zlacker

>>pessim+(OP)
I'm all for making education more accessible, but why does it have to be one extreme or the other (free or tuition) - if taxpayers are making education free, can't we levy a requirement for the graduate to at least volunteer Peace Corps style? Perhaps the term of volunteering could be inversely proportional to their grade such that someone who drops out early has to volunteer for a longer period of time.

>>steven+GA
Then it's not free. Opportunity cost is real.

I don't ask my kid to volunteer because he got a chicken pox vaccine, he just gets to not have chicken pox for free. And that's ok.

We can choose to make the next generations lives better than ours, even if we gain no material benefit ourselves. (Though I'd argue that an educated youth does materially benefit the populace.)

>>nxx788+mF
Nothing is free. It is estimated that state and local governments spend 9 percent of state and local direct general spending on higher education [1]. One could argue that the opportunity cost of higher education to taxpayers is 9% of their work life.

[1] https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...