Old Dad, you missed my point. Look again. I didn't say that students don't have a responsibility to pay for their education.
I said that students shouldn't have to take on mortgage-sized debt to get a BA --- especially because insanely escalating costs are largely due to irresponsible spending habits at the colleges and bad government policy (e.g. minimum wage).
To quote, what you said was:
IMO, "personal responsibility" extends as far as "You can't play video games all summer. You need to get a job and cover your tuition." It does not include "You need to become a debt serf so that the U of State can raze its paleontology museum to make way for a new football stadium, while also adding a new Dean of Equity, a VP of Advancement, and a half-dozen deanlets of [insert title]. Oh, and let's raise the football coach's salary to a cool million. Pay up, kids!
If the personal responsibility extends only as far as a summer job, or even a part time job year round, then the rest of the responsibility must fall to someone else. Who would that be?
As for football paying for other stuff, that's a semi-myth (meaning it's only true for the top 20% or so of football colleges):
[quote=
In-depth report on college football ]... figures from the 2010-11 academic year show that only 22 of the 120 top-tier football programs broke even or made a profit. That means that while these big-time teams generate millions of dollars of revenue, the cost of running such programs usually exceeds that revenue. To put that more starkly, even within the so-called top tier, 82% of college football teams actually take away money from the university’s budget, rather than generate net revenue.
Fair enough! Again, we eliminate then all but the 20% of college sports teams that break even, that will include the mass majority of college sports programs returning everything to a truly amateur status....which I have no problems with.
We disagree on the government's duty to fund education. Education benefits the society and the government has a duty to ensure that the society thrives. Regarding the claim that federal, state, and local governments have no duty to fund education, suggest you read up on that.
I never made the assertion that state and local governments have no duty to fund education, I spoke only of federal government for the specific reason that it's not outlined as a duty of the federal government.
Once again, when you can find in our Constitution or it's amendments where public education, more specifically college education, is outlined as a duty of federal government, we have a different discussion. Until that time, you have no justification of your claim otherwise. That which is not outlined falls to the states and the people. If a state wants to take that upon themselves, so be it.
We can find MANY facets of life and desires that would benefit it's citizens, however, the problem is it's and ever expanding list of federal government over reach which the Constitution and it's amendments don't outline.
