I'l bet you already know what I'm going to write, don't you? I'll bet you are wrong.

I favor public education. In contrast to my general laissez faire/libertarian views, I think public education is an inherent organ of government. It should be strictly secular and it should be free to all students and paid for strictly by taxes only. Funding should be per student. All teachers paid the same base with incentives for certain academic areas and incentives for entering poorly performing school.s It is such an important function that everybody should pay for public education, whether or not they send their kids to public school.

I have more, but that ought wind your clock.

I'll agree, as I think an educated populace is public good. However, the education system needs to come to realize that a college education is not the be-all/end-all.

I'd recommend something more like the German model or the (older) UK model. At some point in your adolescence you're tracked to go to college and advanced studies, or you finish and learn a trade via apprenticeships or other training. Until that point, a solid foundation in arithmetic, history, basic sciences, language skills, etc should be built.

Dragging an uninterested 16-17 y.o. to high school graduation and then dumping the marginally educated but also unskilled individual onto the public doesn't work. It also dilutes the quality of prep for the college-bound during the final few years of high school.

Some will say this is elitist and doesn't account for late bloomers, and they might be right. It would also decrease the quality of NCAA athletics, so it'll never fly.

I agree with you and Rick Santorum on that.

Unless you work for Corrections Corporation of America.

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Jim

I've long believed that our "everybody should go to college" focus is wrong and to the detriment of those who don't want to attend or are not academically equipped to do so. It's my understanding that in countries where students are "tracked" in such a way as to sort and select the academically advanced, it doesn't necessarily mean that a student who has been directed towards a career prep type education can not go to college instead if he so chooses.

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Having been in the system in Scotland in the 70's, then having seen it in Germany in the 90's, it's pretty much a done deal - if you're tracked into non-college, it's really difficult to get untracked. It would take a very strong parent to fight the system.

Some of the differences may be the continuing education opportunities later, stuff like community colleges. People in their 30's and 40's took classes that interested them at low cost. It wasn't just something you did to get better job skills. You weren't "done" at 16 unless you really chose to be done.

That's still available here. Last summer I took conversational Spanish in the evenings on my own dime. I paid about 400 bucks all told for the semester and learned a good bit.

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Some in the liberal media agree:


Read more: Obama and the Cult of College: Why Rick Santorum Had a Point | Rick Perlstein | Politics News | Rolling Stone

No surprise there. Exactly what Adam Smith thought (more or less).

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I agree. A well educated citizenry is a countries most valuable asset. I think the German model is best and there is no reason why someone here wouldn't be able to change track later on and move thru a community college and further up if they so desired.

Unfortunately the German alternative might not work here. In Germany technical and vocational training works because German companies are world leaders in manufacturing and appear to take a long term view which keeps manufacturing in country and provides employment thru apprenticeships for technical students rather than academics. US companies have been shipping those jobs to China for the last decade or two because short term profits outweigh long term societal cohesion. So if there were a large number of US technically trained kids looking for jobs in America, would they find them?

- Peter.

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Formerly...
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Higher ed is where I go back to laissez faire. I think there should be completely open admission in all publicly funded higher ed: If you have the financing and want to give it a shot, give it what ya got. Darwin's boney hands sift the chaff from the wheat.

I hate public funding for private education -- at any level. It dissipates public dollars on what should be private enterprise. If your ivy league can't survive without public funds, then you are a publicly funded institution and some pol gets to tell you what to do.

Since more and more public money is used to pay for higher education, the cost of that education has increased as well. Perhaps by keeping the public money out of it, it might bring the cost back down to something a bit more manageable.

In speaking with the school board in our district, I've learned that they are no longer pushing college, but steering much of the student body (those that aren't academically adept) into trade schools instead.

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I totally agree with this, although for the most part I am admitting hypocrisy on this point since I've gotten through my education only with the help of federal loans and scholarships. I would not have been able to afford to go to such a good school, likewise I'm not sure it was totally worth $200k. The price of education is atrocious these days, I am in favor of anything increasing the competition and decreasing the cost (i.e. less stupid kids go to school).

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TC
Current stable:
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More stupid kids going to college decreases cost, per student. You just keep them cycling through remedial and freshmen classes, that's where the money is. Graduate school is money pit unless the they are on TA or soft money.

Tom, I had dinner with a guy last weekend and we got to talking about education. He has three daughters. His idea is rather than spend 200k for a college education, he'd give 100k to each to travel the world for a year. Then, he's invest 100k for them in a business and help them get started. In his opinion, they'd have a three year head start and be miles ahead of their contemps, many of whom hit the bricks with a 200k collar and bleak prospects.

He also felt, and I agree, that the cost of higher education is unsustainable and the system is going to collapse. I understand that Obama has lowered the income limits and the payback term needed for debt loan forgiveness to 20 years. OK. But in the meantime paying 20 % of your income for student loan debt service for the next 20 years is going to keep many wading through knee high water. I think it's criminal what higher ed is doing to the youth today. I'll never give my school another dime while they continue to screw guys like you. It's all about empire building and protecting their own.
My $.02.

And I think if govt. backed off of financing higher ed, prices would indeed go down.