Cooper Union Protest: Students Fight for Free Tuition

[russ_watters]

Surely there should be some statement about the quality of these things as well?

The assumption that typically goes with it is that it should be of the highest quality. This is the source of much of the West's fiscal problems.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm a big believer in free or cheap education.

Is there a limit to the quality or level of free education that you advocate?

[I use your "free" knowing full well you are aware that there is no such thing as "free education", only education that someone else pays for.]

 

[Lavabug]

The assumption that typically goes with it is that it should be of the highest quality.

Not necessarily, there can be compromises. But most countries where citizens have a high quality of life meet some minimum of social services.

The UK's dental care program is allegedly pretty terrible (insert jokes about British teeth here), and a lot of places with public healthcare have long waitinglists at times, but when a large part of the population can't afford even the most basic services, anything is better than nothing.

 

[reenmachine]

Surely there should be some statement about the quality of these things as well?

Where I come from health care is free for the most part and except the ridiculous waiting time in E.R. and clinics without appointment , I never had any problems with the way I got treated.I didn't feel as if I was treated by incompetent doctors.It's completely ridiculous that health care can ruin you financially for life.There's some people that simply cannot work or cannot find good work for many reasons.They should be medically treated with the same quality as anybody else.

But then if I make 800$ a week , 350-400$ will be taken out of my paycheck.

 

[russ_watters]

Not necessarily, there can be compromises. But most countries where citizens have a high quality of life meet some minimum of social services.

The UK's dental care program is allegedly pretty terrible (insert jokes about British teeth here), and a lot of places with public healthcare have long waitinglists at times, but when a large part of the population can't afford even the most basic services, anything is better than nothing.

I use "highest" synonomously with "uniform" here, since in a pure government run system, they should go together. It is indeed my view that uniformity causes mediocrity.

 

[russ_watters]

For all the bickering about what "affordable" and "assistance" mean, I don't think people are addressing a more fundamental issue: How much education should government (the people) be paying for?

My opinion is simple: government should pay for the minimum required schooling that everyone should have. That means high school education. And the flip side of that is that it should be compulsory to the point where you are penalized for not finishing a high school diploma in a timely fashion (except in rare extenuating circumstances).

Above the minimum education level, assistance should be provided in an indirect way. By that I mean loans, not direct grants. At any income level.

Why do I oppose grants? Simple: College is an investment. An investment that will pay back if done correctly and won't pay back if done incorrectly. So a college loan should not be a hardship if you use your college education correctly.

Alternately, grant amounts could be tied to average starting salary of the major. Want a grant so you can get a philosophy degree with which you will get a job where you can pour coffee philosophically? That's a terrible investment and the government should not be handing over money on bad investments. You can have a $6 grant (to buy a cup of coffee from a philosophy grad, to talk you into pursuing a better major). Want to become a petroleum engineer? $40,000 grant.

Come to think of it, the loans should be structured the same way.

Either system would do a better job of steering people toward useful majors, cut down on wasted education spending and probably even bring some competition into the college market (with fewer students going to college, colleges would cut tuition costs to attract more).

Also, others are right that elite universities are worth the extra money. And by that I mean strictly as an investment. So loans and grants should differ based on the university attended.

 

[Cthugha]

For all the bickering about what "affordable" and "assistance" mean, I don't think people are addressing a more fundamental issue: How much education should government (the people) be paying for?

This is a strategic decision which cannot be answered without taking the specifics of each country and its economic structure into account. A society can afford to keep education at a minimal level without providing assistance if its economy is heavy on tourism or it has lots of natural resources.

If a country has neither, the situation is very different in my opinion. You do not really get economic value added by just having a huge service sector. So in that case an approach heavy on industry and importing natural resources and exporting high quality goods is more appropriate. Staying competitive with this approach requires having a rather large amount of highly educated workers, so keeping education affordable will usually pay off in these societies. It is not a coincidence that these countries are usually also high-tax countries, so the investment made by society in terms of providing affordable education is usually paid back by the higher amount of taxes paid. For economies with a lack of highly educated workers, affordable higher education is also a means to attract more people from abroad.

The places with real fiscal problems are more or less those which try to go an affordable high education strategy without having the industry for that. It makes no sense educating people which then leave the country because there are no industry jobs for them at home. Parts of southern Europe can tell that story.

 

[ParticleGrl]

Welcome to the real world. I'm not crying for them. I understand they are upset, but I reserve my sympathy for people who are actually suffering and struggling.

If someone offers you 4 years of free education and you pass up MIT or Harvard to take them up on their offer, and a year later they start charging you AS MUCH AS MIT OR HARVARD, don't you think you have a right to protest?

And this is just one of the many forms of aid available to students. There are also grants, other unsubsidized loans, scholarships and (god forbid!) part time jobs available to students.

So a totally dependent student can borrow up to 3500 in subsidized loans (at 3.4%), and has to take out the rest in unsubsidized loans, currently at 6.8%.

$3500 pays for LESS THAN ONE SEMESTER at a fairly cheap state school. So if you manage to work a part time job to cover all your living expenses (I did this in college), you are likely to graduate with between 20k-40k in debt (at 6.8%!) depending on the state school (good flagship state schools will lead to more debt than smaller ones).

My father and my sister went to the same state college (many years apart obviously :) ). My dad was able to pay for it by working part time waiting tables. My sister also waited tables and worked in the library as part of work study, and still graduated with 35k in debt at 6.8%. College has clearly become LESS affordable, if not unaffordable.

 

[WannabeNewton]

I would hate to be the person who has to turn down MIT due to financial reasons. That would be the something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

 

[robphy]

The popular theme seems to be that these students are selfish, lazy, and self-entitled.

While I was at Cooper, most of my classmates were hard-working and unpretentious.
Too bad it was a commuter school... so there wasn't a real college campus life.
However, Greenwich Village was fun to explore and NYU was next door.
Being tuition-free, I could be less of a financial burden to my parents... so they had one less kid to worry about helping pay for college.

(I left because I really wanted to study Physics, as opposed to Engineering.)

 

[WannabeNewton]

Ah yes I think we had this conversation a long time ago when I was still in high school. You left to go to Stony Brook physics right?

And yeah the main reason I started this thread was to see how many people actually had that mentality about Cooper Union students. As I said, I know quite a few of them and they are all very hardworking and modest kids so it really pissed me off to see them being called self-entitled and lazy, even if on the internet.

 

[robphy]

Yes... Stony Brook.

 

[MarneMath]

If someone offers you 4 years of free education and you pass up MIT or Harvard to take them up on their offer, and a year later they start charging you AS MUCH AS MIT OR HARVARD, don't you think you have a right to protest?

Once again, current students are exempt from paying tuition still, so there doesn't exist a student at CU who falls into that category.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I would hate to be the person who has to turn down MIT due to financial reasons. That would be the something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

MIT offers sufficient financial support for every admitted. It may not be comfortable. but it is sufficient.

 

[Office_Shredder]

MIT offers sufficient financial support for every admitted. It may not be comfortable. but it is sufficient.

How does MIT know if it is offering sufficient financial support for every student? Yeah they collect some financial info but when different colleges have different policies on counting other children's tuition when calculating financial aid and stuff like that there's no way they can have a perfect record of offering enough

 

[WannabeNewton]

MIT offers sufficient financial support for every admitted. It may not be comfortable. but it is sufficient.

Interesting. One university that is extremely generous with aid is Harvey Mudd College although like MIT it is nigh impossible to get into.

 

[Lavabug]

Interesting. One university that is extremely generous with aid is Harvey Mudd College although like MIT it is nigh impossible to get into.

Incidentally, a few days ago I came across a senior thesis from one of their recent graduates on quantum information theory(I forget the name, I can find out if anyone cares). I am not surprised, it was better than many masters and phd thesis I've seen.