Opinion: Expand free education to everyone
By Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times
President Obama’s proposal unveiled Thursday to provide free community college education to all “responsible” students is garnering immense attention. That’s as it should be, although the details still need to be fleshed out and individual states will have to agree to shoulder a share of the costs.
But the proposal fails to address one glaring flaw in the nation’s overall system of public higher education: It should all be free. That’s the way it is in Germany, for instance, where there is a long tradition of low-cost university study. In 2014 the last German state holding out against free university education threw in the towel; now anyone, including foreign students, can study at a German university at public expense.
Free higher education to qualified students was also the rule in California, where the University of California had no tuition for state residents until Gov. Ronald Reagan demanded it in the early 1970s. Once the door was cracked open for tuition charges, it swung wide; a Berkeley or UCLA education was pegged at $12,192 for state residents in 2014-15, plus myriad other fees.
Nothing is free. Someone has to pay.
I agree with Kits. There is no “free lunch”. Somebody has to pay. This appears to be more of Obama’s redistribution of wealth as he continues to push this country headlong toward becoming a Socialist state. For the “miseducated”, or maybe indoctrinated would be a better word, Socialism/Communism is the antithesis of the principles this country was founded on.
Anyone who believes something provided by government, including education, is “free” should be reminded that its end product is arrived at only after multiple layers of taxes, inefficiency, spending, and bureaucracy are endured. Somebody has to pick up the tab, even in Germany.
We all pay for Welfare, Food stamps, Unemployment, & prisons with our taxes. Of course nothing is free. Education gives us more employment options.
Aren’t “entitlements” great.
There might be some worth in more
freebies if the students were
getting a real education, but alas
they are not. We now have the
most educated, least knowledge
college uneducated than ever.
Everything should be free, in fact,
free should be free.
Yes, Ms. Hamilton, the working people of this country fund entirely too much stuff through our taxes as it is. Why should we continue to add to our burden?
The pResident is great at throwing out brilliant ideas that still need the details ‘fleshed out’. Always spending other people’s money, too often for ridiculous purposes.
Sure, an education is great. But WHY shouldn’t people pay for their own education if that’s what they want? Why should the public have to continue to pay if the people who want that education aren’t willing to put in the effort to purchase it themselves?
When somebody else pays your way, there are ALWAYS strings attached. . . just wait and see. People are just starting to realize how much “free” medical insurance costs. Wait till they see what a “free” education is going to cost on top of it.
Because if you went to community college we would have to put up with slightly less dumb comments from you. More educated people contribute more and cause less problems.
Sure, great idea, copy the tax rates of Europe to provide this creation of false free, free, free. It is an illusion and watch what happens. Just like the results from free unlimited welfare and free section 8 housing and the resulting generational poverty and crime nightmares that are the biggest mistakes from liberal policy in the history of the country. This whole proposal is to smokescreen and hide the huge taxes for Bummer care that are coming if it is not defeated in court soon.
Fish, I went to a REAL university. So your theory is invalid, either way you choose to look at it.
Not to mention, your comment is elitist and SO very rude to working people who did not choose to go to college.
Oh GOD!!!
If there is ONE thing we should be investing in it is the future generations….through education.
Idealistic? Absolutely. Polyanic? -absolutely not.
Seems some forget that great culture can only be created by investing in people.
Luckily we live in a state that pretty much has free community college. It is very doubtful that the presidents proposal will every go anywhere, community colleges are up to the states to fund, though the fed are doing some funding for many.
Hmmm, there are so many uneducated responses here. Are you surprised? Just look at who is posting and that tells all you need to know.
Not surprised one bit.
Funny how the same old people attack the people who post opinions different from their own rather than addressing what is being said about the proposal.
Guess that tells you all you need to know about them.
Dogula – that’s why I rarely post here. I imagine the abusive posters chuckling to themselves, thinking their insults clever. Accusing others of name calling while doing the same, or bragging of their intelligence while making ad hominem attacks – do they know nothing of debate? I don’t always agree with you, but your arguments are well-reasoned, consistent and respectful.
Agreed, Dog….so feel free to retract your “I went to a REAL University’ comment. Or is that all we need to know about you?
Regretfully, what Obama and the LA Times are encouraging is to align more closely with North Korea’s inefficient and outdated position on education. “Free” upper level education. Little if any personal investment by the most direct beneficiaries.
Thank you, City Resident. I enjoy debate. But it’s nearly impossible here. Too bad, because there are some really good folks floating around the perimeters.
I’m surprised any businesses advertise on this sight…..
Hunter, this site gets alot of traffic because it gets the news out quickly. They don’t advertise for thethese forums.
BS that you have a BS (or BA) dawg. You expect us to take you seriously when you fall for rubbish sources all the time? No respectable source publishes articles with the word ‘gaystapo’ in the title. None. And it doesn’t take a high school degree to figure that out. And you don’t believe in fossils. You don’t have an AA, I’d love to see what you would score if you took the GRE tomorrow, or GED.
‘but your arguments are well-reasoned, consistent and respectful.’
Really? She used to go around encouraging people to watch Islamophobic propaganda videos. Really disgusting intolerant fear mongering. In the words of others: ‘you can (she) be so consistently, so wrong?’. Smart people don’t do certain things, she does all of those things.
I have no patience for the willfully ignorant and won’t give them a pass in the name of being civil because they have no place in any discussion to begin with.