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Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 5,261 Likes: 8
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If my DD's college (within the same state) were to offer 1000 "presidential" scholarships (full tuition) annually instead of the 65 that it does offer, I would feel no differently about the relative value of that award. Does 1000 students per year represent the entire student body, or would this represent merit scholarships? Is the anticipated effect one of increasing the number of students who would strive and earn the merit scholarship... or would the effect be a disincentive to achieve due to possibly rewarding a lack of skills equally with acquisition of skills? How would the tuition be funded, in order to be free at point of service?
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
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Ahhhhh-- but that's life, as they say. To plan to out-compete others for an opportunity, only to find that the bar has been moved while you were focused on the (previous) criteria.
Happens all. the. time. Everywhere. Always has.
My daughter gets HER grades without "extra credit" and "re-sets" of assignments, too. But most of her "competition" doesn't.
Should she feel angry that she does it "the hard way?"
I don't think so. Nobody can take that away from her, and SHE knows that she earned it the old-fashioned way-- which is something to be personally pretty proud of, IMO.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 448
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I live in Canada where we are hugely influenced by U.S. media, I work for an American company and have many friends and family south of the border. I have visited 30 states but I don't live there so take all of this with a grain of salt. I find it odd that a country that prides itself on the American Dream is in a situation where tuition costs are increasing far faster than inflation. In a global economy you need to have the best and brightest have access to a higher education, not just the subset that can afford it or can navigate the seemingly complex process to obtain a scholarship. Having people not be able to access education because of the cost or having them graduation 10's of thousands of dollars in debt completely goes against what I would think of as the American Dream. I personally don't buy the argument that having more scholarships or decreasing tuition decreases the worth of the education. There were several posts early on in this thread from people in countries with free tuition and I don't believe any of them felt their degrees were any less because of it. Having free, or affordable, or more merit based scholarships doesn't mean you'll all of a sudden have 90% of the population getting a degree. It means that the people with the marks CAN apply to go to school. They still need to either put in the effort to get the marks, maintain the marks for 4 years and get the degree. The change is that you remove the "and afford it" from the above equation. The problem is that it is in the best interest of those currently with money to keep it as is when they can afford to pay. Having it more affordable will likely mean the bar will raise and perhaps exclude their kids. I paid $7000 for my degree (would be ~$30000 if I were starting today) - that is all 4 years combined. The admission process was (and still is) submit 5 grade 12 level marks (some departments specify exactly which 5, others have things like 2 from this group and 3 from another). In grade 12 50% of the class mark for the core classes are based on a provincial exam so they can try to limit grade inflation and regional differences. They then rank everyone based on the marks and go down the list until they are full or they reach their minimum entrance grade. That's it. For top schools the bar might be in the 90's, the rest it is in the 80's. There isn't a write an essay, tell us all of the awards you've won or how many drowning puppies that you've saved part of the application. I paid for almost all of it with scholarships and some of those were based on essays and awards but many were just one thing - what is your GPA? I work with people who went to top U.S. schools and spent considerably more than that. Do I think my degree is worth less? No, I just got to the same spot with thousands in the bank to travel, buy a car and put a down payment on a house. Not bad. Then again I've chosen to remain in a country where I pay way more taxes and I've paid for more than a few kids to go to university by now with those taxes. So perhaps my degree wasn't so cheap in the end  I'm ok with that. We're all socialists and communists up here anyways
Last edited by chay; 03/24/14 02:52 AM. Reason: wrong tuition numbers
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Joined: Apr 2013
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I live in Canada... in a country where I pay way more taxes and I've paid for more than a few kids to go to university by now with those taxes. So perhaps my degree wasn't so cheap in the end I'm ok with that. and ... Having free, or affordable, or more merit based scholarships doesn't mean you'll all of a sudden have 90% of the population getting a degree. It means that the people with the marks CAN apply to go to school. They still need to either put in the effort to get the marks, maintain the marks for 4 years and get the degree. The change is that you remove the "and afford it" from the above equation. The problem is that it is in the best interest of those currently with money to keep it as is when they can afford to pay. Having it more affordable will likely mean the bar will raise and perhaps exclude their kids. Some may say that the 10% or more who do not go to college, yet pay taxes to fund college for other individuals (under the plan mentioned above) may be seen as a form of servitude or slavery: Taking advantage of less fortunate individuals to fuel greater gains and prosperity for more academically inclined individuals. Creating this additional hardship could be considered an issue of social injustice. It is my understanding that the American Dream (which may be different for different people) included keeping the costs/benefits together: Those who were attending college and receiving the benefits of higher education also paid the costs, which were rather reasonable until recent years. For decades, it was possible for students from all walks of life to work their way through college. Many come to the US from other lands to be educated here; Many have been unfamiliar with the American possibility of returning to college as adults to earn a degree. The American Dream, in literature, has not consisted of utopia created by centralized government control... rather centralized government control has been treated as dystopia. There is a saying that Power Corrupts; Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. It seems many would be interested in a college/university experience which would be both free at point of service and also a meritocracy, while not being burdensome to those not personally partaking, and not administered by a centralized government thereby creating a social strata of mandatorily funded privileged government elite.
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Joined: Aug 2013
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Some may say that the 10% or more who do not go to college, yet pay taxes to fund college for other individuals (under the plan mentioned above) may be seen as a form of servitude or slavery: Taking advantage of less fortunate individuals to fuel greater gains and prosperity for more academically inclined individuals. As I said we're all socialists and communists anyways so we're ok with that More seriously though, yes most people pay taxes but we have a far more progressive tax system so statistically speaking the ones that didn't go to university on average make less and pay far less in taxes than those who did go to university and on average make more. Our education isn't free either so they are paying for some of that as well. You have State schools that don't charge $50000 a year so presumably the real cost of education without subsidies is not $50000 but some schools can charge that so they do. This however got me curious so I looked up how many people complete post secondary on both sides of the border - http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/090908/t090908b1-eng.htm In the 55-64 age group the U.S. ranked first with 30%. Looking at the 25-34 age group both Canada and the U.S. increased the percentage but dropped in overall ranking (the U.S. dropped to 8th place and Canada went from 4th to 12th) as other countries increased their numbers. Those who were attending college and receiving the benefits of higher education also paid the costs, which were rather reasonable until recent years. For decades, it was possible for students from all walks of life to work their way through college. I totally agree with that. It is the concern that it is becoming unreasonable that seems problematic to me. I would argue that the U.S. is still producing a similar number of university grads but when they raise the bar of what afford means to a really high level I think they're missing out compared to countries with similar graduation rates that somehow kept the pool of possible candidates to draw from much larger.
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Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 2,007
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I find it odd that a country that prides itself on the American Dream is in a situation where tuition costs are increasing far faster than inflation. In a global economy you need to have the best and brightest have access to a higher education, not just the subset that can afford it or can navigate the seemingly complex process to obtain a scholarship. Having people not be able to access education because of the cost or having them graduation 10's of thousands of dollars in debt completely goes against what I would think of as the American Dream. It's pretty much standard-issue Americana. We're going through a gilded-age period again. We didn't like the entire European socialist thing, so we scrapped it. We didn't scrap all of it, so we're kind of in a welfare state-gilded age combo right now where we give the option of debt bondage to our youth if they want it.
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Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 448
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We didn't scrap all of it, so we're kind of in a welfare state-gilded age combo right now where we give the option of debt bondage to our youth if they want it. Ahhh it all makes sense now. I'll go back to drinking my Timmy's and complaining about yesterday's 15cm of snow like a good Canuck then. Sorry about that, carry on 
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Joined: Nov 2012
Posts: 2,513 Likes: 1
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Joined: Nov 2012
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We didn't scrap all of it, so we're kind of in a welfare state-gilded age combo right now where we give the option of debt bondage to our youth if they want it. Ahhh it all makes sense now. I'll go back to drinking my Timmy's and complaining about yesterday's 15cm of snow like a good Canuck then. Sorry about that, carry on Just have to high five you for the Canadian content, Chay.
What is to give light must endure burning.
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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,640 Likes: 2
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As I said we're all socialists and communists anyways so we're ok with that More seriously though, yes most people pay taxes but we have a far more progressive tax system so statistically speaking the ones that didn't go to university on average make less and pay far less in taxes than those who did go to university and on average make more. I don't think Canada has a "far more progressive" tax system than the United States: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/09/19/other-countries-dont-have-a-47/Other countries don’t have a “47%” BY DYLAN MATTHEWS Washington Post September 19, 2012 at 12:43 pm The United States has by far the most progressive income, payroll, wealth and property taxes of any developed country. Scandinavian social democracies like Denmark, Sweden and Norway have quite regressive direct taxes, as do the Netherlands and Switzerland. Foreign British territories are more progressive, but neither Australia nor Canada is nearly as progressive as the United States.
The disparity is even starker when you bring sales taxes into the mix, as VATs are an extremely important source of revenue for most European countries as well as Australia and Canada Canadian income tax rates are at http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html (top rate of 29%) and U.S. income tax rates are at http://taxes.about.com/od/Federal-Income-Taxes/qt/Tax-Rates-For-The-2013-Tax-Year.htm (top rate of 39.6%). Many U.S. states also have progressive income taxes.
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Joined: Feb 2011
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... in which case, I have to say that I think we Yanks are getting seriously short-changed.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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