Current Events > AOC dismantles Pete Buttigieg's attacks on free public college

(+) Yeah! (+)

Same with Warren. Petes plan also does not address what I stated.

https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/affordable-higher-education

https://berniesanders.com/issues/free-college-cancel-debt/

https://peteforamerica.com/policies/education/

Yeah those are valid criticisms, there are definitely issues with free college.

But rich people might benefit too! isnt one of those valid criticisms.
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King_Hutton posted...

Yeah those are valid criticisms, there are definitely issues with free college.

But rich people might benefit too! isnt one of those valid criticisms.

Its the equivalent of a tax. I mean we are for a progressive tax system no? Why is this different than an income or property tax hitting wealthy people harder?

You gotta find the right line of where to tax though. $150,000 seems low if there is not going to be any system to make their tuition reasonable. The candidates need, especially Pete, to be more specific otherwise his vagueness will scare people that they gonna get screwed under his plan if they want to attend college or want their children to attend college. I know I would be.

I think having the most elite public university system in the world in California (and not even a close comparison to any other. Deadass.) has me cautious towards plans, just wanna see more details.

Since when did Broseph flip from being a far left shill to some moderate

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PlsGodDontBanMe posted...

Since when did Broseph flip from being a far left shill to some moderate

He's not even a "moderate"
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Bio1590 posted...

He's not even a "moderate"

Yes he is. Having free tuition for people under $100k income and having a public option for healthcare for all are not conservative options.

Lets not be disingenuous

I know quite a few kids that got free college while I had to pay for mine out of pocket. They all dicked around for 2 or 3 semesters before dropping out.

Came across this article from 1974, in response to proposals at the time to raise tuition costs
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/05/archives/class-war-over-tuition.html

for nearly three decades American higher education has been a major force for the eradication of class differences and hostilities. It has notably narrowed the gap, both in aspirations and opportunities, between haves and havenots, between privileged and underprivileged youths.

Through a dramatic expansion of educational access across class lines, the postWorld War II G.I. Bill of Rights set in motion a trend that substantially reduced the risk of class conflict. The subsequent massive expansion of free or lowtuition public campuses signaled what seemed the permanent removal of economic and class barriers from college gates.

Those gains are now in jeopardy. College costs have followed the general inflation. The annual allinclusive bill for each student now approaches $5,000 at many private universities and $2,000 or $3,000 respectively for state residents and outofstate students in public institutions.

Yet prestigious national panels of educators, economists and social planners are advocating a policy of charging higher tuition at the public institutions. They argue that the private sector's survival is threatened by competition from lowcost public education; that a greater part of the cost for public higher education ought, for this and other reasons, to be charged to students; that affluent families reap excessive benefits from taxsupported low tuition; and that middleclass students are well able to shoulder a higher tuition burden.
...
While such hardship pleas have less force for the 6.5 per cent of families with collegeage children in the over$25,000 bracket and even for most of the 12.7 per cent in the $15,000to$25,000 group, the charge that they are getting a free ride should be measured against the fact that these families also pay higher taxes to support public campuses, whether or not their children use them.

The commissions and panels concerned with social and educational policies, though generally liberal and publicspirited, are largely recruited from among the affluent. Their view of the nation as basically one happy, classlessly middleclass family is wellintentioned but misleading. They tend, in the fine tradition of noblesse oblige, to react responsibly and sympathetically toward the poor. All their proposals include generous, and entirely necessary, provisions for free education and subsidies at the poverty level.

What makes their proposals vulnerable seems an inadequate understanding of the thin line that divides much of the working and lowermiddle class from the poor. A minor financial disaster can push those on the plus side of the line back into poverty. There is growing concern that higher college tuition could become just such a disaster.

Such a course could have a corroding influence on the already deteriorating relations between the poor and the lowermiddleclass. If the children of the former are encouraged to attend college tuitionfree or even on a subsistence subsidyas they ought to bethen hardpressed middleclass families are likely to react in anger and political vindictiveness.
...

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King_Hutton posted...

Tuition isnt a barrier for college except for the massive amount of people whos entire adult lives have been stuck in neutral because of the loans theyre paying off and the substantial amount of people who assume they can never afford it so they dont go through high school aiming for it. Because some middle class people will benefit from free college, that aint allowed! Right Bro?

I like how you intentionally failed to acknowledge half of what he said and misconstruct it into some piss poor rambling that doesnt actually address anything he said and then you add some smart ass commentary at the end as if you think you had a gotcha! moment on him. Of course, a drunk who never had any extra brain cells to lose would think this way.
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thrashmetal14 posted...

I know quite a few kids that got free college while I had to pay for mine out of pocket. They all dicked around for 2 or 3 semesters before dropping out.

Same happens to people that do pay out of pocket and dick around....

Not even sure why people think I had to pay myself and got better grades than those who didnt so fuck free college or I served my country and used my GI bill so fuck free college are valid arguments with strong points.

Sounds a lot like I had to go through chemo and it bankrupted me and I ended up dying anyway so fuck finding a cure for cancer to me.
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Who posted?
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CruelBuffalo posted...

Bio1590 posted...

He's not even a "moderate"

Yes he is. Having free tuition for people under $100k income and having a public option for healthcare for all are not conservative options.

Lets not be disingenuous

Oh whoops I read his post wrong, I thought he was calling Broseph a moderate >_>
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EdgeMaster posted...

Same happens to people that do pay out of pocket and dick around....

Not even sure why people think I had to pay myself and got better grades than those who didnt so fuck free college or I served my country and used my GI bill so fuck free college are valid arguments with strong points.

Sounds a lot like I had to go through chemo and it bankrupted me and I ended up dying anyway so fuck finding a cure for cancer to me.

Nobody cares if somebody wastes their own money. It's when they waste everybody else's money that people start to notice. To provide a medical analog, it's less like somebody getting cancer and more like an obese person trying to get insurance to cover a gastric bypass when they've made no attempt to change their eating habits.

Financial aid often comes with minimum grade requirements. So it's not like this is a particularly new idea. "We'll cover the cost, but you have to at least try or we'll stop and you're on your own" shouldn't even be controversial. For some reason the idea of holding somebody accountable for their own performance, though, really seems to upset some folks.

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There's no such thing as "free college." There is only college paid for by other people, and then the question is... why should I have to pay for other people's services? If you want to go to college, you get a bill for it. Then you pay it like a responsible adult. Why does my money come into play?
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An educated populace is good for everyone
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King_Hutton posted...

An educated populace is good for everyone

Yeah but an uneducated populace is good for conservatives
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King_Hutton posted...

An educated populace is good for everyone

To a point. There's a reason nobody is demanding free doctorates for everyone. The question is when does the benefit of "general education" end? Historically that's been high school, because everyone learns the same thing. Once you start talking college, you start comparing engineering to gender studies and the value proposition is a lot less clear.

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King_Hutton posted...

An educated populace is good for everyone

This. Very much so.

When public college was affordable, an entire generation didnt miss out on buying a house because they were crippled by student loans. Up until the last 30 or so years, public college had been an affordable way to get a better education, a better job, and upward mobility.

If someone is smart enough to be a doctor and is only held back by finances, who benefits by them not being a doctor?
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Why is it always the "gender studies" boogeyman and usually compared to "engineering" whenever the concept of lowering tuition costs or student loan debt is brought up?

I swear you all operate from a script or something

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The Great Muta 22 posted...

Why is it always the "gender studies" boogeyman and usually compared to "engineering" whenever the concept of lowering tuition costs or student loan debt is brought up?

I swear you all operate from a script or something

Good examples remain good examples no matter how often they're used? Especially when nobody even attempts to refute them?

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King_Hutton posted...

When public college was affordable, an entire generation didnt miss out on buying a house because they were crippled by student loans. Up until the last 30 or so years, public college had been an affordable way to get a better education, a better job, and upward mobility.

If someone is smart enough to be a doctor and is only held back by finances, who benefits by them not being a doctor?

Don't get me wrong... I completely agree that university costs have spiraled out of control. Just that throwing money at the problem (and acting like it's the right fit for everyone) isn't an actual solution. Performance based tuition assistance should still let that "smart enough to be a doctor" student graduate.

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s0nicfan posted...

Good examples remain good examples no matter how often they're used? Especially when nobody even attempts to refute them?

it's a dumb, bad faith example


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s0nicfan posted...

Good examples remain good examples no matter how often they're used? Especially when nobody even attempts to refute them?

Everyone repeating something doesn't make it a good example, it just means you steal the same talking points as everyone else instead of thinking for yourself

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

King_Hutton posted...

Buttigiegs plan considers a family income of 100k to be rich, so its not even the actually rich

hahaha

honestly growing up poor was probably way better for me than turning out like this guy

Ya Im not gonna lie we grew up on not even half that.

Good shit as always though Broseph.
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s0nicfan posted...

Don't get me wrong... I completely agree that university costs have spiraled out of control. Just that throwing money at the problem isn't an actual solution

To what extent can lowering costs be separated from "throwing money at the problem" when the cost of tuition is set by public officials?
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Paper_Okami posted...

it's a dumb, bad faith example

Then actually explain how. The point is to compare a degree with clear, immediate societal benefits to one that is already saturated. I could have picked doctor vs jazz trumpet major and made the same point.

Education in others is an investment. Not every investment has the same return, and some are a loss.

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Fuparulez posted...

There's no such thing as "free college." There is only college paid for by other people, and then the question is... why should I have to pay for other people's services? If you want to go to college, you get a bill for it. Then you pay it like a responsible adult. Why does my money come into play?

for exactly the same reasons that we all pay for public K-12 already.

Zeeak4444 posted...

Broseph_Stalin posted...

King_Hutton posted...

Buttigiegs plan considers a family income of 100k to be rich, so its not even the actually rich

hahaha

honestly growing up poor was probably way better for me than turning out like this guy

Ya Im not gonna lie we grew up on not even half that.

Good shit as always though Broseph.

Growing up poor wont make a middle class family rich.
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how many fucking gender studies majors are there really out there?


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Antifar posted...

To what extent can lowering costs be separated from "throwing money at the problem" when the cost of tuition is set by public officials?

Giving everyone free tuition is clearly different from controlling costs. Some proposals address both. Most don't.

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Paper_Okami posted...

how many fucking gender studies majors are there really out there?

About 160,000 in the workforce.
https://datausa.io/profile/cip/050207/

About 14,000 students graduate with that degree each year.

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CruelBuffalo posted...

Its the equivalent of a tax. I mean we are for a progressive tax system no? Why is this different than an income or property tax hitting wealthy people harder?

It's a fair point and fairly sound logically. I guess you could argue that as rich people pay more tax then they've already contributed to the system and are entitled to use it just as the poorer people are? Should they have to pay more to use the same system they've already helped fund?

To me it's a similar system to the NHS in the UK where rich people pa taxes and contribute to it and can still use it but they can still chose to go private. That does raise the question of two tier systems and the benefits and negatives therein and that's definitely another topic that's important to consider.

What is the priority or goal here? If it's to get as many people in higher education as possible and removing as many road blocks as possible then does opening it up to rich people as well increase or decrease this from happening?

Another option is an additional tax on people who go to higher education and don't pay for it up front. In Europe some countries will charge an extra tax on anything earned over $XXXX a year from post grad students. The idea being the more you benefit from higher education the more you pay back.

Some food for thought and I'd be interested in hearing other peoples thoughts.
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"average wage 77k"
you seemed to ignore this
seems to fly in the face of it being a useless major considering people like you only consider moneymaking majors useful, and tens of thousands of dollars more than the average salary.

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Dan Crenshaw weighs in
https://twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/status/1200571285086097408
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Fuparulez posted...

There's no such thing as "free college." There is only college paid for by other people, and then the question is... why should I have to pay for other people's services? If you want to go to college, you get a bill for it. Then you pay it like a responsible adult. Why does my money come into play?

I suppose one argument is that a more educated nation is potentially beneficial to the whole country. It also helps with economic and social mobility as well which is something this country is sorely lacking.

Also helps with unemployment figures if all of a sudden all those 18-22 year old's without a job are in full time education. Then you have all the service industries that also benefits from more students and supporting them so some more food for thought there as well.

I'm not from the US so unsure what the general consensus is on helping other people where you are but if you're view is essentially "I've got mine so fuck everyone else" then fair enough that's a valid opinion to have but not one I share.
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Paper_Okami posted...

"average wage 77k"
you seemed to ignore this
seems to fly in the face of it being a useless major considering people like you only consider moneymaking majors useful, and tens of thousands of dollars more than the average salary.

My point was that every 10 years you have a number of students graduating equal to the entire Workforce. That's why I said it was saturated.

But you still haven't addressed my point. In fact you switched to personal attacks instead.

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s0nicfan posted...

About 160,000 in the workforce.
https://datausa.io/profile/cip/050207/

About 14,000 students graduate with that degree each year.

Total workforce in the US is something like 160 million. Almost 2 million a year graduate with a bachelor's degree.

This is why I laugh at you types that act as if the country is littered with "women's studies" majors that are the ones trying to retroactively claim relief for their student loan debt.

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For comparison, there were 238k engineering grads in 2015
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/06/09/the-countries-with-the-most-engineering-graduates-infographic/#1d901b2a667d
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The Great Muta 22 posted...

Total workforce in the US is something like 160 million. Almost 2 million a year graduate with a bachelor's degree.

This is why I laugh at you types that act as if the country is littered with "women's studies" majors that are the ones trying to retroactively claim relief for their student loan debt.

Is there some kind of rule you and okami follow that you must never address the point made in an argument?

I said the field was saturated and thus not a good investment in our people, and neither of you addressed that, instead jumping to "you people" arguments that bitch about things other people have said instead.

At 2 million grads a year, it would take 80 years to replace the workforce in general vs 10 years for gender studies majors. We should be encouraging careers with job prospects if we're going to pay for them, not just have a free for all.

Which is my point... investing in education should be centered around societal returns on that investment, which means paying for what we need first.

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s0nicfan posted...

We should be encouraging careers with job prospects if we're going to pay for them, not just have a free for all.

clearly they have job prospects if the average gender studies major is making 77k a year

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Antifar posted...

For comparison, there were 238k engineering grads in 2015
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/06/09/the-countries-with-the-most-engineering-graduates-infographic/#1d901b2a667d

With a field of 4.3 million jobs, which means workforce replacement would take about 20 years, double that of gender studies, meaning it's a better investment in our people to fund.

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Paper_Okami posted...

clearly they have job prospects if the average gender studies major is making 77k a year

Then pick a degree that isn't as good. You're hyper focusing on this example to completely ignore the point I'm making. Pick nurses vs jazz trumpet majors or whatever your brain comes up with. The point is not all degrees are equal and it's a dumb idea to invest in education for degrees that don't provide a return.

And yes, that means what provides a return will change over time, as it should. One day investing in stem won't be a good idea, too, but you have to adapt if you want those free degrees to mean anything.

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s0nicfan posted...

With a field of 4.3 million jobs,

The BLS says 1.6 million, for what that's worth
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/employment-and-wages-of-engineers-in-2015.htm
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Antifar posted...

The BLS says 1.6 million, for what that's worth
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/employment-and-wages-of-engineers-in-2015.htm

I was going off this for consistency:
https://datausa.io/profile/cip/engineering

But see above: the specific degree doesn't matter to the broader point

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I feel like youve failed to make the point you wanted to if youre stuck yelling it doesnt matter which degree without an ability to demonstrate which degrees are useless.
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1337toothbrush posted...

Nah, it's just not worth arguing with a rabid right-winger such as yourself

Yes I'm clearly a rabid right-winger for wanting wealthy people who get a degree which will make them even wealthier to pay it off themselves. It's not you who's fallen down the rabbit hole of extremist politics, everyone is just a rabid right-winger.

I'm going to make this as clear as I can, tuition is already affordable for poor students. Rich and poor do not pay the same on tuition. But since tuition isn't the main barrier for poor people getting into college, 75% of college graduates still come from upper-middle and upper class families.

Average student debt upon graduation is around 30k.
Average debt payment is around $300 - $400.
Median income for college grads is 20k higher than high school graduates
Unemployment rate is half that of high school graduates

College is not a burden, it's one of the best investments you can ever make. Rich people going to college and taking out a loan that will pay for itself many times over is not a problem we need to deal with. The progressive argument for free tuition isn't that it will help poor people, it's that it will remove a minor and temporary inconvenience for upper-middle class people (meaning progressives).

Calling out your insane affluenza doesn't make a person right-wing.

King_Hutton posted...

I feel like youve failed to make the point you wanted to if youre stuck yelling it doesnt matter which degree without an ability to demonstrate which degrees are useless.

Countries like Germany that offer free college also have strict entrance exams that if you can't pass you don't get to go for free. They also have a lower percentage of people that go to college than the US. What I'm espousing is the common way of doing things in the very countries that do offer free or subsidized University. They don't just tell everyone to go and pay for all of it no matter what.

But that doesn't matter to you. You decided that no matter what argument I make you're not even going to attempt to address it and instead just fling accusations because that's how you think arguments are won.

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s0nicfan posted...

King_Hutton posted...

I feel like youve failed to make the point you wanted to if youre stuck yelling it doesnt matter which degree without an ability to demonstrate which degrees are useless.

Countries like Germany that offer free college also have strict entrance exams that if you can't pass you don't get to go for free. They also have a lower percentage of people that go to college than the US. What I'm espousing is the common way of doing things in the very countries that do offer free or subsidized University. They don't just tell everyone to go and pay for all of it no matter what.

This is the argument you should have made then, rather than needlessly ranting about gender studies majors. Its a much better point than heres a degree where people are successfully finding employment and making more money than they would have without it, its my example because I dont like the subject.
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