[ooqr]

That's still time opportunity cost for the student and merely shifts the financial burden.

I'm not against a liberal education for the betterment of the person, but it's not a sound investment.

We should not aim to make college free by means of government sponsorship, but rather education free or inexpensive by means of lowering the actual costs. As someone else said in this thread, certain kinds of knowledge are rather cheap to be had. Yet even so, degrees are pursued blindly by students, and hired blindly by employers.

Again, there's plenty of benefit to schooling. I liked taking classes with peers, including the non-major classes (for the most part). But throwing more money at the problem is the problem.

[nikdaheratik]

I think most of the comments on this topic ignore the fact that the U.S. really does have a mult-tier education system. The most cost efficient ones are state sponsored public universities, which are also the ones that have had the largest cuts in their budgets over the past few decades.

The private ivy-league and liberal arts colleges are the ones with the highest price tag, and also seem to be the ones most likely to give someone a "leg up" into an upper class life, mostly through the contacts gained while attending. They're also losing quite a bit of their value, especially the smaller liberal arts colleges.

[Cyph0n]

> We should not aim to make college free by means of government sponsorship, but rather education free or inexpensive by means of lowering the actual costs.

I think that you're vastly underestimating how much money is needed to provide quality higher education. Trust me, the last thing we need is a race to the bottom when it comes to higher education.

[ecshafer]

The amount of money that goes towards marketing, administration, and buildings that are far fancier than they need to be is the issue. The professors are a fraction of the costs. Universities spend far more money than they need to on useless extraneous offices and bloat. Get back to focusing on education and the costs will drop.

[ooqr]

I'm absolutely not saying this is an easy problem. I also agree with your last point. I'm being idealistic, I know, but I'm cautious about accepting any proposed solution.

I definitely see the merit in comparing the US to Europe in terms of what has worked. Even as I am cautious, I value societies willing to experiment and progress forward with solutions to problems.

I'm not sure the US system is amenable to the same thing, but I'll bow out at that point and merely listen to what others have to say.

What I do suspect is that the landscape is changing with regards to what jobs need a degree and how easy knowledge is to obtain.

[conanbatt]

Depends on the branch, but considering that about 10-15% of costs of college is actually faculty, and marketing is twice that, then something is going wrong.

[Frondo]

Oh, we absolutely should. An educated populace fits so perfectly under the idea of "general welfare" that it's a no-brainer to make school free for everyone.

It just runs counter to the goals of our capitalist overlords to have a bunch of learned folks running around. That's why you don't see it. That's why "ivory tower elites" is such a common, cliched even, pejorative. Don't want too many smart folks! They might wonder where all the money's been going for the last 40 years, and might not be so quick to blame immigrants or brown people.

[mrout]

The 'actual costs' are not the reason that fees are so high in the USA though.