Should an undergraduate education be free?

Verbatim · August 12, 2015, 03:05:39 PM

Honestly, if any budding engineers are afraid of not being able to land a job because there's "too many" on the market, they can rest easy knowing that they can easily find a career doing something else. Dabble in other subjects. Develop new interests. Explore. That's what minors are for. And double/triple majors. I know a guy at my uni who's trying to major in everything.

Seem like a lot of work? Oh well. That's tough.

Don't come to college with any big career aspirations if you don't expect to do some hard work.

That's life.

Verbatim · August 12, 2015, 03:06:45 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on August 12, 2015, 03:05:39 PM

Honestly, if any budding engineers are afraid of not being able to land a job because there's "too many" on the market, they can rest easy knowing that they can easily find a career doing something else. That's what minors are for. And double/triple majors. I know a guy in my uni who's trying to major in everything.

Seems like a lot of work? Oh well. That's tough.

Don't come to college with any big career aspirations if you don't expect to do some hard work.

That's life.

That said, you should be able to do it all for free.

*drops mic*

More Than Mortal · August 12, 2015, 03:57:50 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on August 12, 2015, 02:53:16 PM

Destroy the notion that college is necessary.

Oh, I completely 100pc agree with you there.

We have a 50pc school-leavers target in the UK for people who should be going to university, which is fucking ludicrous. If you fixed the quality of primary and secondary education--and perhaps put more emphasis on things like job programmes and apprenticeships--then you wouldn't have so many people thinking they needed to go.

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Well, it wouldn't, first of all. You still have to get the degree, you realize, and that takes some hard motherfucking work. Free college =/= free degree.

Sure, but there are a lot of incentives acting on governments and higher education institutions that make keeping the standards uniformly high incredibly difficult. It might not be collectively rational for the government and universities to sneak students through the back door, or to lower test standards, but it becomes individually rational when you have funding incentives, prestige incentives et cetera.

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Do you really mean that?

No, I'm exaggerating, but unfortunately not by much. Thankfully, highly specialised jobs like doctors--which require a PhD--still have an incredibly rigorous "weeding-out" process. I was thinking more of Bach degrees which are almost nothing to our generation.

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I don't think getting a degree should be a matter of illusory, make-believe economic concepts like "worth".

It's hardly illusory that if everybody has a PhD, the PhD is worthless. Sure, if in 200 years everybody has a PhD then they're more intelligent than almost all of us today in absolute terms, but the point of credentials and higher education is to be relative. To separate the intellectual wheat from the chaff.

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Because I don't think there's such a thing as "too many doctors". "Too many engineers." Whatever.

Sure there is. Well, maybe not at the moment--I don't have any evidence to hand--but it's certainly not a logically impossible situation.

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There could never be enough of either of those two things.

If everybody was a doctor, there are too many doctors.

Verbatim · August 12, 2015, 04:31:44 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on August 12, 2015, 03:57:50 PM

No, I'm exaggerating, but unfortunately not by much. Thankfully, highly specialised jobs like doctors--which require a PhD--still have an incredibly rigorous "weeding-out" process. I was thinking more of Bach degrees which are almost nothing to our generation.

Right. Engineers, then. I would refer to the little addendum I gave above.

There is a lot of talk about whether the market is becoming over-saturated with engineering degrees.

I would agree only in the sense that engineering majors are some of the most cocky and insufferable people I've ever met, bragging about how valuable their degree is. And they're fucking everywhere.

Their cocksuckery aside, however...

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It's hardly illusory that if everybody has a PhD, the PhD is worthless. Sure, if in 200 years everybody has a PhD then they're more intelligent than almost all of us today in absolute terms, but the point of credentials and higher education is to be relative. To separate the intellectual wheat from the chaff.

Sure, but wouldn't it be nice if there was no chaff to separate from the wheat to begin with? Why is the chaff a necessary component of society, assuming "chaff" means "uneducated, unemployed, NEET layman"?

Personally, a society made up of college-educated individuals who aren't crippled by debt sounds totally rad to me.
I don't see the... societal necessity of "the chaff".

I mean, I know I just said earlier that I don't believe college should be necessary... but I still think that, like all good things, it should be encouraged.

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If everybody was a doctor, there are too many doctors.

It's not like doctors can only ever be doctors. The beauty of free education is that it would, in effect, be unlimited. That guy I mentioned earlier who's trying to fulfill his dream of getting a master's in everything could, quite feasibly, do it.

Mr. Psychologist · August 12, 2015, 06:02:59 PM

Hmm, probably not free but I'd like the current system for the UK a whole lot more if the fees charged weren't so retardedly high. Then again, by studying the way I am it's working out at £5k for a full year of study, so I'm leaving with £15k total debt via SFE which is a pretty unpleasant number but the repayment system is tolerably organised.

I feel bad for people going to a physical one though, they not only have living costs, accommodations, the other student loan for like maintenance I think? and 9k per annum... jesus that's gonna smart in the chequebook.

Whereas assuming I get on the path I intend to, when I hit doctorate level I actually get a salary for that (the course pays you, not the other way around) which was amusing to learn. So omnissiah willing, I should be walking away from my studies without a massive burden of debt. Others won't be so lucky so I'd kind of like to see that system for everyone and not just the lucky/smart ones >_>

Mad Max · August 12, 2015, 07:40:50 PM

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on August 12, 2015, 12:02:05 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on August 12, 2015, 11:55:47 AM
Quote from: 🍄Tryptameme🍄 on August 11, 2015, 09:52:24 PM
unfortunately something like this is never going to happen in the near future, because when the majority of americans hear the words "more taxes" they flip out and veto that policy to hell.
I would be PROUD knowing that my tax dollars are helping build the next generation of doctors, engineers, and scientists. Yes, even the humble writers and artists. Fuck anyone who wouldn't be. Like, FUCK them. Fuck them with every object within reach.

This brings up an interesting caveat; would you (or anyone else reading this) support free tuition for "essential" degrees like technical and medical fields, while disregarding others like arts?

I would.

Rinev · August 18, 2015, 09:07:25 PM

Maybe not entirely free, but the cost should be much lower.

The course that I'm planning on taking is going to cost me at least 16k a year, and that number makes me want to stay in my slightly above minimum wage job sometimes.

Sandtrap · August 19, 2015, 12:47:13 AM

Access to knowledge and learning of any kind, in general, should be free or cheap as shit.

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Should undergraduate education be free?

Should an undergraduate education be free?