Hillary's answer about "free college".

[Motown_Johnny]

She ended up with something like "I want to make sure middle class kids can afford college, not Donald Trump's kids."

Just how does tuition free college make college unaffordable for middle class kids?


I don't get it.

[Renew Deal]

1. All of the money will be put into the lower class and there will be nothing left for anyone else.

[Motown_Johnny]

4. That doesn't make any sense.

If public colleges and universities were tuition free, then people most deserving of admittance to those institutions would benefit.

Middle class kids would tend to go to better schools and have a better shot at gaining admittance.

[thereismore]

2. She is playing to people's envy they may have towards rich people. nt

[daleanime]

5. +1

[Paulie]

3. She thinks the millionaires will send their kids to free public colleges

Instead of the Ivy League. And that wouldn't be fair to the rest of us subsidizing their kids.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

[onecaliberal]

6. Offs the rich are still going to private colleges. More lies about protecting the rich.

[Fearless]

7. Remember, she is the 1%.

[scscholar]

10. Her family was broke...

when they left the White House in 2001. Have things really changed that much?

[Fearless]

45. Umm they were not broke that is a lie. And combined they're worth $50 million today

[PeteyPal]

8. If Trump pays taxes to support going to college...

then why shouldn't he and his kids have the same rights as everyone else? Again, Bernie's solution is much better than Clinton's.

[SheilaT]

9. For what this is worth, I used to read old Life Magazines,

and as I'm sure you all know Life was first published in November, 1936, right after FDR won his first re-election. Henry Luce, the editor and publisher of the magazine HATED FDR, and it showed. Anyway, this post isn't about politics, but about college. I learned lots of amazing and often random things from reading the magazine, which I read sequentially, over a period of about five years. I got all the way to the end of the first quarter of 1945, and it's clear that we are going to soon win the war in Europe, but I still am anxious about the war in the Pacific, as it is clear that we will probably end up fighting from street to street on the Home Islands (of Japan) because it is very clear, from everything I've read so far, that the Japanese people will protect their homeland to the last person, man woman and child.

Whew! Glad I got that off my chest. Anyone care to tell me how the war really ended? "

Okay, so I really know that answer. But I want to get back to my first thought, which was about the cost of college. There was a two or three page article/picture essay in one of the issues in the late '30's, about Harvard. One of the things that was mentioned, more or less in passing in the article, was that almost anyone of the male gender (schools like Harvard were strictly male back in the day) who got an adequate score on his College Boards (today known as the SAT) and whose parents could afford the tuition, could attend. I know they said exactly what that tuition was back then, and in today's dollars it seems trivial, but it was as much as a working class family made in those days, as I recall. More to the point, very few people, even in the middle class, had any extra money for such things as tuition at Harvard. So some 80 years ago, college was very much the province of the well-to-do. Even the state colleges and universities, which were truly low cost at least through the 1960s, were out of reach of most people, because the dire need to go out and earn a living was simply there, and immutable.

We had a brief, shining, moment, that lasted from about 1958 to 1975 (I'm not committed to these dates, and any evidence to change the years I acknowledge) when college education at a public university was within the range of most. Heck, back then the out of state tuition in many schools was highly affordable. My older brother, who graduated high school in 1960, went to New Mexico State University because it was less expensive than going in state in New York. I graduated high school in Arizona five years later, and at the University of Arizona when I was a freshman there were a lot of kids from the east coast who were there not only because of its reputation as a party school, but because it was cheaper for them than it would have been back home.

One of the very good things we have in this country is our community colleges. Many of them are excellent, and I often tell people that if affording four year school isn't entirely realistic, then start at the community college, then transfer. I've attended both cc's and state universities, and it's my observation that the quality of teaching is at least as high at the community colleges, and often higher than that at the universities, at least at the freshman and sophomore level.

Here's my solution: Make the community colleges completely tuition free. Make the public colleges and universities very low cost. Subsidize students whose family income is, I don't know, maybe 200% of the poverty level. And put a time line on how long it should take a student to get a degree. Six years of full time coursework. At the most seven. Beyond that, they start paying. Not a huge amount, but enough to give them the incentive to get a degree and a job.

Just my opinion.

[Luminous Animal]

18. I like this post. I don't 100% agree with it but I like it.

[SheilaT]

19. Thank you.

I want to say, of course you don't 100% agree. You're a different person, and you'll have a different take on many things.

But I must say that reading the old Life Magazines was the single most interesting, informative, and educational thing I have ever done. And I'm someone who attended college on and off over a good 40 years of my adult life. I learned so many amazing things, not just from the articles, but in a very large part from the advertisements. I can go on and on, for hours even, about what I learned from them. The specific thing I referred to here was about the cost of college, and that article about Harvard made it crystal clear that back in the 1930's college was very much a privilege of the few. If you could afford it, you could go to college. Pure and simple. If you had a lot of money, you could go to a private school like Harvard. If you had less money, but you could postpone entering the work force for a few years, you could attend a state university.

One of the things I like best about the community colleges is that they really have brought education to almost anyone. Not only are they relatively inexpensive, but they also offer lots of degree programs that lead directly to paid employment. I, myself, about 15 years ago, enrolled in a paralegal program and got work as a paralegal. My older son, after various difficulties with four year schools, got a degree in CAD, Computer Aided Design, and got work in that field.

Thanks again for your response.

[Recursion]

25. It was affordable as long as it was largely limited to white males

Same thing with a lot of jobs: they payed well as long as it was predominantly white guys doing them.

If we're going to be plowing money into post-secondary education, I'd personally prefer trade schools and apprenticeship programs. Germany has free college, sure, but a much lower percent of Germans go to college in the first place than Americans.

[SheilaT]

36. Ohh, yes. Limited to white males.

I'm a white female and I graduated from high school when an awful lot of schools were still (white) men only. I have never fully gotten over that.

And I agree absolutely about the trade schools and apprenticeship programs. I am, as it happens, a huge supporter of traditional liberal arts kinds of things. But I also very clearly recognize that not all of us belong in those kinds of programs. Many of us really do belong in the other. Which is one of the things I love about our community colleges, that they have lots of certificate programs that lead directly to decent jobs. They also do a very good job of getting kids prepared to move on to a four year program, which is likewise wonderful.

[mikehiggins]

33. Nice to see a well reasoned post on this topic

I went to school in NYS thanks to a Regents scholarship and low cost student loans.

I didn't go to a "party school" but I found the means and motivation to "party", also known as girls and booze, and only lasted to the end of my sophomore year. I went into construction and a decade or so later went back to school at night, paid for by my union, and got a BS in my field.

I didn't give much thought to the whole school question until recently (both of my kids took vastly different paths through college but neither of them cost me a penny). My son is now a Special Ed teacher in Santa Fe with a Masters degree from Hunter University and my daughter is a corporate attorney in Pennsylvania. Her kids will probably never have to take out college loans, as it happens.

So I have been sort of an onlooker on the whole college cost issue but many of my friends have horror stories on the topic. So, I could care less if the Koch Brothers kids got free school as long as the kids my kid teaches could get a shot at a free education.

In the richest country in the world couldn't a couple of billionaires chip in to cover that?

[SheilaT]

39. One of the best things about our secondary education in this country

is that people are not confined to staying with the program outlined for them at age 16 or so. Any of us can return to school later on and do as well as we can.

I have two sons. The younger one went straight to college and graduated in four years. Cum laude, I must brag. The older one, mainly because of his mild autism, Asperger's, has had a much more difficult route. He flunked out of his first college. He then went to our local community college and got his grades up sufficiently to be admitted to a state university. He went there for about two years, and flunked out again. Not because he's not smart enough, but because his deficits got in the way of what he needed to do.

He returned to the junior college, and then was admitted to another public university. In December he got his bachelor's degree, more than fourteen years after graduating high school. In physics. He has applications out to four different schools. Wherever he goes he'll be in a PhD program in astronomy/astrophysics. He is REALLY smart, and if you want to discuss things like the conditions of the universe in the microseconds after the Big Bang, of what will happen when Milky Way and Andromeda collide, or specifics about galaxy formation, he's your guy. He could never have done this in the first few years after high school because of his specific circumstances. And the fact that someone like him can hang in there and finish his undergraduate degree a decade later than he ought to have, is one of the very best things about our system and I don't ever want to lose that.

Besides, I likewise have benefitted from our system. I graduated high school, went straight on to college, had no idea what I really wanted to do, and dropped out after that first semester. Ten years later I went back to college, and spent the next three decades taking classes, moving to different parts of the country, changing my major, and just taking whatever the hell I felt like taking. I eventually got an Associates Degree with a certificate in Paralegal Studies. I do appreciate a system that allows for someone like me.

All that said, those two personal stories told, I do think there needs to be some time or total credit hours limit on a student's free time at school, and after that they have to pay reasonable fees.

[liberal_at_heart]

38. I've always thought we have education all backwards in this country. Sure part of education is

about getting ready for the workforce. But in the past it was more than that. It was a place to explore new ideas and people. It was a place to find out what your opinions about the world were and who you were. It was a place to explore not just business or science but also music and art. And quite frankly I believe learning is a life long process. We would do well to encourage everybody to continue to take some college classes all throughout their life even if they already have a degree and a career.

[SheilaT]

40. Post high school education is somewhat schizophrenic.

On one hand we have traditional universities with traditional liberal arts education that does involve exploring new ideas. On the other hand we have vocational training, which in my opinion includes things like MD and law degrees. As a culture we have never been able to figure out which of the two is more important, so we collectively tend to pretend they all are equal. I think we should bite the bullet and figure out the difference between vocational studies and education that simply improves the intellect.

I absolutely agree that learning is a life long process. Several years ago here on DU I got into a bit of a disagreement with another poster who staunchly defended taking college classes that had no use in the "real world" because he (I'm simply assuming it was a he, might have been a she) felt there was simply no other time later on when he could study these things, and that he absolutely needed to to this now. I disagree. I think it is possible to take the kinds of classes that expand one's intellect at any point, including when you're in the throes of family and job. It simply takes the commitment and willingness to do such things.

I am speaking as someone who has attended college on and off almost my entire adult life. I'm now in the second longest period of my life without taking college classes, and my only excuse at this point is that I'm so busy I can't dedicate a full semester to taking a class or two.

I honestly feel sorry for those who think once they've left school there's no need for learning anything new. It's not that you have to take classes specifically, but that you need to keep an open mind for new information.

In a related note, it is so fucking obvious that Sarah Palin has not read a book since whatever the last one that was required of her back in junior college, that it's painful.

[flamingdem]

11. The entire higher education structure would have to be revamped with free college

It seems like a pipe dream.

[Luminous Animal]

22. In california it was a was a dream we already lived.

[flamingdem]

23. I know, I'm a product of that

but it slipped away not that long ago.

It's hard to imagine being able to get rid of the layers of administration that have settled in and that's where the big bucks go along with other ventures.

It's not something that could happen quickly though I appreciate the idea of using a tax on Wall St. to start changing it.

[Recursion]

28. And even California got tired of paying for it (nt)

[Luminous Animal]

30. Republicans are always a force to quash the least of us dreams, They've got the bucks to rub our

faces in the dirt. To take away which we long and hard fought for.

[Recursion]

34. Which is why moving programs to public spending is risky

That's exactly right: they are, and will always continue to be, which is why adding spending without absolutely locking in dedicated revenues for it is dangerous.

[kennetha]

12. seriously?

you want to raise taxes on Middle and working class families -- which you would have to do -- so that Trumps kids don't have to pay tuition?

[frylock]

14. Trump would be paying taxes as well. Why wouldn't they be entitled to attend a free public college?

[kennetha]

16. means testing

have you ever heard of it?

[frylock]

17. What about it.

[thesquanderer]

46. Would you means test high school?

And as Sanders points out, a college degree today is what you need to get where you could have gotten with a high school diploma 50 years ago. So it's hard to argue against free college today unless you'd have argued against free high school 50 years ago.

[kennetha]

48. still only 30% of Americans have college degrees.

Not sure why the people at large should pay for a non universal benefit.

[Motown_Johnny]

42. No, so that poor kids won't have to pay tuition.

We can raise taxes on the rich too. If you think some rich kids might benefit, isn't that the way to deal with it?

[angrychair]

13. Simply put: her college plan is insulting

And unworkable.
The worst part of it is she is setting a 2-tier system for higher education.
The wealthy will have it easy.
The poor and middle class, not so easy and oh, by the way, we're going to humiliate you to get your education paid for.
I say it like that because, in our current system, you may end up in mountains of debt but no one knows you are any different than the others right now. In her system, they will.
The poor and middle class, in her system, will be reduced working as a slave 10 hours a week without pay as a requirement to maintain their financial aid.
I guess they will be scubbing the toilets of rich kids like Chelesa or sweeping their floors.
#poorshaming

[mike_c]

32. I doubt that she has any real interest in it either....

The Sanders effect is dragging her kicking and screaming ever so slightly leftward.

[bklyncowgirl]

15. I guess it's how you define middle class

Where's the cutoff?

[FrenchieCat]

20. First off, Bernie's plan encourages to segregate education by class....

kinda of like those who are on Social Security, but also buy into an additional plan,
and get a better room, etc....

It's like when my husband and I decided to send our daughters to private school,
because the public school system in our area was terrible (even kinda of dangerous).
We weren't rolling in dough, but we decided that they were worth the sacrifice.
My eldest ended up at Harvard specifically because she went to a College Prep school,
because the education there prepared her much better. It wasn't easy paying for it....
considering that I'm an immigrant who came with nothing,
and my husband was born in the projects.

When you have a two tier educational system, the ones graduating from the private colleges,
will get the better jobs. They will be accepted to graduate school more easily, etc, etc, etc.

Currently, Public Colleges and University aren't seen in that way at all...apart from the top ten maybe.
Sure some are better than others, but its based on the academic results, not so much how much you pay,
as they are all relatively similar in cost.

It is my opinion that Bernie's plan would be a kinda of Separate but equal proposition to some extent,
and we can only hope, unlike what's happened to the public school system, the Public College system,
wouldn't start to disintegrate.

[Luminous Animal]

24. You and your husband had the money to chose a separate and unequals system.

MONEY. You and your ilk will always have the MONEY to send you children to private schools… to give them a leg up. What Bernie is proposing is that families who cannot afford private schools, in any way shape or form, can impart the dream of a college education no matter how poor they are.

We already have a "separate but equal" system. The legacy wealthy go to their parent's legacy schools. And the legacy wealthy are overwhelming white. That is how they continue to rule.

[FrenchieCat]

26. Private schools also offer financial aid....

if you didn't know.

What you are saying is super offensive, with a personal tone that isn't required.
"My ilk" is my Black husband born in a housing project, with a single mother and 5 brothers and sisters.....

and myself, an mixed race immigrant from France who came here with absolutely nothing,
leaving France where the higher educational school system stunk like shit,
France is a place that is very difficult to climb up any ladder if you are born disadvantage,
cause there actually isn't a ladder for you.

[Luminous Animal]

27. And I am cool with not climbing up the ladder on some one else's back.

Because, in capitalism, climbing up the ladder means trampling on people to get to the top.

Apparently, money was more important to you than equality.

[FrenchieCat]

31. Your opinion is you own....

In France, you take the test, and if you don't pass it....oh well, too bad for you.

That's why most of the people of color there work in the hospital as orderlies,
or work on the Freeways. France is probably 20 years behind the US in
race relations...

My cousin just retired after working 30 years as a hospital orderly,
in other words, a janitor. Sure, she was never homeless,
but the fact that she got shut out early, took a lot of her ambition away,
and now she has a drinking problem.

When you take hope of even being to climb a ladder,
the results are not what you might envision.

[Luminous Animal]

35. And where do you think most PoC work in the U.S.? Service industry. That is why the Fight for !5 is

largely led by black and hispanic women.

And this? "When you take hope of even being to climb a ladder,
the results are not what you might envision."

What do you imagine the downside of people having hope to climb up the economic ladder.

[cui bono]

37. Jury Results...

What a ridiculous alert. I was juror #6 and I didn't see the post you responded to until after voting. I saw afterwards that FC told you all that information in her post.

AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your Jury Service

Mail Message
On Thu Feb 4, 2016, 11:16 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

You and your husband had the money to chose a separate and unequals system.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1146021

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

The personal attack on FrenchieCat is un-called for.



You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Thu Feb 4, 2016, 11:25 PM, and the Jury voted 2-5 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I see no threats of violence. This is clearly not a an advertising bot. The best way for bad ideas to die is to shine light on them. Censorship makes them stronger in the end.
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: The poster had reasonable points to make, but the insult to the original poster was uncalled for and really unnecessary.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: A discussion about family finances and education. People compare experiences. Comment is entirely appropriate.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: How is this a personal attack? I don't get it. I assume LA knows something about FC's situation to say that. Stating facts isn't an attack.
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: It's a good point.

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[Motown_Johnny]

41. Higher education is now segregated by class because of those excluded from it.

Your argument makes no sense.



It sounds like your plan to help the public school system is to kick poor kids out of it.


I disagree.

[MoonchildCA]

21. I hate this argument.

First, Trump is not sending his kids to public school. Second, should we stop offering free K-12, because we don't want rich kids to have it? Should we stop Social Security because even Ayn Rand could receive it?

C'mon! This is the most infuriating argument ever. We offer public access to things so everyone can enjoy them--rich and poor alike.

[thesquanderer]

47. And let's shut down all the public libraries.

Someone rich might be able to read a book for free.

[mike_c]

29. public education should be tuition free for ALL Americans....

If Donald Trump's kids want to attend a state university then I am very happy to help subsidize their free tuition.

[kennetha]

44. High School is universally available

All kids are required to attend school -- up until like age 16.

Not all kids are required to attend college. Indeed, it is still the case that most kids don't. Only something like 30% of Americans hold college degrees. You want to tax everybody -- the working class, the middle class -- so that rich kids and upper middle class kids -- who are much more likely to attend and finish college -- can go to college on the dole?

Why?

Why not work to make college more affordable to those who are prevented from going because of cost?

[speaktruthtopower]

43. This is one issue...

in which Hillary's pragmatism looks responsible. The burden of student loans and tuition increases that their availability has encouraged is a real problem, but there are better ways to unwind that than by making college free.

If you make college free, what about the kids out there who already have six figure educational debts?