Now I know why we can’t afford “free college” for everyone. Its for the same reason we can’t afford “free medical care”, or “free legal assistance” for everyone. Rich people don’t like paying taxes to pay for services to poor people that they have to pay for themselves.
Of course, rich people don’t mind getting subsidized with taxpayer dollars for services that they get at a discount because they can afford the initial price of admission, like they can afford to pay for insurance, so they get the benefit of taxpayer-funded medical research and drug regulation and testing. And if they can afford college tuition, they also get a taxpayer subsidy because we all know college costs are not covered by tuition. Not even close.
As if that wasn’t enough, we now have the case in the news recently of how rich Hollywood celebrities are not only bribing colleges and universities to enroll their dumb-ass kids in top schools, but how a cottage industry has arisen to facilitate the scam, bribing officials and coaches to sneak their kids into first-rate schools. (Coaches? Why should they have any say in this, anyway?)
Of course, education, like health care and even justice, is a finite resource with an infinite demand, so it must be rationed. Sad, but we can’t all suck on the government teat forever. We need the educational equivalent of a “death panel”. So how do we ration education, particularly college admission? Simple, just like every other civilized country in the world does it, with competitive examinations. As long as you can pass the tests, and keep up the grades, school should be free, forever. We’ve done that with primary and secondary education, we can certainly do it with college.
If the resource gets scarce, we raise the admission standards. Now, if you’re rich, and too dumb to pass the exams, THEN you can use daddy’s money to buy you a seat in class–but you had better keep your grades up, or you’ll be out on the street again!. And the paying student should be charged more than the cost of his education. That way the rich can subsidize the poor for a change.
No, I don’t think everyone is entitled to a college education, but in our society, everyone is entitled to all the education he or she can absorb. Like they say, a mind is terrible thing to waste. Not just for the student, but for the nation as well. We can’t afford to waste even a single one.