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My take on Free Education

4/18/2016

2 Comments

 
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I have three fabulous daughters, the oldest about to graduate from Eastern Washington University, the middle one is studying at Western Washington University and the youngest is a sophomore in high school.

​All three are living in the Northwest after being transplanted from Dallas, Texas. For the most part, the ideologies of people in these two areas of the country are as vastly different as they are geographically distant. People in the Dallas area tend to be conservative Republicans while people in the Northwest tend to be liberal Democrats.  

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I no longer claim any party affiliation because I see that our great country has lost its way. We need to get back on the track to greatness.  One political party is advocating that a method to get us back on that path is free college education for all.  I will address that issue and hope to encourage college-level critical thinking regarding it.
 
Imagine that you have gone to college to earn a degree and you have an entry-level job in your field.  You must work hard to get ahead but that hard work is rewarded.  The harder you work at building your skills and setting yourself apart from the rest, the more money you make. 

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​In the scenario above, we witness two components to success:  education and hard work.  One political candidate is garnering a lot of support from the young people by promising free college education for all.  Sign me up for that! 

As I said, we have two in college and a third one wanting to go.  After it is all said and done, we will have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 for their educations so of course, I would appreciate FREE! 
 
In a recent speech, Bernie Sanders said, "… we need the best-educated workforce in the world, yes, we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free."
 
I absolutely agree that in order to compete in the world today, earning some sort of degree or certificate is a necessity for most in order to make a middle- to upper-middle class living or beyond. There are always those exceptions that drop out of college and go on to create multi-billion dollar companies but they are few and far between.  Thus it seems that as a college-level education is becoming a requirement for a good job that the education should be available at no cost to everyone, right? 

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Let's forget about the pesky question, “How and who is paying for it?" That isn't the right question anyway. The right question is, “Would getting rid of tuition at public colleges and universities, by itself, really give the United States ‘the most educated workforce in the world’?”
 
I guess by the way I phrased the question the answer is obviously, "NO!” But why not?
 
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States currently has the ninth-most-educated workforce in the world, with 45 percent of young adults having earned some form of diploma or certificate.  South Korea is at the top of the chart where 67 percent of adults have some degree or certificate.  Japan is in second showing 58 percent.  Here is the problem with the theory that free education leads to a more educated workforce... Both of these countries charge tuition at their universities, which are overwhelmingly public. 

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The theory takes another punch in the gut when we look at Brazil, Norway, Sweden and Slovenia.  All have lower percentages of adults with higher education but they don't charge for college. There are several reasons why but the point is that an overwhelming percentage of students drop out for a simple reason: "Ain't my money”.
 
So "the most educated workforces in the world" today don't have free college, while countries that do have free public universities don't necessarily have more educated workforces than we do.
 
If free education isn't the answer then what is the answer? 

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There is a second component to success that we seem to be over-looking:  hard work.  When people work hard for something, they appreciate it whether it is their first home or their college education.  Even if people are handed a free education, unless they possess the motivation to work hard, they are going to fall short.  The fact that they are demanding a free education tells me they are lacking the desire to work hard so no amount of free education is going to build them into successful people.
 
There is hope for our country by going back to one of the principles that made us great: “We the people” are empowered by God, and our Constitution, to govern ourselves (and all that implies), and we own the responsibility to measure up to this expectation.  We cannot and should not expect a new president or a new Congress to save us. We need to work hard to achieve the results we desire as individuals.  In other words, "leaders" please get out of our way; capitalism works!
 
references:
https://data.oecd.org/chart/4s6E
https://youtu.be/6kbjo3SFLuc
​

2 Comments
Sue Simons
4/18/2016 05:38:25 pm

We have a beautiful daughter (married to our middle son) from China. In China college is free HOWEVER only the top 1% of high school graduates may attend! All high school seniors must take the test to see if they qualify; if they don't, then it is up to the parents to find a way to educate their kids; they can't even pay and attend the college there! Then, when parents choose to try to get their kids educated here, some (as with our sweet daughter) unknowingly get caught in the Chinese Mafia! One member is there in china while the other is in the states (our daughter's was in CA - a state most willing to allow illegals total access!) Once the kids are here with what they believe is a visa to attend college are then blackmailed; the person here says 'either pay $$ or we'll turn your child in for being there illegal! Our sweet daughters parents ran out of $$ and she was desperate to get out of the hands of the mafia here!

Free isn't always free! With our own kids, we were advised by a very intelligent and respected couple at church that the kids would not appreciate their education if they didn't pay for it. Our oldest son (who I think you might remember from St Louis) paid for his and he and his wife are both very well to do working in the health care field. They have their 2 kids in private schools in Nashville area. Our other two are still working at paying off the balance of their education but are doing very well!

Reply
Henni Provence
4/18/2016 08:11:16 pm

OECD provides valuable information about quality of life issues in the member countries. It's worth consulting this resource on many issues that are related to education. As far as college education is concerned, you really can't compare countries. The first two years of undergraduate college in the US teaches content that is taught in college bound public schools in other countries. By the time those young people graduate from 12 years of public school, they are already well ahead of our graduating seniors. Our public schools spend quite a bit more per pupil than many other countries and yet, our students are rarely proficient in a foreign language. Our proficiency in English, math and the sciences lags behind that of many other countries. In fact, many of our college students need to enroll in remedial classes before they are ready for their undergraduate courses. So after the taxpayers paid for 13 years of public education, our students and their families have to pay steep tuition costs to finish what the public schools failed to accomplish. Most ordinary families are working hard to make ends meet . Young people who graduate from college have heavy burdens of debt before they ever land their first job. It is not unheard of that some pay on their student loans as they face retirement. Getting an education is not just a matter of landing a high paying job so you can live a comfortable life in suburbia. Our society needs the skills that we prepare our young people for. We are all the beneficiaries of a well educated workforce, whether in college or in a trade school. In this country, we expect that the burden to acquire these skills rest solely on the students and their families. Society will be the loser if that burden becomes too unbearable for all but the privileged. That I believe is the reason why Bernie Sanders wants to make college tuition free.

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