On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:18:26 -0500, -MIKE- wrote:

On 7/22/12 10:41 PM, Bill wrote:
Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 22:22:33 -0400, Bill wrote:


They do form an interesting part of the supply-demand equation. Cutting
to the chase, if you remove student loans you'll have fewer colleges and
fewer college students.

Is that a bad thing? Many students get an education in a specialized
field and never use it. They would be better off going to a trade
school or still flipping burgers, just without the debt. They may
lead happier and more productive lives that way.


I understand your point completely. However, many (most?) people would
prefer a choice. People are free to go to trade-school now if they
prefer. It appears that the path of an HVAC-tech is paved with gold.




TN started a scholarship from lottery proceeds ironically called the
"Hope Scholarship."

GA has a similar scholarship. It seems to work, though there isn't enough
money to fund it 100% so it's means tested (translation: the middle class gets
screwed).

I won't even get into the fact that lotteries never raise any money for
schools, as they always promise to do. The money that does go from the
lottery to schools actually just replaces what used to come out of a
state's general fund, which now gets reallocated to something else. So
not only do the schools no get any extra money, but the government now
gets to waste even more tax payer dollars without any accountability.

The do raise money, just not enough to fulfill the promises of the
politicians.

The big problem with these scholarships is they end up dumbing down the
entire college education. When this scholarship first came out, students
had to have a certain gpa in high school (which was too low to begin
with) to get the scholarship and had to keep a certain gpa to keep the
scholarship. The first few years saw record numbers of students losing
scholarship aide. So instead of accepting the fact that they probably
set the bar way to low in giving out scholarships, they didn't want the
program to look like a failure and they lowered the gpa needed to keep
the scholarship.

Politicians never worry about unintended consequences.

This, along with other misguided educational policies in the US are
resulting in a dumbing down of high school and college degrees to an
eventual point at which a college diploma will be the equivalent of a
1960's high school diploma. At that point, in order for graduates to
compete for good jobs, they will need a masters degree. The masters
degree will be the new college diploma and since everyone is getting
college paid for by someone else, meaning there is no personal sacrifice
or penalty for failure, the bachelors degree will be looked at with no
more esteem than a high school diploma is now.

$1T is borrowed. True, that's tomorrow's problem not today's sacrifice.

Meanwhile, in China and India, 14 year-olds are learning calculus and
organic chemistry.