Can the media dictate who wins elections?

[Ramhusker]

Promoting more exclusivity for universities sounds like a terrible way to go.

You'll keep a lot of smart people from going to college. Which seems to be the opposite of your goal.

Not sure what you mean? The smart kids will score the highest on the test no?

 

[Ramhusker]

How do we get more kids educated?

I am not suggesting they need to be scholars.

Educated.

I am certain there is nothing more important to our future.

Hmmm, let's see, how about no more "no child left behind" and "common core"? That would be a good start. Stressing personal responsibility early in the process and less emphasis on coddling little Johny so his feelings aren't hurt. I guess I'm saying "tough love" early and often. How about less time off during the school year and go back to traditional summers where kids can earn a little sweat equity? Let's aim our curriculum a little more towards life skills and functioning in the real world and a little less on visions of grandeur? The gifted will rise to the top regardless and the ones that just aren't cut out for higher education will at least be able to function in the world. And I really think the schools should be able to group kids like they used to according to performance. (Although, my daughter's school is doing this despite the restraints that have been put on them. They just don't advertise it.)

 

[Ramhusker]

And I guess a lot of us need to apologize for hijacking this thread. Sorry, Sorry! but

 

[CGI_Ram]

Hmmm, let's see, how about no more "no child left behind" and "common core"? That would be a good start. Stressing personal responsibility early in the process and less emphasis on coddling little Johny so his feelings aren't hurt. I guess I'm saying "tough love" early and often. How about less time off during the school year and go back to traditional summers where kids can earn a little sweat equity? Let's aim our curriculum a little more towards life skills and functioning in the real world and a little less on visions of grandeur? The gifted will rise to the top regardless and the ones that just aren't cut out for higher education will at least be able to function in the world. And I really think the schools should be able to group kids like they used to according to performance. (Although, my daughter's school is doing this despite the restraints that have been put on them. They just don't advertise it.)

Well said, Husker.

 

[Athos]

Firstly, we need a much better and more coherent Vocational Education pipeline like they have in Europe. When BMW opened a plant in SC, they found they had a hard time filling certain positions due to a lack of skilled labor. The problem is that the sector is dominated by private and often very shady profiteers that return very little education and take a lot of money. This sector need massive reform because the country needs this education sector to produce and significantly more and better. Plenty of people wouldn't go to college if they had a better alternative to a better life.

Never mind that one nasty little backhanded bitch slap universities utilize under the guise of a "well-rounded education."

We in America get subjected to the bullshit of "General Education" classes which is, imo, nothing more than a scheme to strip us of every nickel and dime we have. The actual classes in your major don't happen until junior year and take up about half, sometimes less, of what you actually need for a degree.

I'm not arguing the fact of a well rounded intelligent block of people, especially among those who vote, but that BS of gen ed classes still pisses me off and is how the make their bread and butter and indebt students.

It's the new indentured servitude. And then internships, the newest of the new slave labor.

You're definitely right about vocational colleges for students not really made for 'college' as it is traditionally known.

How do we get more kids educated?

Improve secondary education first, which is woefully pathetic in the US.

Promoting more exclusivity for universities sounds like a terrible way to go.

You'll keep a lot of smart people from going to college. Which seems to be the opposite of your goal.

Yep. That's exactly what we "need" ain't it. Yet another test that tests your ability to take a test.

We're so over fucking saturated with TESTING in the country, I'm surprised students learn a damn thing anymore.

Someone's making a crapload of money on the backs of students...

And the private organizations buying up that debt, hello Salle Mae, are shady as fuck too. I do believe they just got their asses sued the fuck over by trying to screw over veterans returning for education.

 

[jrry32]

Not sure what you mean? The smart kids will score the highest on the test no?

No. That doesn't even happen now. Standardized tests are far from perfect.

 

[Athos]

No. That doesn't even happen now. Standardized tests are far from perfect.

Far, far from perfect. It took me 3-4 times just to crack a 24 or 25 on the ACT because I was dreadful with the "science reasoning" BS section and the Math I believe. Dragged my 30 and 32s on the other parts down. The tests are massively flawed.

 

[jrry32]

Hmmm, let's see, how about no more "no child left behind" and "common core"? That would be a good start. Stressing personal responsibility early in the process and less emphasis on coddling little Johny so his feelings aren't hurt. I guess I'm saying "tough love" early and often. How about less time off during the school year and go back to traditional summers where kids can earn a little sweat equity? Let's aim our curriculum a little more towards life skills and functioning in the real world and a little less on visions of grandeur? The gifted will rise to the top regardless and the ones that just aren't cut out for higher education will at least be able to function in the world. And I really think the schools should be able to group kids like they used to according to performance. (Although, my daughter's school is doing this despite the restraints that have been put on them. They just don't advertise it.)

The problem with this is that kids don't mature at the same rate. It takes some kids longer than others. Some kids/adults never do.

The "gifted" often aren't all that "gifted," they're just the kids that matured earlier.

And I'm speaking from personal experience here. In your system, I would have been a kid that wasn't cut out for higher education. I was a very mediocre high school student. I think I graduated with a high school GPA around a 3.25. Which was below average for the private school I went to. I didn't get placed on the honors/AP path that my "gifted" classmates did.

But I had never had an issue with being "gifted" intellectually. I'm not a super genius MENSA member but I'm an intelligent guy. My issues in high school were entirely effort based. I didn't enjoy high school, I didn't feel challenged intellectually, and so I didn't put any effort in. I only did homework in the classes I found interesting (typically history). I didn't study, period. Yet, I was still able to ace the tests for the most part. Problem was that homework was 15% of the grade in most every class at my high school. I didn't care, though. I was an immature kid. Well behaved but immature.

That didn't suddenly go away in college. My first three semesters, I was sitting with about the same GPA and all the same bad habits. Except I had greater freedom to skip class in college...so I did. But things changed after my third semester. I decided two things: 1) I was switching my major to something I was passionate about and 2) that I was done failing to live up to my potential. And over my final 6 semesters, my GPA was over a 3.9. I have since gone to law school and finished my first year. I've maintained that 3.9+ GPA at law school. Which is nearly impossible to do at my school.

By doing things the way you want them done, you're shutting the door on all the kids that didn't mature early and all the kids that didn't "get it" in high school. We're talking about teenagers. It just seems so wrong to me to basically tell a kid that he isn't shit because he wasn't mature in his teen years. That he can't go to college.

You're not allowing the "gifted" to rise to the top because you're excluding all the gifted kids that didn't mature early enough.

I'm not writing this post to brag about how well I've done. I'm proud of what I accomplished but also ashamed of how lazy and apathetic I was when I was younger. But I can't go back and change that. Luckily, I got the chance to grow up and overcome my mistakes before they derailed my life. Not all kids will. But what you're proposing will make it much less likely and even harder for kids like me to turn it around. Kids that might be capable of great things. Kids that would have been considered "gifted" in high school if they had the maturity and work ethic to make use of those gifts.

 

[bluecoconuts]

What exactly is the common core and what's so bad about it? It looks like the goal is to raise our education levels, which are laughable to be honest. Instead of trying to improve our education we have states that want to rewrite history, lower standards, and eliminate critical thinking. What the hell is that about?

 

[jrry32]

What exactly is the common core and what's so bad about it? It looks like the goal is to raise our education levels, which are laughable to be honest. Instead of trying to improve our education we have states that want to rewrite history, lower standards, and eliminate critical thinking. What the hell is that about?

I'm just hopeful that we'll fully leave behind the disaster that was "No Child Left Behind" soon. They've taken some steps but not enough imo.

 

[RamFan503]

While I agree that not everyone needs to go to college, I think it's a huge mistake to price out very smart people from going to college, which is what we're effectively doing now. The cost of going to college is ridiculous, it's risen much more than just simple inflation, and the result is that we have very smart people who either cannot afford it, or very smart people who cannot afford continuing their education after completing their undergraduate degree. I've seen it myself, one of my coworkers is a pretty brilliant physicist who can't afford to go to graduate school. It's not just a simple "get a job" he has a wife (who is currently going to school) and a new daughter. He has spoken repeatedly about how he wishes he could pursuing his doctorate if only he could afford it. There's plenty of others who have a similar story, and that means that the United States is missing out on tons of potential. As a country we're pretty math/science illiterate, and pricing people out of college adds to that problem.

Sure, we need ditch diggers, but there's tons of people who simply don't want to go to college. Hell most of my coworkers fall into that category, we don't need to price out people to make sure that we have an endless supply of ditch diggers.


In terms of a minimum wage, I agree a national one is very stupid. I disagree that the solution is just "get a roommate" because that incorrectly assumes that everyone has the same situation.

I have a little more than anecdotal information here. My sons went to Oregon State and U of Oregon respectively. We could not afford to send them to college but through grants, loans, and scholarships they were both able to go without even having a job during school. Once you are in, there are even more opportunities available after your Freshman year.

You are right that every situation is different but at what point do we stop accounting for everyone's choices? No offense to your friend but is it my problem that your friend decided to have a kid and get married while still wanting to further his education? I know it may sound mean spirited but it just isn't a decision I made for him.

I admit that I am not as versed in what is available as far as grad school but a high level university is attainable with some hard work in HS and some follow up on the myriad of grants and scholarship funds that are available.

I agree that higher education has gotten ridiculously expensive. But at what point do we draw the line on what society is responsible for providing? I know several people that have gotten through grad school when they never thought they would be able to afford it.

My "get a room mate" comment was just an example. There are ways to make do on even less than the minimum wage is now. I'm not saying it is easy. But either is trying to pay employees and work 7 days a week while also trying to figure out how to pay a modest mortgage and find some time to enjoy life. I fear that people have bought into the idea that businesses are just making money on the backs of their employees that we really have lost sight of what it takes to build a business that can even pay them. I bought a modest house and my mortgage is about the same as many 2 bedroom rentals in the area. I have a hard time buying that it is not doable with two incomes in a household when I run the numbers. In fact, if you watch your pennies, you could do it on the approximately $20K that minimum wage equates to if only one in the household works.

 

[Athos]

You are right that every situation is different but at what point do we stop accounting for everyone's choices? No offense to your friend but is it my problem that your friend decided to have a kid and get married while still wanting to further his education? I know it may sound mean spirited but it just isn't a decision I made for him.

This is so laughable I don't even know where to begin, so I won't, because I'll just get even more pissed off than I already am.

My "get a room mate" comment was just an example. There are ways to make do on even less than the minimum wage is now.

You really don't seem to get it and that's my biggest issue with conservatives. They really don't get it. Sure, 'some' and I stress 'some' try, but they really don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Been around the inner city poor. Been around the food banks. Been around the homeless. Been in the nonprofit sector. Been around a lot of the dirty poor actually.

That 20K statement and below is such sunshine and rose colored glasses bull that gets peddled ad nausea and it just isn't true.

Try to balance choosing to pay medical costs or food. Healthy food for your kids and nothing for yourself.

Food or living in a home that is habitable.

Medical costs or living in a home that is habitable.

You live in a fantasy land if you think "just getting by" is just "okay."

I believe in a social contract that's more than what many people think it is.

Otherwise we might as well drop our label of fucking humans. Because we aren't then. We're bloody damn animals and Darwin rules all.

Everyone is worth something. And few are worth living shitty lives they didn't ask for, being the human stepping stones for the rest of us meandering through life with an air of superiority few realize.

And don't even get me started on privilege. Especially white privilege. Especially white male privilege.

 

[bluecoconuts]

You are right that every situation is different but at what point do we stop accounting for everyone's choices? No offense to your friend but is it my problem that your friend decided to have a kid and get married while still wanting to further his education? I know it may sound mean spirited but it just isn't a decision I made for him.

I'm not saying that he isn't responsible for his own actions, but he couldn't afford grad school regardless, he doesn't come from a wealthy family or anything like that, he was barely able to afford getting his undergraduate degree let alone go further than that. I just think it's a shame that someone as smart as he is is priced out of an education, one that could very well benefit the United States, or even the world remotely. Just think of all the brilliant minds that can't research Cancer, or discover new particles, or develop faster and cheaper ways to travel through space because they can't afford higher education? I think that's a shame, and that's not something that should be considered acceptable in my opinion. That doesn't mean lower the standards so everyone can go to school or anything like that, but there needs to be better ways to get those who want the ability to continue their education. Scholarships and grants can be difficult to come by as well, I'm having issues securing them (although plenty of people want to give me loans with high interest rates), but good news because my children will get plenty of them. My purple heart gives my kids a scholarship, being Irish gives my kids a scholarship... I apparently can piss off however.

I am lucky enough that by teaching and doing research with my school, my education is far cheaper than it would be without. The problem is that I still have to work full time to afford a place to live, which I need my girlfriend to work nearly full time as well. The result it I work 40 hours a week and then do an additional 60 hours a week between teaching, my own classes, and research. Then I come home and have to make sure I have lesson plans ready, making sure I answer all my e-mails, grading exams, etc. It's very taxing, and not something I would expect most people to be able to do. If not for my military service I don't think I'd have the self discipline to do it.

However a lot of students don't get the chance to teach or do research though, or are in fields (law, medicine, etc) that don't typically have those opportunities.

I don't think society needs to pay for the education, but we can make it more affordable.

Take UCLA for example, in 1975 the cost to attend the school was $2,675 according to their general catalog for that year. If we were to adjust for inflation that equals about 11,865.. Say we round it up to $13,000 because they have more expenses. Or even $15,000... Still a pretty penny.

Except that UCLA costs $33,898 a year. For what exactly? Shit, I have better TP in Afghanistan than I do at UCLA, and most of the damn classrooms still have chalkboards. UCLA is a public university, yet the majority of Americans are priced out of it right off the bat.. Hell if you're not a CA resident it costs $58,606 to attend UCLA, and 73% of Americans earn less than 50K a year.

There's no need for UCLA to cost that much, yet they're raising tuition even more. That doesn't mean we need to make other people pay for it, but we need to reign in how much these schools cost to attend.



In terms to the get a roommate bit, there's people who have a wife or husband who dies suddenly (maybe they get sick and go bankrupt from medical bills, maybe they get hit by a drunk driver or something) and they're left alone with children trying to figure things out. It's going to be hard for them to find someone to room with them, yet they need to in order to get by. Unfortunately while there are business owners like yourself who do pay a fair wage, there are others who don't. Hell my owners are one of them, they pay minimum wage and we're working with firearms all day. I fought for my raise and finally got enough of one to stay there, but our owners can easily afford to pay us more and don't want to. They know it too, my owner accidentally blurted out during my raise negotiations "I know I should pay you guys more, but I just like having more money" They cleared 18 million last year after payroll and expenses, they make a fuck ton of money, and don't want to pay guys more than 9 dollars and hour.


Anyway looks like this thread is crossing the line, so that's probably it anyway.

I'm not for just simply giving out handouts or free college, but I'm against pricing out smart people so we can afford to spend 4 million a year for a coach or something like that, and I'm against just telling people "too bad" when 40 hours a week doesn't give them enough money to live and they don't have options.

 

[RamFan503]

Sounds like a roundabout way or more respectfully, a more detailed way of saying the same thing. Of course, I may be looking at it from a slightly different angle. My wife is a Dean. I hear stories just about every night. The names have been changed to protect anonymity.

This is what I was thinking. Bottom line is that the simple answer coming from many is to throw more money at it without the institutional corrections @Mackeyser talks about. Therefore the heightened government funding has compounded the issues with no corrections in sight. Here's a concept. Try the reforms first. Demand that the politicians actually do the work before we just give them more money.

 

[RamFan503]

Never mind that one nasty little backhanded bitch slap universities utilize under the guise of a "well-rounded education."

We in America get subjected to the bullcrap of "General Education" classes which is, imo, nothing more than a scheme to strip us of every nickel and dime we have. The actual classes in your major don't happen until junior year and take up about half, sometimes less, of what you actually need for a degree.

I'm not arguing the fact of a well rounded intelligent block of people, especially among those who vote, but that BS of gen ed classes still pisses me off and is how the make their bread and butter and indebt students.

It's the new indentured servitude. And then internships, the newest of the new slave labor.

You're definitely right about vocational colleges for students not really made for 'college' as it is traditionally known.



Improve secondary education first, which is woefully pathetic in the US.



Yep. That's exactly what we "need" ain't it. Yet another test that tests your ability to take a test.

We're so over freaking saturated with TESTING in the country, I'm surprised students learn a damn thing anymore.



And the private organizations buying up that debt, hello Salle Mae, are shady as freak too. I do believe they just got their asses sued the freak over by trying to screw over veterans returning for education.

Think you got fuck in there enough? Can you please chill the language a bit? It may seem acceptable to you but you are going way over the top with it.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Demand that the politicians actually do the work before we just give them more money.

Woah, lets focus on something obtainable first, like time travel, or creating a real Jurassic Park.

 

[Ramhusker]

The problem with this is that kids don't mature at the same rate. It takes some kids longer than others. Some kids/adults never do.

The "gifted" often aren't all that "gifted," they're just the kids that matured earlier.

And I'm speaking from personal experience here. In your system, I would have been a kid that wasn't cut out for higher education. I was a very mediocre high school student. I think I graduated with a high school GPA around a 3.25. Which was below average for the private school I went to. I didn't get placed on the honors/AP path that my "gifted" classmates did.

But I had never had an issue with being "gifted" intellectually. I'm not a super genius MENSA member but I'm an intelligent guy. My issues in high school were entirely effort based. I didn't enjoy high school, I didn't feel challenged intellectually, and so I didn't put any effort in. I only did homework in the classes I found interesting (typically history). I didn't study, period. Yet, I was still able to ace the tests for the most part. Problem was that homework was 15% of the grade in most every class at my high school. I didn't care, though. I was an immature kid. Well behaved but immature.

That didn't suddenly go away in college. My first three semesters, I was sitting with about the same GPA and all the same bad habits. Except I had greater freedom to skip class in college...so I did. But things changed after my third semester. I decided two things: 1) I was switching my major to something I was passionate about and 2) that I was done failing to live up to my potential. And over my final 6 semesters, my GPA was over a 3.9. I have since gone to law school and finished my first year. I've maintained that 3.9+ GPA at law school. Which is nearly impossible to do at my school.

By doing things the way you want them done, you're shutting the door on all the kids that didn't mature early and all the kids that didn't "get it" in high school. We're talking about teenagers. It just seems so wrong to me to basically tell a kid that he isn't crap because he wasn't mature in his teen years. That he can't go to college.

You're not allowing the "gifted" to rise to the top because you're excluding all the gifted kids that didn't mature early enough.

I'm not writing this post to brag about how well I've done. I'm proud of what I accomplished but also ashamed of how lazy and apathetic I was when I was younger. But I can't go back and change that. Luckily, I got the chance to grow up and overcome my mistakes before they derailed my life. Not all kids will. But what you're proposing will make it much less likely and even harder for kids like me to turn it around. Kids that might be capable of great things. Kids that would have been considered "gifted" in high school if they had the maturity and work ethic to make use of those gifts.

Oh, I get that. And you bring up some good points. My dad had a 7th grade education, my mom an 8th. I grew in a single wide trailer until enough nickels got rubbed together until we got a double wide. Well, until that burned down on Christmas Eve. Dad, working two jobs all the years I lived under his roof, was rocking that "white male privilege". I think many need to get a boat load of that without falling off their soap box. So I knew there was no money for me for college. I too had a good time in high school, had a 3.5 GPA but wasn't going to get a free ride anywhere. And even if I did, there was no funds for the incidentals. So I went into the USAF. 15 years later, I finally got to college, so did my wife. We did it working 45 hours a week, I was coaching both my son's baseball teams too and managed a 3.97 GPA, Business Student of the Year, but I did make one B+ due to " political correctness". So my heart bleeds for the little kiddies that don't get a fair shake and don't get the benefit of that infamous "white male privilege". I just don't understand whats to become of them. I guess we need to hire some professional hand holders for them, maybe hire an aid to wipe their butts? Sorry, just can't get into violin music these days.

It would be cool if Socialism, Communism, Marxism actually worked like it looks like on paper ( You know, how all the want-to-be Professor Alinsky's at college paint that Eutopia?) and EVERYBODY could go to college but then the government would tell you out of high school exactly what you were going to be in life if you liked it or not. Trouble is with all those "isms", somebody always ends up digging a trench and stuffing bodies in it. Although life is pretty peachy for the ruling class. Rant over.

 

[jrry32]

Oh, I get that. And you bring up some good points. My dad had a 7th grade education, my mom an 8th. I grew in a single wide trailer until enough nickels got rubbed together until we got a double wide. Well, until that burned down on Christmas Eve. Dad, working two jobs all the years I lived under his roof, was rocking that "white male privilege". I think many need to get a boat load of that without falling off their soap box. So I knew there was no money for me for college. I too had a good time in high school, had a 3.5 GPA but wasn't going to get a free ride anywhere. And even if I did, there was no funds for the incidentals. So I went into the USAF. 15 years later, I got back to college, so did my wife. We did it working 45 hours a week, I was coaching both my son's baseball teams and managed a 3.97 GPA, Business Student of the Year, but I did make one B+ due to " political correctness". So my heart bleeds for the little kiddies that don't get a fair shake and don't get the benefit of that infamous "white male privilege". I just don't understand whats to become of them. I guess we need to hire some professional hand holders for them, maybe hire an aid to wipe their butts? Sorry, just can't get into violin music these days.

And if you had been told that you couldn't go to college because you weren't "gifted" enough and didn't do well enough in high school 15 years before...do you think that would have been right or fair? Is that the type of system you want?

That's my problem with what you're proposing. You accomplished great things in college.(congrats on that!) But if we make college very exclusive, it ends up cutting out potentially successful people.

No doubt that the system needs to change. But, imo, the change isn't to make college more exclusive. It's to make it more cost effective. It'll allow the people capable of succeeding to do that and those that don't care to or aren't capable will be what they are now...without taking on staggering amounts of debt.

I'm not looking or asking for your pity. I want to see a broken system fixed.

And I'm not looking to get into an argument over "white male privilege" but I will point out that it does exist. Life isn't as fair as it should be.

 

[RamFan503]

I agree that it should be left up to the localities to institute a higher minimum wage to keep up with a living wage but I believe a floor is necessary.

My only concern with what you are saying is just what a living wage means and to whom. A floor is necessary but how to factor that floor is a good debate to have.

There are already too many college degrees out there. Problem is that they come with crippling debt. Too many college degrees isn't a problem when it's affordable.

Totally agree except that like anything else, too much of something devalues it. I'm not saying that education is ever a bad thing. It's not. How you make it affordable should be the first goal - not how to spend more money making a problem worse.

That the socialist label means nothing. If you have problems with his policy, you have problems with his policy. Having a problem with him because he calls himself a socialist is just lazy. It seems your problems lie with his policy. Those are the points worth making.

I think I stated several of his policies I find troubling. I was the campaign chair for the Libertarian Party in Oregon. It cracked me up why some people would refer to themselves as Libertarians. So yeah... labels mean nothing. But policies and history does.

We in America get subjected to the bullcrap of "General Education" classes which is, imo, nothing more than a scheme to strip us of every nickel and dime we have. The actual classes in your major don't happen until junior year and take up about half, sometimes less, of what you actually need for a degree.

I actually agree with you here. That has always pissed me off. Heck, some of the GE classes I was forced to take were lower level than I had already been through in HS. They were a real waste of time and money and also enthusiasm. I petitioned to be able to take a few upper level classes just so I would have some interesting classes that had something to do with my major.

Been around the inner city poor. Been around the food banks. Been around the homeless. Been in the nonprofit sector. Been around a lot of the dirty poor actually.

Don't presume to know my history. I was in the non-profit sector for 5 years, worked with the Special Olympics, worked with church groups in inner city food and clothing drives, served on homeless shelter food lines in Portland, etc. Stop with the idea that you are unique in that respect.

That 20K statement and below is such sunshine and rose colored glasses bull that gets peddled ad nausea and it just isn't true.

I know it to be true. I never said it was true in all areas. It is in many rural areas. In fact, I made the point that the national minimum wage is ridiculous because it virtually every community is different. You can get an apartment in town here for $450 per month. That $20 k is eminently doable here - especially with all the safety nets already in place.

When I was growing up, we didn't have much money. But we could afford to go see our family doctor on the rare occasion we needed to. The simple fact was that medical costs hadn't yet ramped up so violently. You must want to assume government had nothing to do with that. I have personally seen doctor bills that were artificially pumped up by Medicare to a point that they were 30% higher than the doctor was going to charge. They demanded it.

You can adhere to your philosophies on why conservatives don't have a clue yet you are ultimately in tune with reality. But thinking I have no clue because you think you do is pretty rich from my standpoint.

You live in a fantasy land if you think "just getting by" is just "okay."

I believe in a social contract that's more than what many people think it is.

Otherwise we might as well drop our label of freaking humans. Because we aren't then. We're bloody damn animals and Darwin rules all.

You can project your opinions all you want. But a social contract cuts both ways. And the end goal should always be a plan that works - not just one that satiates the people instituting it. I never said that just getting by is ok for the long term but using the minimum wage (training wage) as a living wage is a bad policy IMO. Has nothing to do with my caring or non-caring nature. I'd wager to say that I put my money and time where my mouth is more than most. I don't know about you and wouldn't presume to say that I have done more. I do suspect it though.

I don't think society needs to pay for the education, but we can make it more affordable.

Take UCLA for example, in 1975 the cost to attend the school was $2,675 according to their general catalog for that year. If we were to adjust for inflation that equals about 11,865.. Say we round it up to $13,000 because they have more expenses. Or even $15,000... Still a pretty penny.

Except that UCLA costs $33,898 a year. For what exactly? crap, I have better TP in Afghanistan than I do at UCLA, and most of the damn classrooms still have chalkboards. UCLA is a public university, yet the majority of Americans are priced out of it right off the bat.. Hell if you're not a CA resident it costs $58,606 to attend UCLA, and 73% of Americans earn less than 50K a year.

There's no need for UCLA to cost that much, yet they're raising tuition even more. That doesn't mean we need to make other people pay for it, but we need to reign in how much these schools cost to attend.

Totally agree here. I was accepted to UCLA in '81. I was also accepted to UCSB, and CSU Chico. I qualified for enough grants and scholarships to go to any of the three. Stupid me - I decided to go to Chico because it was farther away from home.

Affordability should be job one on this. But more tax money is not making it more affordable.

In terms to the get a roommate bit, there's people who have a wife or husband who dies suddenly (maybe they get sick and go bankrupt from medical bills, maybe they get hit by a drunk driver or something) and they're left alone with children trying to figure things out. It's going to be hard for them to find someone to room with them, yet they need to in order to get by. Unfortunately while there are business owners like yourself who do pay a fair wage, there are others who don't. Hell my owners are one of them, they pay minimum wage and we're working with firearms all day. I fought for my raise and finally got enough of one to stay there, but our owners can easily afford to pay us more and don't want to. They know it too, my owner accidentally blurted out during my raise negotiations "I know I should pay you guys more, but I just like having more money" They cleared 18 million last year after payroll and expenses, they make a freak ton of money, and don't want to pay guys more than 9 dollars and hour.


Anyway looks like this thread is crossing the line, so that's probably it anyway.

I'm not for just simply giving out handouts or free college, but I'm against pricing out smart people so we can afford to spend 4 million a year for a coach or something like that, and I'm against just telling people "too bad" when 40 hours a week doesn't give them enough money to live and they don't have options.

I don't know your owner's situation. If that is their attitude, they suck as human beings.

But back to what I had actually said, I am not opposed to true safety nets. And when was the last time you heard of someone being turned away at a hospital because they couldn't afford it? I couldn't afford insurance a couple years ago when I cut off my finger tips. I still was treated and because I couldn't afford the bill, the hospital wrote off part of the ridiculous $8000 bill and then I sent them a check for $50 per month that they cashed several times and are now on the hook for as a payment plan.

I don't buy the living wage argument because it is a constantly moving target. The idea that $15 per hour buys as much in an economy that is based around $8-10 is just not reality. Thinking that giving a burger flipper at McDs $15 per hour solves anything is just not based in sound economics.

Anyway - peace man. I think I'm done here as well.

 

[RamFan503]

Woah, lets focus on something obtainable first, like time travel, or creating a real Jurassic Park.