises. How about we let people keep more of their own money, and then they'll be able to afford education themselves?
Also, simply having a degree, in and of itself, is not a solution to anything.
How Bad Is the Job Market For College Grads Your Definitive Guide - The Atlantic
So roughly half of all college grads have jobs that don't require college degrees.
I have personally seen this dozens of times. People with 2-year and 4-year degrees, working jobs that barely require anything. For example, when I was working at Wendy's, there was a lady there who had a degree in architecture. She said very openly she got a job doing that, but decided she wanted the flexibility and work closer to home to spend more time with her family.
At the same time, when you look at some of the real life reasons people can't get jobs, it's not a degree that holds them back.
Top 10 Reasons Why College Graduates Can t Get a Job - Think Deep
Work experience.
Real skills.
Having connections. Networking.
People skills.
If you think handing out degrees is going to fix poverty and unemployment, then feel free to print out thousands of them, and hand them out in the street.
In reality, the key is hard work, and effort. Making a degree easier to get, doesn't mean that it translated to anything good.
Another aspect is that I like the idea of there being a penalty for doing dumb things, because that will create an incentive for others to do smart things.
For example, paying $80,000 for a degree in social work... which gets you an income of just $30,000. This is dumb. I want people to not get degrees for jobs that they could earn more driving a truck.
Another example was a girl I knew who got a degree in Art History, and couldn't find a job. Again, just handing out degrees is a solution to nothing. When you look at help wanted ads, I haven't seen an ad yet for "Need Degree in Physics" as the title. Now some might say "need chemist. Degree in chemistry preferred", but there's a difference. The key is the skill, not the bit of paper.
Lastly, not all students finish the degree.
Why college students stop short of a degree Reuters
Interestingly, this article, spot lights a girl who dropped out, and got a job in journalism. Which is one of the most expensive, and least paying degrees out there.
But only 47% of students actually get a degree. I don't want to pay for all the college educations, for those who drop out. This, be the way, is one of the reasons Merit Based scholarships focus on students with good grade point averages, and Pell Grants don't.
However, the real danger, is that we end up like Briton. Briton had free college schooling, and we've seen what happened. They had a crisis in the bond market, couldn't raise money for the government. Were forced into cutting education funding, and the result were massive student riots.
Student protest over fees turns violent Education The Guardian
When you give people "free" stuff, and give them the impression they are entitled to it, and then when the money runs out you have no choice but to take it away, people freak out. Better to never give them the impression they are entitled to something to begin with.
