Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Free tuition at US public Universities?

What a fun side conversation this has been. That being said, OP please accept my apologies for straying off-topic. With athletics at stake, how could I resist?

The topic of escalating college costs is important and interrelated with many other aspects of our current society.

Someone mentioned developing a college as a meritocracy with transparency in program prerequisites and grades to be maintained to stay in the program? This may be ideal. As time passes, institutions tend to experience changes in supply/demand.

One example of a change may be an increase in projected job growth by the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. If the school is at capacity and cannot admit a greater number of students, it may need to establish more selective criteria when the number of applications soars.

As another example of change, a competitor may establish a similar program. Now the two schools may be able to meet projected demand for new jobs, and they may vie for the "best" candidates: those whom they believe will be most rapidly employed upon commencement (or before). As prerequisites, each program may begin to consider what each prospective student has accomplished to date which may indicate they possess the personal and interpersonal skills to help them land a job and get a start in this field, by their graduation date.

If the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates a projected decrease in demand, each program may become even more selective, possibly adding additional prerequisites which applicants must now complete in high school or in a gap year prior to applying at the institution. The pressure is on. The program may change course content or add courses to provide a more market-ready job applicant upon graduation. Those already in the program may feel disadvantaged without the new content; In opting to enroll in new content courses, they may take longer to graduate. Statistics for employment upon commencement may be tracked individually for students graduating under the old program and those graduating under the new program.

By responding to supply/demand fluctuations in the economy, the entry requirements into colleges and the grades it takes to maintain a position in a program may change significantly, diminishing transparency with each layer of change.

Just my 2 cents.

Yes, I agree with you, Wren-- but societal/cultural forces are definitely being brought to bear on parental attitudes.

You're right, of course, that there is NO compelling reason for many people to obtain a "college education" as a substitute for apprenticeships and on-the-job training.

Then again, the same thing which is currently true in law school graduates COULD conceivably become the case with The Next Big Thing in the trades, as well. Just how many ultrasound technicians or plumbers DOES the nation need, anyway?

The problem is that everyone wants to know where the Gold Ring is, and encourage their child(ren) to grab for it. Just like everyone else, which simultaneously devalues the item which was of value largely as a result of high quality and scarcity to start with... meaning that as soon as you have a raft of WalMart consumers seeking any particular "method" then that method becomes the equivalent of a Happy Meal as opposed to a 3-star restaurant experience. KWIM?

The Right Thing For My Particular Child has now become the somewhat abridged version given our relative national deficit in literacy; parents can't be bothered with THAT. Too many words. No, instead they would rather have;


The Right Thing.

They are not "places of higher learning".

They are colleges and universities.

A right of passage for all Americans so that you can get your ticket to work.

So, of course, tuition should be free!

The Right Thing has consistently been dentistry and/or medicine in my family and my wife's family for years. As in three generations of years, beginning prior to WWII.

At the moment, the "Right Thing" recommendation is definitely dermatology, and if that fails, dentistry, preferably orthodontics.

All of the lawyers in the family hate their jobs. This is not recommended to any of the current generation as The Right Thing.

Granted, the pathologist hates his job, too.

The neurosurgeon loved his and the psychiatrist loves his 3 day, six-figure work week.

I think the pediatric dentist is currently quite satisfied. The oral surgeon was quite satisfied.

And the *purpose* of college is to get a medical/dental degree. It's a hoop to jump through to reach your destination.

So, you go to undergrad where you get scholarships and can get close to a 4.0.

Because the *goal* is your ticket to practice medicine/dentistry.

Law school is a pyramid scheme (and always has been, similar to Ph.D.'s) that is crashing (due to the con aspect of the system drawing too much blood from the mark) because demand is cratering because a small bit of transparency has been added to the process.

It's kind of hard to compare being larded up with $150,000+ in non-dischargable debt for a chance at a $30,000 a year (sometimes less) job with anything else.

Architecture school, maybe.

I mean, the entire thing is mind-boggling and I've been watching it for years.

Hmmm... well, currently there are several trades/technical programs in which one can generate 20-30K in non-dischargable debt for a chance to be just as unemployable as before you started. While I realize that isn't quite so daunting, it probably is if you wind up only being employable at (or well below) minimum wage and still trying to pay off student loans. Oh sure, it's lower tuition. It's just two years, in many cases. But it sure does seem like a pyramid scheme to me, and a particularly cruel one which preys on those LEAST able to afford repayment for something that gave them so little.

At least if you've gone to law school, you CAN simply trade on your (potentially more valuable) undergraduate diploma on a vita.

I'm also trying to envision a future in which everyone is a pediatric dentist or orthodontist.

Silly person.

Only a select group of people have the ability to do that in the first place.

For those people, many of whom are in the UMC quest to find The Right Thing, and have the appropriate intelligence and Tiger Parents, that is the answer.

It provides the craved six figure salary (yes, I know that ideally you want *mid-six-figures) along with the social status that will allow you to lead a relevant and meaningful life.

Lawyers do work in minimum wage jobs.

And they they have the additional problem that they are "overqualified" and "failures" at being lawyers. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Or, if you are my cousin, you try to go to med school and find out that they hate lawyers *and* you lose your corner office in the process.

And if you are my *other cousin* (from my father's non-doctor drunk/abusive farmer family) you somehow run up a $100,000 bill at Penn State and *then* look into being a prison guard like your mother. I'm still trying to figure out that $100,000. Kind of leaves me scratching my head, but if that's what you leave Penn State with these days, whoa, then you're talking about leaving law school with $250,000 in debt!

Even my law school roommate, who first went to Harvard grad school and then law school got cut off at the $180,000 mark.

So, in sum, free tuition is better than larding up people with mammoth amounts of debt.

We need to immediately make college and law school free for everyone!

Penn State is $17K/yr in-state tuition, $30K/yr out of state. Add in another 10K/yr for room and board and it is not hard to see owing $100K. One of the most expensive public schools (for main campus - branch campuses are much less).

As for the athletics, UChi used to be Big Ten football. They won the Big Ten 7 times, and were National Champs (per polls) twice. Reed doesn't even have NCAA teams. Wouldn't matter for some kids but I don't think mine would go to a school that didn't have sports. Eldest sort of wishes that she went to a school with football for that "experience" - she saw the tailgating when her club softball team played U of Maryland and she wondered if she should have gone to Penn State. DD16 is interested in UChi and plans on contacting the coach about her sport.

Different folks want different experiences. But back to the original post - you can get free tuition if you are a good student, so the kids we discuss in this forum could get free tuition somewhere. There are public colleges that already offer this.

just to clarify ... when I mentioned trade and vocation schools earlier (especially in respect to how many school systems in Europe are designed), I meant HIGH SCHOOLS that are trade/vocational type ... so FREE job training schools. Not trade schools you'd have to pay for.

We'd assumed this, too-- the "free tuition" bit, I mean.

That's not as true as it used to be, however. I think I mentioned earlier that of the 4000 freshman students entering alongside my DD, just 60 of them will get full-tuition merit scholarships as in-state residents. Yes, my DD is certainly in the running for one of those-- of course-- but still, that is an awfully small number. NOBODY gets a "full ride" from them.

At the other state flagship in my own state, students like my DD are eligible for an automatic scholarship to the tune of 60% of tuition, and there is another lower tier that comps about 30%.

Yes, there are tuition DISCOUNTS for really terrific students-- but as far as I can tell this is a pretty hit-and-miss thing, and it can change on you almost overnight, depending upon what one's state legislature decides to do. Even five years ago, sending my DD to either of the institutions mentioned WOULD have been virtually free.

Now, that's only true if she were in an NCAA sport.