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Artifical floors and ceilings in the cost of any good are one of the classic problems with government involvement in the economy. A tuition cap simply serves to shield these students from the true cost of their education. Something could be said for weaning them more gently off of the government teat, but these riots just help to demonstrate how these students are disconnected with reality.

   

So only the wealthy should be able to afford post secondary education? (Or are you for the government also getting out of the primary and secondary fields?). Can you show me one country, including yours, that doesn't subsidize uni?

   

How far should the government be involved in leveling the playing field?

   

For education, absolutely level, in fact tilted toward low income people to give them a hand up (thus maybe becoming high income earners and and paying it back in taxes.) Same as our medical system. It's a generally accepted principle, which is why we don't charge for primary or secondary education. That's a start, but poor kids need enrichment that the wealthier parents can provide on their own.

Tighty righties are already saying that people waking poor wages should get an education if they want to earn more. And, many students are already leaving uni with crushing debt loads. Do you really want to put education even further out of reach of lower income people, and creat a oligarchy where only the scions of the rich can get the education needed to have good jobs>

The way to get the money back that you've subsidized education with is to have higher taxes on higher incomes. That way people whose education puts them in a higher tax bracket pay it forward.

   

Not so much that you end up creating a student for life that never gets a job yet we don't end up with professionals that have to work off huge debt loads for the majority of their careers. We need gifted students in the high tech roles regardless of income because we can not keep up with the manpower demand. Not all will graduate but the benefits of creating too many qualified personnel far out weighs the shortfalls of having too few.

   

I'd like to see a competition then. Big bursaries to those that contribute most through volunteering and community service (not the criminal kind either)
Add to that the academic ability and then maybe university wont be wasted on people who are also incurring large useless debts.

   

So are you one of the ones who say fuck the people earning shit wages, they should get an education if they want decent pay? Seems like kinda a double bind.

   

Sounds like a good idea.

   

If you mean that I don't think a guy flipping burgers should get $20.00 an hour, then yes, I guess you got me pegged. How that has to do with the price of the tea in China, or my post though...

Maybe you just need some education, or a raise. Then you'd not likely bleat so bitter.

   

University ain't for everyone, and frankly, not every degree gets you a great job. I have a degree in history, and outside of the experience of it, I haven't reaped any great financial windfall. I'm not a fan of free post secondary education because I'm no fan of free anything. I think in order to appreciate it, one needs to work for it. I saw a lot of people in university who pissed away their student loans, racked up massive debts, and worked peanut jobs on the side. I worked with the navy in the summers full time, and part time during the school year and avoided debt.

The people that racked up $60,000.00 debts for philosophy degrees, or Medieval Studies, or Women's Studies...

   

I guess simple minds can't get more complex arguments. If you say that guy flipping burgers should get himself an education if he wants more money, but you're in favor of higher uni fees and people not incurring 'large, useless, debts,' ie not going to uni at all, then they're sorta fucked, aren't they? Scape says that we're better off having too many educated people for the jobs we have, than too few. In that case there will be people amassing useless debts because they can't find a job despite their education.

Is that clear enough for you?

I don't think a guy flipping burgers should get $20. In Vancouver I would like to see him get at least $12. That gives at least a little better income.

It's funny how you tighty righties always want to insinuate that I must not be doing OK because I care about people at the bottom. That I must be bitter. I'm bitter because I think that keeping people in working poverty is ruining our society, it's no way to run a country. I don't get why you guys are so adamant that some people deserve to be consigned to working poverty. Do you really need that ego boost - "Fuck him, I'm obviously a better person because I'm earning more money?" Seems pretty small to me. I'd rather live in a society with smiling happy people. If that raises the cost of a cup of Timmies (which is piss anyway) by a nickel, as Bruce pointed out in his post (minimum wage raise of $2 in Ontario), so be it. I guess in BC that would be whole dime increase in Tim piss since we'd be going from $8 to $12. OMG, the world would come to an end.

   

Absolutely not. Scholarship programs and alternative funding mechanisms abound. Sure, prices would shoot up for a number of post-secondary institutions, but as long as the system is allowed flexibility, lower cost institutions will arise to cater to the less well-off. It is one of the essential classical economic arguments.

I could not show you a country that does not subsidize universities, and I'm not sure how that is relevant, except that it denies us a modern example of how my ideal would play out.

   

@Gunnair It's too bad that you value your history degree so little. I wish I had studied the arts more when I went. Do you really want to relegate all the knowledge just to those rich enough to afford it?

my story is that I dropped out in high school and spend a number of years tuning in, turining on and dropping out. But then the parental programming took over, and I got a straight job and went to night school to graduate. I then took on a work related, two year program,(no useless debts for me) but that got me thirsting for more knowledge, so I got credit for those two years at uni. Still very much the hard sciences, none of this artsy fartsy stuff for me. I was able to pay for it by working in the woods during the summer and the odd semester off. But, our best laid plans and all, I didn't actually work in the field I studied. I don't regret doing it one bit tho. I got a white collar job and started earning a decent salary, but I wasn't happy, so some years later I went to grad school in yet a totally different direction. It meant I didn't have to take out loans, just pull in my financial horns to fund grad school.

So I'm not bitter, I just retained my sense of community thru all that - I understand that I'm better off when the people around me are better off. Not just financially, but psychologically; working at shit wages ain't going to bring that about.

   

Do they really abound. Can anybody in the US who's got the smarts get a good education without taking on massive debt? I went to grad school there, and that's not what I was seeing or hearing about. Much more so than in Canada you had parents worrying desperately to amass the money to send their kids thru school.

If you create low cost, but privately funded schools to cater to low income people, well they'll get the kind of education they can afford to pay for, ie not much. Employers, even more than now, will hire only from the expensive schools, so still, only the kids of the rich will get the good jobs.

Low barrier unis are one of the best ways to ensuring economic mixing, ie of allowing low income people to do better or at least have their kids do better. Barriers should be lowered, not raised. But what Canada, and probably the US needs even more is technical training like they have in Europe - that streams people into good paying jobs without all the academia.

In Europe, high shcool is much more comprehensive than it is here, ie equivalent to maybe the first two years of uni. My understanding is that uni students specialized in their field right away, they don't take all those survey courses of other disciplines in their first two years like we do here, because they've already had that stuff in high school. Makes sense to me.

   

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