Thursday, June 07, 2018
Dem Legislators Want To Make College Free
Two Dem legislators - Sen. Vincent J. Hughes, D-Philadelphia and state Rep. James Roebuck, D-Philadelphia - want to introduce legislation that will make community and state colleges free for students with a family income under $110,000. Those whose incomes are under $48,000 will get assistance for room and board. It's being called The Pennsylvania Promise.
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15 comments:
What about people making over $110,000 ?
Nothing is free... Ahole.
76% of families not sending kids to college can pay for the 24% who will emerge with worthless degrees and become baristas. Depending upon the desired degree, we should consider paying kids NOT to go to college.
So lets mark 9:51 down as being for a MASSIVE increase in minimum wage for unskilled workers.
Countries with higher education levels have higher GDP. Put another way, you have to spend money to make money and investing in education and infrastructure are the easiest and most tangible ways to increase production, innovation and services across the board.
Our grand parents and great grandparents personally sacrificed money and lives through the 30's & 40's to create opportunity and improvement for their children and grandchildren, yet all that generation cares about is themselves and constantly point out how unfair life is.
Well.... on a good note I can become a barista or a blogger.....both respectable positions to get you no where but free college and health care from parents jobs til your 26..... stay living off them like pocketbook peg on the county taxpayer and you will be just fine
As a Democrat, I'm not on board with free college. Interest free loans, discount in tuition for community service, obligation to serve in military, even a discount for those below the poverty line I might consider as options, but I think relatively few people are willing to provide "free."
If these politicians are up for re-election in poor areas, it sounds like a grab for votes.
For those qualifying for Pell grants community college may already be free.
Nothing is free about this, we the taxpayers will have to foot the bill, and like most government programs this will eventually become bloated, mismanaged, rampant with fraud. I also believe that people tend to not value things that are free, but if they work for something they tend value it a lot more.
Hmm, noble thoughts, but "free" it is not. Both of your links state it is estimated to cost $1 billion a year. This, for a state that already struggles to meet budget for the things it is currently responsible for. There are only so many ways you can expand gambling and other vices for short term gimmicky fixes as is recent practice. The "Promise" notes a gas severance tax. Why we don't tax that shows the influence of that industry in PA, but if imposed those revenues would certainly help with our current structural deficits. Add a new billion dollar program, and we are back to our current year to year wonder if PA will make budget.
That all said, like health care, college costs are out of control. Using an inflation index, the cost of my undergraduate degree in the 80s was about 40 percent what it cost for my kids. I don't believe the quality of education is that different to justify such a difference in cost. I also tend to agree with "Democrat" at 1:44's comments.
Many of the points made here are quite good. I particularly like the idea of additional college $ for military service or some other form of volunteerism
Amazing so the college professor and all the staff are gonna work for free
Love the democrats to get all those educated folks to work for zero.
As is clear from the number of people complaining about the use of the word "free," everyone understands that this will cost taxpayers money, so quibbling with the semantics is a cheap argument without much substance. If you don't think this is a good use of taxpayer money, that is a perfectly valid position, but be honest about it and say so, instead of saying "look at how dumb all these dems are for thinking this is free." We know it will cost money, we just happen to think it's worth it.
I'll acknowledge that 4-year college isn't for everyone (although this plan also apparently includes community colleges, so that's great), but it provides value beyond just career training. It exposes you to different perspectives and types of people, teaches you to think critically, and provides athletic, civic, and cultural opportunities that are unavailable at many high schools but are important to the development of well-rounded citizens.
Broadening access to college also provide value to the state, not just individuals. If more PA citizens can easily afford to go to school in PA to be trained for their careers, they will be more likely to use their skills they learned here and drive economic growth within the state, rather than taking their knowledge to build careers elsewhere.
A LOT more than 24% of kids go to college... almost 70% of all hs graduates. The number would be higher of college wasn't so expensive.
We’re sending kids to college to study things that don’t do any good or provide them with real job skills for the future. Speak with anyone who hires STEM professionals. There’s a reason so many of our doctors, scientists, and engineers come from China, India, Pakistan, and Israel. No free college unless you study something useful for the new world. We have enough lawyers and baristas.
I don't know about India, Israel, and Pakistan, but at least for graduate degrees, China provides funding for students to be educated abroad on the condition that they return to China after getting their degree. Other countries, like Brazil, have similar arrangements.
As a person with an advanced degree in a STEM field, who are you to decide what is useful?
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