Should community college and/or trade school be free?

[Chrome Hyena]

Simple question. Should there be some kind of free post secondary education such as community college or a trade skill(computer shit/electrician etc)?

It's obvious that most jobs which pay decently and have benefits require post highschool education. Should people be forced into significant debt just to make a decent living?

 

[Mekanos]

All college should be free.

 

[subrock]

I'd happily pay more taxes to live in a country where everyone had free access to post secondary education. Seems like the kind of investment that is pretty likely to pay itself back in many beneficial ways

 

[Officer Big Mac]

All college should be free.

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Doing ding doing

 

[Hiphopopotamus]

How about paid apprenticeships and guaranteed retirement packages?

I found college a wonderful, eye-opening experience that in general I recommend, but most degrees don't teach you how to perform any given job, but working along side people who can teach you how to do a job, and then management dedicated to training and retaining workers goes a long way to creating healthy, functioning communities.

 

[FaceHugger]

Yes: tax payer dollars, tax subsidies or outright wavers, and more already help to fund state college / community college. We should just increase that funding and let anyone who wants a post highschool education get one. Community colleges also offer a lot of technical training - two year courses which can easily lead to a person getting a good paying job without having some four year diploma. We're going to really need this as we cruise into the age of automation and job cutting.

 

[onadesertedisland]

We should invest in our future more than war.

 

[djnhkguy]

All college should be free.

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Community/Technical/Medical/Graduate/Law/all of it. End of thread.

 

[VariantX]

they can either make higher education free, have some sort of UBI, or people start protesting and clogging the streets shutting everything down when automation comes and millions suddenly have no job prospects and no means of putting food on their tables or having a decent roof over their heads.

 

[DestinyArrives]

The costs to attend college shouldn't withhold people from going. My girlfriend has been wanting to get her bachelor's degree but is unable to afford it. Meanwhile I'm graduating with mine early so I can reduce my debt load. It's stressful.

Make all college free. Those who want to learn should be able to.

 

[TaySan]

Yes through our taxes we should be able to go to school.

 

[MykhellMikado]

Do you know how hard it is to get minors through 13 years of schooling? As someone who actually teaches at a technical school and community college many students have little incentive to actually dedicate themselves to the classes they registered for on their own dime let alone being free.

What should be expanded are financial aid grants. Loans and for profit trade schools should be outlawed and all publicly funded universities should be required to have 2 year trade programs. Also annual tuition increases should be capped at 2% where inflation allows with a 5 year readjustment schedule

 

[thewienke]

Yes and community colleges and trade schools are a reasonable and affordable stepping stone to making all secondary education free. These types of institutions are easier to keep costs low for taxpayers while still working as a way to retrain and educate our people.

Past that, there needs to be a lot of consideration and analysis in ways to make other colleges affordable and to control costs without ruining their capability as places of research.

 

[Gigglepoo]

My graduate school just bumped my tuition by 50% ... after the semester started. School as a business is just awful.

 

[Yerffej]

All college should be free.

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[Pasha]

Yes, because College is a near requirement for the job market today, and people shouldn't have to go into deep financial debt in order to live a dignified life.

 

[TaterTots]

Yes it should be. In my state it already is, but this should be adopted nationwide.

EDIT; oh wow, the number is up to nearly 20 states already. It's a start.

 

[Blue Skies]

Honestly?
No.
not until they fix the current k-12 education.
Kids be underperforming their grade levels all across the country. And it's usually the poorer communities.
pay teachers more.
provide better school lunches.
better child care before and after school.

idk. I think we need to take care of the children first. The ones thatdon't even get to make it to have the option to get student loans

 

[Thordinson]

Absolutely. The one I went to is now tuition free as is my current university for those who make less than 50k. I prefer it to be free for everyone though.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

Yes. It's secondary schooling to get a step up in a bigger position. I hate when people say that making it free will cheapen a degree but how? Getting a GED didn't degrade a High school diplomas so why is there such push back against the idea of higher learning that comes at no cost?

I just don't know how having more educated people ends up being a bad thing.

 

[Deleted member 4346]

All college should be free.

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First post nails it.

 

[Septimus Prime]

Yes. The knock-on effects of everyone having access to higher education will likely be greater in value than what we'll have to pay into it.

 

[Baji Boxer]

Absolutely. Goes for college as well. Though K-12 needs to be reworked too, as prep for trades need to be taught to an extent, while better identifying who would be better suited for which direction.

 

[Chan]

I paid for my bachelor's degree but went back to school for my associate's degree that was completely free and I was paid to attend by work. I make close to close to 6 figures now because of my associate's degree and some places balk at me that I don't have my bachelor's in a particular field, my bachelor's was useless.

 

[Shadybiz]

It would certainly be a good start, yes. College or training in a trade are basically required nowadays if you want to make a decent wage. There are some exceptions of course, but in general, you need it.

And if traditional 4 year schools (and beyond) never end up being funded by taxpayers, then something at LEAST needs to be done about the ballooning tuition at these schools. I did my undergrad at a University in my home state, and when I graduated in 2005, it was about $5,000 per year. Same school at this point in time? About $15,000 per year. Sure, it's 15 years later now, but I'd like for someone to give me examples of anything else that has increased in price by 200% over the past 15 years.

To put it into perspective: The Xbox 360 Premium console launched with a price tag of $399 (let's call it $400), and that console happened to launch in 2005. Now, imagine MS announces their pricing for the new xbox, and they say "Well it's been 15 years, so now it's gonna be $1,200." There would be outrage; the same outrage that one should feel about skyrocketing tuition.

 

[Optional Objectives]

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[gully state]

No it shouldn't be free.. but it should be paid for by taxes... there shouldn't be a financial burden on students to go into debt to attend college

 

[Mammoth Jones]

I don't like the term "free". Nothing is free. But I did vote yes it should be free. But let's be clear: What we're saying is that our society should care enough about having an intelligent, well educated and well skilled populace to collectively invest in them.

Time and time again education and skill sets are bedrocks of financial stability. And sure, nothing is 100% guaranteed but the pros of educating more of our people* outweigh the cons.

*Of course, this is infinitely more difficult to do when people don't view others as "our people". Makes them far less likely to be inclined to want to broaden access for their sake...

 

[Deleted member 29280]

We should be paid to take the courses if its an in demand trade or job

 

[Felt]

All education should be free. Even professional degrees.

Oh wait, social mobility is the bane of the elite.

 

[Josh5890]

Our country should focus on making the required schooling (K-12) be free before worrying about college. High School alone can be expensive for registration, especially for poor families. I feel like that never gets talked about.

Edit:

Honestly?
No.
not until they fix the current k-12 education.
Kids be underperforming their grade levels all across the country. And it's usually the poorer communities.
pay teachers more.
provide better school lunches.
better child care before and after school.

idk. I think we need to take care of the children first. The ones thatdon't even get to make it to have the option to get student loans

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I am so sorry I missed your post. Thank you so much for posting this!!!!

 

[MonoStable]

Yes we should but also make sure they're not going into useless fields or oversaturating certain fields. People can make so much money being a tradesman and I feel like that gets neglected in all the talk of free college.

 

[efr]

Both should be, community college is pretty easy to get knocked down in price.
These and regular college wont be until the military stops needing poor, uneducated people to serve. Aka Trump's base.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Oh wait, social mobility is the bane of the elite.

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It's more the bane of the bigot. Can't have folks that don't look like me living in my neighborhood area, taking jobs that my people are naturally more qualified for in the name of "diversity".

Elites keep bigotry going so those folks that don't wanna share what they got don't notice their pockets being snatched by said elites, lol.

 

[Tiger Priest]

100% yes. Not everyone needs to go to a liberal arts college, so trade schools make a lot of sense. And free community college is a great entryway for those who seek to educate themselves further without breaking the bank.

All education should be free. Even professional degrees.

Oh wait, social mobility is the bane of the elite.

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Who pays the professors? Who pays for study abroad programs and new labs?

Not everything is a conspiracy of the "elite"

 

[Blue Skies]

Our country should focus on making the required schooling (K-12) be free before worrying about college. High School alone can be expensive for registration, especially for poor families. I feel like that never gets talked about.

Edit:


I am so sorry I missed your post. Thank you so much for posting this!!!!

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I think the fact that we all start at different cases of privilege is something that balancing out K-12 would be WAY better at addressing than just giving free college to everyone. Even kids who go work for jobs that pay 6 figures or whose parents were rich

 

[Merv]

Yes

My daughter is going into High school next year. Her High-school has a program that will get her an Associates or a Professional certification upon graduation. No additional time or courses. It's built into the High school curriculum. This should be a standard.

 

[PKrockin]

It allows for greater economic mobility, which is very good if you think that people should be able to rise and fall in society based on their efforts individually and not be locked into the circumstances they were born and raised in.

 

[electricblue]

All public universities should be free

 

[Clay]

That would be pretty sweet, especially trade schools. Community college course are relatively inexpensive so maybe trade classes are cheap too, but if I could enroll in a plumbing or electrical class for free I'd likely check some out just to know how to do some simpler repairs for when I eventually buy a house.

 

[Felt]

Who pays the professors? Who pays for study abroad programs and new labs?

Not everything is a conspiracy of the "elite"

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I work in higher education in the state system. Student tuition does not pay for labs and only supports a fraction of the faculty salary.

Most university resources are funded by government grants. A full time lecturer makes less than 6 figures, and an r1 famous professor makes most of their salary from their research grant income.

I really don't know where the student tuition goes, I guess to the administration.

 

[Tiger Priest]

I work in higher education in the state system. Student tuition does not pay for labs and only supports a fraction of the faculty salary.

Most university resources are funded by government grants. A full time lecturer makes less than 6 figures, and an r1 famous professor makes most of their salary from their research grant income.

I really don't know where the student tuition goes, I guess to the administration.

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He didn't say public education - he said all education. Private school tuition definitely accounts for a lot of the funding at schools outside of the few with ridiculous endowments.

Public school tuition goes right back into the state coffers - it's better to think of it as a tax and think that all of the money for the budget is disbursed by the state. The question of tuition with public universities is essentially "should those who attend public colleges pay more state taxes (their tuition) to help pay for that school than those who do not attend?" I'd argue probably not (likely in agreement with you) but that the funds for the schools should primarily come from the state that the college is in rather than from the federal government. I don't really understand the point of New Yorkers paying more in taxes for schools in Michigan when New York residents can't actually attend schools in Michigan for free (assuming free public school tuition would be limited to in-state residents - though if it was not limited to in-state residents that would open up a whole other can of worms with local school systems being overloaded with out-of-state students).

 

[Felt]

He didn't say public education - he said all education. Private school tuition definitely accounts for a lot of the funding at schools outside of the few with ridiculous endowments.

Public school tuition goes right back into the state coffers - it's better to think of it as a tax and think that all of the money for the budget is disbursed by the state. The question of tuition with public universities is essentially "should those who attend public colleges pay more state taxes (their tuition) to help pay for that school than those who do not attend?" I'd argue probably not (likely in agreement with you) but that the funds for the schools should primarily come from the state that the college is in rather than from the federal government. I don't really understand the point of New Yorkers paying more in taxes for schools in Michigan when New York residents can't actually attend schools in Michigan for free (assuming free public school tuition would be limited to in-state residents - though if it was not limited to in-state residents that would open up a whole other can of worms with local school systems being overloaded with out-of-state students).

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nobody is asking Harvard to provide free tuition. That is never the topic of providing free education. but yes all public education should be free.

 

[Aaronrules380]

All college should be free.

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the correct answer

 

[MrMephistoX]

I'd say enough credits to graduate should be free: everyone I know who went to community college took way longer to graduate then if they just went to a 4 year state school. It doesn't save money because of the stupid placement test racket they have.

 

[Castor Archer]

My local community college just got $800 million dollars. The school newspaper just spent $70,000 on computers they have no idea how to use. There was talks on building an on-campus Starbucks. Book store is owned by Barnes and Noble and expensive as fuuuuck. I got kicked off of financial aid because I had accumulated too many credit hours.

And tuition here has been going up.