> Sorry to lump you in, caveat that statement in whatever way makes you feel comfortable. Hopefully we can agree that at least as far as level of discussion goes, much more is made of college costs than of childhood education costs. I found to be a little absurd given the financial numbers involved (every kid goes through primary education, even if college is free it'll never rise to the level of every kid utilizing it, etc.)
The big difference is that childhood education costs are primarily borne locally. Most, if not all, comes from local real estate taxes. If I pay those taxes I can reap the results (via my children attended a school I pay fore) ir I can vote with my wallet and live somewhere else that has lower taxes (and by extension lower quality education). Either way it's up to me.
> I left a comment in another thread, but the amount of shit that is in the budget leaves every American with a feeling of "I don't want to pay for that". The DoD budget alone clocks in at over 8x the projected cost of free college education, very few people talk with vitriol about the hand-outs we're creating for the myriad of people that make up that apparatus.
Saying, "He gets his daisy cutter so I want my free college!" is a fools argument. Just because there's other crap in the budget doesn't mean we should increase it further with more crap. It's just a different pile.
> I'm not as well read here as I'd like to be, but I have a hard time understanding how this is going to be such a magic fix. Professors aren't going to be too keen to take a pay cut here, and state universities aren't exactly making out like gangbusters right now.
I'm sure you'll find plenty of professors willing to teach for less. I don't even think they're a significant part of most budgets anyway but I doubt it'd be a problem.
> Is the idea that we'd have less students and less professors?
No the idea is to remove the artificial upward pressure on prices by having people pay for the education they want to receive.
> What's the economic impact of seeing those jobs, and the dependent jobs in school communities, eliminated?
They're being artificially inflated and maintaining a college loan bubble to keep them employed is asinine. Nobody has a right to a government subsidized job.
Plus it'd be better than the economic impact of trillions of dollars of student loan guarantees or the weight of those loans on our youth. College graduates with $160-200K of debt are common nowadays, even for in-state schools. That's a mortgage payment and they don't even have a roof over their heads to show for it!
