News and Politics Forum

CT:

I can certainly appreciate that dilemma.

Note a few things, though:

1)  Your earlier statement that you would gladly pay higher taxes for those subsidies loses pretty much any weight given that you are likely going to be a major recipient of those tax receipts.  (I know, you were asked and you simply answered, but hopefully you get my point.)

2)  IMO, it is the subsidizing of higher education so far that has increased the costs to their stratospheric levels today.  The fact is:  universities will charge whatever they can get for education.  If the family can afford and is willing to spend $20,000 (and no more) to educate their kids, and there are no subsidies, the universities will charge $20,000.  Throw a $20,000 subsidy from the government for those students, and the school isn't going to just sit there and take the kids for free.  They're going to raise their price to $40,000, -no one- actually benefits, and the people who for whatever reason can't get the subsidies (you, in your present situation, apparently) are well and -truly- screwed.

This effect of subsidies has been demonstrated again and again throughout history.  Do you really think it was pure free market forces that drove the price of cotton balls to $1 each and aspirin to $5 in your local hospital?  No normal individual could afford that.  It's the infinitely deep pockets of the insurance companies (a form of subsidies themselves) that make that kind of price gouging possible.

Government subsidies, insurance companies, et al., completely distort the supply/demand dynamic of the actual money available to buy education/health care.  That dynamic is critical for stable prices.  Screw with that, and you get Zimbabwe.

Qwinn

Last edited by Qwinn (03-15-2008 06:14 PM)

PS -- I still think that CT's Stormfront comment directed towards dgm, was out of line.  Just not that big of deal.

I'm entangled with higher education in two ways -- I've just spent the past 11 years and upward of 60K getting my Masters, and second, I actually work for the school where I got my degree.  I sort of know both sides of the equation.

Our particular school does not accept ANY government subsidies of any sort, that includes grants, loans, etc.  We will accept individuals who qualify under the GI bill, but they get to do all the ground work and manage their own tuition and grant money.

We do this so that we can stand outside the boundaries of government regulations concerning worldview, hiring practices, etc, as we are a religious institution.

With that being said, our campus is open to anyone who qualifies according to our admission standards, which included church affiliation, a vote of the church membership to recommend, a valid undergrad degree (if entering the graduate school), and in some cases a test of skills in English.  Otherwise, ANY race, nationality, color, etc., is allowed for entrance.

We currently have students from all 50 states, most of the Provinces of Canada, and close to one half of the world's nations.  We have faculty from multiple continents, and they are of varying ethnicity, age, and gender.

We do all of this WITHOUT government interference, and we actually SEEK students of various ethnic backgrounds. 

Some of my closest friends are from places other than the USA, even though I am the quintessential "white dude".  Perhaps my best and dearest friend is Juma Juma from Kenya.  Other close friends are from Brazil, Canada, India, and Korea.  Talk about a mixed bag, but what we've found is that we can love each other despite our differences, and in the end, our differences make each of us more as a group than apart.

With all that being said, however, I do see a distinct issue with Black Americans concerning education.  At times, Black Americans who attend our school can be said to put their WORLDVIEW in front of everything else, and at an Evangelical institution, that is not well received.  We place Christ at the forefront of our lives, and He followed by the Bible.  When one places their worldview first, they then tend to interpret all else according to that first.  The culture of Black Americans is also tending against education.  That isn't because individual blacks are less able than anyone else in the world -- it is because in so many of the areas where they live, education is seen as a problem, not a solution (ala Cosby, who is exactly right).

zukiphile wrote:

Qwinn wrote:

Government subsidies, insurance companies, et al., completely distort the supply/demand dynamic of the actual money available to buy education/health care.  That dynamic is critical for stable prices.  Screw with that, and you get Zimbabwe.

Qwinn

Whether the question is healthcare, commodities or education, the issue is always how scarce resources will be alotted.

Making the consumer, the beneficiary of receipt of the resource, bear the cost, allows the person who will benefit and bear the cost to weigh those cost and benefits and determine if there is an acceptable value to be had.  Keeping cost internal to the beneficiary allows the subjective judgments that make market economies convey accurate supply and demand information through pricing.

A $40,000 Passat will have few takers if each is actually charged that much; to most $40,000 will be worth more than a Passat.  Give to people for $20,000 and many people will have one; probably many more than would have voluntarily bourn the actual cost of the car.  make them free and you would have to be stupid not to take one, even if you don't drive.

Here, it reads as though you are making a comparison between completely free cars and subsidized education.  Is that the case?  I just want to be clear before I respond.

Make the scarce resource of university education free to the beneficiary and you may have several different effects.

Academic competition may increase as the number of applicants increases.  This is likely to disadvantage groups who have traditionally not had a presence at university.

I am going to interpret this as being the 'effect of socio-economic status on education' argument, and by all reason, that is a likely outcome.

My argument, however, would be that if traditionally, a given socio-economic group hasn't had a presence in Universities, that specific group was already “disadvantaged”.  I would also argue that that disadvantage isn’t restricted to College (and by extension even education), and in fact, it probably started much earlier on. 

College (or, higher education) is simply one of many checkpoints in the marathon of building cumulative preparedness to demonstrate market competitiveness.  By an individual’s freshman year in college, that marathon is well underway, and the majority of the competition is either well into the running, or already out of the race.  To me, the key dynamic we should reflect on is whether to shift this inevitable competition all socio-economic groups will face either upstream (further into the education system i.e. high school, middle school, etc), or downstream (into the job market).*

I believe, you stand the chance of more effectively locating and solving the infrastructure problems of US education by forcing that competition to earlier points in a child’s academic development.  The theory is, the earlier and more rigorous your training, the more competitive you will be in the actual marathon.

* This assumes a relationship between an individual’s education and both their ability to be competitive in their profession's job market and retain competitive salaries for their profession.

Political competition may increase as mere money isn't enough to secure a slot.  This disadvantages those who lack political influence.

This to me sounds like a different problem altogether, i.e. corruption.  If that isn’t what you’re referring to, let me know.

Last edited by Charles Taylor (03-17-2008 03:20 PM)

Slap wrote:

Charles Taylor wrote:

That may be a logical potential conclusion, but I can't possibly debate your hypothetical here, and we haven't put together enough of an argument for the mechanics of how this might work to solve the potential problem the black community would have with wholly subsidized higher education.  Before you shoot it down, perhaps we should consider if there is a contingency that could account for the political fallout of black under-representation.

I'm concerned with wasting tax dollars by paying for an education for individuals who don't really value education that much.

I wouldn't be proposing that at all, I am referring to higher education exclusively. 

If the only assessment of a student's ability to successfully complete a curriculum is performed upon admittance, where two students have equally met the requirements for admittance to a given university, and those requirements aren't effectively preparing those students for the curriculum... -those requirements need to be reassessed-.  Is there some other way that you are assessing whether an individual values education, other than his or her academic merits?

Edit - because I'm not sure if I positioned that well enough to intuitively understand. 

From your statement, I would be led to believe that you believe that universities either are or would be accepting individuals who do not value education.  If that is the case, and the key factor Universities use to determine whether a candidate can complete their educational program is previous academic merit, what are you using to determine whether a student values education besides academic merit?

Last edited by Charles Taylor (03-17-2008 05:10 PM)

Qwinn wrote:

Anyway.  The better alternative, I think now, is simply to give tax breaks to the individual parents whose kids are attending private schools.

MORE tax breaks for the wealthy?!!


Harumph!

Charles Taylor wrote:

Is there some other way that you are assessing whether an individual values education, other than his or her academic merits?... If that is the case, and the key factor Universities use to determine whether a candidate can complete their educational program is previous academic merit, what are you using to determine whether a student values education besides academic merit?

Money.  Willingness to spend savings or incur debt.  If a student is unwilling to spend $10k of his earnings or borrow $10k to go to school, that seems to be a clear indicator that he doesn't value the education he would have received as much as he values keeping $10/avoiding debt for $10k.

Qwinn wrote:

I've been a -long- time supporter of vouchers, but recently been convinced against them.  Primarily because the government will then use vouchers as a leverage tool by which to -control- the kind of education given at private schools - and you know they will.  -Any- subsidy method by which the money at any point is directly distributed by the government will empower the government to dictate to the recipients, in this case the private schools.

Anyway.  The better alternative, I think now, is simply to give tax breaks to the individual parents whose kids are attending private schools.

You're contradicting yourself.

In the interests of clarity I should tell you that I am not talking about creating your own Axiom by "declaring a fact" and then basing an argument upon it...  ("[They'll do it!!]...you know they will!")



What I'm talking about here are two apparently contradictory statements:

You said on the one hand that you've decided that vouchers for the parents of children in private schools are bad because ANY method of subsidy will be manipulated by the government to some nefarious end.

The you turned around and said that you are in favor of Tax Credits to the parents of children in private schools.


In both cases, you have the government giving the parents of children in private schools a sum of money to offset the cost of sending those children to private schools. In one case they are giving the parents money in the form of a check and in the other case they are giving parents money in the form of a dollar for dollar reduction in their taxes.



So how do you reconcile those two apparently contradictory statements?




And before you answer, I should tell you...

If you plan to argue that the situations are different because the first is a case of the government giving back money that they have already taken and the second is a case of the government not taking money in the first place; you will need to explain how there is a meaningful difference between a coupon for "X" amount of money or a rebate for the same amount.

Charles Taylor wrote:

Why, when we can pro actively create a society that inherently offers education to everyone with little to no risks, caveats, or names signed on dotted lines to banks.  We should not prefer debt, when we can offer a society where every American has an equal opportunity to educate themselves without facing a market with clear bias' towards certain professions. I'm not talking about free education, I'm talking about total freedom of education to any student, at any age, for any subject, in any state, without 40 thousand dollars hanging over their head when they get out.

Waste is the reason why its not that great an idea.  I also have trouble figuring out why libraries and the internet aren't sufficiently inexpensive alternatives to allow people to educate themselves.

On the other hand, If we're talking about getting diplomas to participate in certain trades or professions, then we're getting away from education for its own sake, and into an area where divorcing diplomas from the economics of their trades/professions makes less sense to me.  Aren't those biases towards certain professions, correct expressions of the market? 

There is also an active harm where social engineers provide citizens with vast educations followed by careers that only require trivial efforts to succeed.  I don't believe that more education necessarily makes a happier citizenry.

Slap wrote:

Charles Taylor wrote:

Why, when we can pro actively create a society that inherently offers education to everyone with little to no risks, caveats, or names signed on dotted lines to banks.  We should not prefer debt, when we can offer a society where every American has an equal opportunity to educate themselves without facing a market with clear bias' towards certain professions. I'm not talking about free education, I'm talking about total freedom of education to any student, at any age, for any subject, in any state, without 40 thousand dollars hanging over their head when they get out.

Waste is the reason why its not that great an idea.

Well, I don't believe that money and energy spent investing in education (as well as creating incentives for citizens to continue education) is a "waste".

On the other hand, If we're talking about getting diplomas to participate in certain trades or professions, then we're getting away from education for its own sake, and into an area where divorcing diplomas from the economics of their trades/professions makes less sense to me.  Aren't those biases towards certain professions, correct expressions of the market?

They are certainly expressions of the market... but how are you defining "correct" here?  Another way to word that question... must the body of educated persons in America represent a response to market conditions, or should market conditions represent a response to the body of educated persons in America? Or neither?

-----------------------------------------------
Edit - - I should give my take on an answer to the question above, and what I believe.

One way to answer this question may be to examine what the history is behind this relationship between the occupational market and education.

If you go back 12 thousand years or so into Africa, you might find that one of the attributes that the tribes of hunter-gatherers possessed, was the ability to pass on, or teach information to each other.  Even 12 thousand years ago, before the modern job market or complicated trade and finance structure that we see today existed, education was taking place.  Not too unlike today, that education still met a market demand.

Jobs were often determined and distributed to individuals by sex and age... so where did education come into play?  It was intrinsic to the society.  The job could not be completed without the education, and often, if the job wasn't completed, the group wouldn't survive.  The education was integral to both defining and establishing the role or function.  We know this because as new information to be educated on came about, new functions were invented.  We clearly see this today, where we observe both a market and demand for individuals educated in "Information Technology"; obviously, without education and research, there would be no such thing as "Information Technology". 

As this phenomenon occurs, both the types of individuals with which work is distributed to changes, as well as the value that society placed on that work.

There is also an active harm where social engineers provide citizens with vast educations followed by careers that only require trivial efforts to succeed.  I don't believe that more education necessarily makes a happier citizenry.

For one, under very limited circumstances would I ever prefer less education to more.  In fact, by what reasoning should any modern society design their infrastructure of education in such a way that the intellectual value of work be commensurate to (and never less than) the education of the people?  Education should be intrinsic to -all- societal betterment for -all- people in -all- lines of work... not -just- financial or occupational betterment.

Secondly, I would agree that education does not necessarily make happier citizens... which sort of brings us to the question of "What then is the purpose of education?"  Social, cultural, and scientific advancement?  I would think that education drives all of these things, and if these things are not the predominant focuses of our society (and the human race), what is there really left to be happy about?

Last edited by Charles Taylor (03-19-2008 02:39 AM)

Actually, I'm amused enough on reflection to add one final point.

One of the continuous slanders that IT likes to throw against me is that I'm not really a conservative, while it of course is.

Yet, look at the premise of it's last argument, and the nature of the contradiction I'm supposedly making.

If there's anything among the core tenets of a Conservative, it is that the government does not earn nor is it entitled to the taxpayer's moneys.  There's very little more sacred to a conservative than the notion that the money that a citizen earns is -theirs-.  It is -purely- a Democrat, socialist trick that cons people into believing that tax cuts are in fact "stealing from the poor to give to the rich".

Yet I, the guy who supposedly isn't a real conservative, is being challenged to answer why a tax break, letting a citizen keep their own money, is in any way "meaningfully different" from a government handout.  I've met a lot of liberals who occupy that ground, but now the "guy" who claims I can't think for myself and I'm not really a conservative is arguing the socialist mantra and insisting that any sane answer other than "the government controls all citizen's money both before and after they get their hands on it" is a contradiction

God, so useless.  I take back the earlier compliment, that was a fucking lame ass question too.

Qwinn

Last edited by Qwinn (03-19-2008 03:22 AM)

Well, that's TWO opportunities to demonstrate your capacity for reasoning that you have passed up.

Who knows...

Maybe the third time is the charm, right old buddy?


Chin up...

I'm sure we'll find SOMETHING that you're willing to take a risk on. In the meantime, keep posting and I'll keep looking out for you.