Oregon passes tuition-free college
 

Somebody's actually trying to DO something about the absurd cost of college.

Oregon Legislature Unanimously Passes Tuition Free Higher Education -

This is awesome! (Cue people venting their spleens about creeping socialism in the US.)

I read about that in the NYT the other day, if it's the same plan where students pay back their tuition to the state at a rate of about 3% of their salary. Interesting that the solution arose from a college economics class which analyzed the problem. It's not really 'tuition free', just an alternative to loans. I hope they included a GPA requirement in the system.

Somebody pays for it.

There is no negative feedback loop to control costs.

Guess what will happen with higher ed costs with no feedback loop?

Oh wait, that's exactly what has happened for the past 40 years of subsidized higher ed.

Who pays?

Subsidies have been cut, if anything. Public universities in the US date to the 1780s, if not earlier to colonial times.

And if the taxpayers pay, I'm fine with it -- I consider education and research worthy things for my taxes to pay for.

Broad subsidization of public higher ed tuition is a relatively new phenom. Other forms of support have a long history. It's easy to spend other people's money on things I like.

Now let's talk about feedback loops. Where is the feedback that contains cost in higher education?

Put another way, what would happen to housing rent cost if the fed gov subsidized everybody's rent?

Unless Oregon has a way different system than Colorado, it's just not true that there is no negative feedback loop. Tuition only covers part of the cost of public universities. The rest comes thru the state legislature and has to be voted on. In Colorado, even tuition rates are subject to control by the legislature so there are a number of ways that budgets of public universities and colleges are under control.

There'd some college in NY that always used to be tuition free. There was a big wailing and gnashing of teeth recently when they realized it wasn't possible any longer. Can't remember its name but its one I've heard of before. Quite a decent one apparently. I agree with spdrun, that education and research are worth funding. But Bots right, without cost containment how do you ensure it will remain viable?

- Peter.

Cooper Union. And it's a private school, that made some fawked up investments and lost 50% of their endowment fund during the 2008 crash. Bad luck on their part.

I suspect that them charging tuition isn't a done deal either.

This--coming from a scientist, who's well being counts on govt grants to fund operating.

Costs are limited to what can be garnered from 3% of your average state uni graduate's income for 20 years, spread out over four years. OK, not that simple, but funding isn't infinite here.

And when students take basket weaving as a major because they like that subject and no one hires them- how is 3% of a full time McDonald's order taker going to pay for the classes they took?

That's one of the major issues with today's universities students- they've been told to get a degree and then they do- in some subject which is economically un-viable. (I made up that word; but it fits) Then they expect someone to save them from the debt they racked up.

Personally I think colleges should be really hard to get into and terribly expensive. You should have to have parents with really deep pockets or your own trust fund. Everyone else can suck it.

Funny, that most of the humanities majors whom I went to school with are doing just fine. The amount of truly unmarketable people who graduated from college is actually pretty tiny.

If someone cannot work and pay as they go to college, then perhaps they shouldn't go. If one can get an edu free from any Gov't. entity, more power to 'em.

What's gotten out-of-hand is private edu at all levels. They just name their figure as to what the traffic will bear. Many times they have a published tuition fee, then will negotiate down quickly upon request. One college that won't deal is St. Louis University in St. Louis, MO.

But then again, I don't feel that private edu is all that great, NOT WORTH THE MONEY, in the first place. If a student wants to achieve, they'll do it anywhere. The ones that don't probably won't regardless whether the edu being public or private.

Most of my edu was private, however, I'm a big believer in getting one's edu from IN STATE public edu.