Tuition fees

[Brunic]

Hey guys,

For more than 10 weeks, here, in the province of Québec, Canada, we have this massive students strike against a rise of tuition fees. The rise is about 75% on 5 years, for a total of 1625$.

On March 22th, we had an historic manifestation of 200 000 people in the roads of Montréal. Completely pacific, but the government ignored it. Problems between students and police started to appear, with policeman everywhere on universities campus. Today, while the prime minister was presenting a development project in downtown Montréal, another manifestation started with rare violence. One of the most violent in many decades. The prime minister joked about it, and now, social medias are in uproar and it's becoming more than an strike, it's becoming a social crisis. Some people make comparisons with the "Arab spring" or "Occupy Wall Street".  If the strike is not resolved next week, the winter semester could be canceled.

Now, I'm not starting this thread to debate about the Québec student strike. I don't care if you think it's cheap/costly, if students are lazy or crazy, etc.

No, I'm starting this thread, because since we have many people of different nations here, I wonder if you ever lived through a massive rise of tuition fees. What were the effects of it? Did it helped education or not? Or, is university free in your country? How is it, is it a good idea? What are the pro and cons of it? What are the effects of a low-cost or high-cost university education?

I'm interested in hearing your story.

[max in montreal]

lets look at 3 students...a high school graduate, a guy that went to university for a few years and a doctor...

i think logically you would think...unless your the doctor, you would want tuition to increase. In the end we are all paying for the doctors education, and he is the one that will be making the biggest salary. so I do not understand the whole not wanting to pay for your own education.

another problem is for those like me who went to college for a few years but got kicked out for my lack of interest and attendance nd failing marks. I wasted taxpayers money, and the right thing for me to do was to pay for my own failures.

thanks for picking up that tab...

its a no brainer, paying your own way is the way to go.

[Brunic]

If you want to develop as a country, you need to understand opportunities using the concept of natural and human sciences. If you want to develop Bitcoin, you need to understand, not only computer sciences, but also the laws of mathematics and economics.

Let's make it simple:
Level 1 Math - You use Bitcoin
Level 2 Math - You have a business with Bitcoin
Level 3 Math - You create a miner, a daemon or a BIP.

Every human has potential in different skills. The thing is, to develop that skill, you need to train it and nurture it. If you have no free education, people too poor don't even make it to Level 1 Math, so they don't even have the basic knowledge to use Bitcoin. If they can't use Bitcoin, they don't participate in the economy, so everybody loses.

If you have free education from Level 1 to Level 3, you ensure that, in your population, everybody who have the skills to become a Level 3 can access it. If your education cost for Level 3 is too high, some people are kicked out from this knowledge, not by a lack of skills, but simply by a lack of money. Why rich countries developed Bitcoin? Facebook? Microsoft? Because, at some point in time, the knowledge necessary to develop those technologies was shared by brillant minds.

Yeah, you can ask students to pay for access to knowledge, so they can hope to have a better opportunity in life. Problem is, it is hard to fix a reasonable amount. Why? There's no ceiling to what you can ask. You have one life, and if you want the best opportunity you can get, you'll try to get it no matter the cost. If it's a debt of 1000$, so be it, if it's a debt of 75 000$, so be it. Especially if the financing system around it encourages student to take loans (like rising tuition fees). People gets debt before they even start their career. Debt is not about good or evil, it's about its weight. Too much debt, and you prevent any profits that a person work could provide, because every profit is send back to the debt. Giving education to people so they're forced to work years of their life only to repay their debt is a way to make slaves with the brightest minds of your country.

I believe that to evaluate education, you need to evaluate the cost/benefits of the whole life of a person. Taking a 3 years window where the person sink money by learning and where there's not a lot of identifiable revenues is an easy task. But, if you consider the 80 years of its life, with all the projects that person made and all the knowledge the person shared with others, where those others made great projects with that knowledge, it's almost impossible to evaluate, but it would give a better estimation of what education can do.

[Raoul Duke]

I'm an illiterate, what's this?

[stochastic]

lets look at 3 students...a high school graduate, a guy that went to university for a few years and a doctor...

i think logically you would think...unless your the doctor, you would want tuition to increase. In the end we are all paying for the doctors education, and he is the one that will be making the biggest salary. so I do not understand the whole not wanting to pay for your own education.

another problem is for those like me who went to college for a few years but got kicked out for my lack of interest and attendance nd failing marks. I wasted taxpayers money, and the right thing for me to do was to pay for my own failures.

thanks for picking up that tab...

its a no brainer, paying your own way is the way to go.

Agreed, a college eduction is almost worthless since there are so many people going to university.  Now what is required is some advanced professional degree or training.  The best education is entrepreneurial and the most important parts of that knowledge won't be taught in school.

To decrease fees for education then there needs to be less demand for education.  If government pays for most tution then there is no reason for people not to demand education and thus the price skyrockets.  Since more people have an education, they are preferred over people that don't hold a diploma and so those "uneducated" people go to the university increasing demand.

Higher education is mostly just a scam.  People can learn some cool things there, but most of that learning could be done with self discipline and an internet connection.  My favorite scam is educators telling students that the world needs more scientists and engineers.  Then when that student gets a degree in science or engineering there is no good jobs.  So they have to go to graduate school to get an even more advanced degree.  Then when they go look  for a job again there is no private sector jobs.  They have to go work at a university where they basically teach another generation of people in science and engineering.

My personal advise for anyone is to get some cheap textbooks on math and computer science.  Sit down and study and actually try to solve problems.  You will finish in 1/5th the time and thousands of dollars richer.  Then go out and try to sell something to a stranger as often as you can.

[Bitware]

This post is slightly OT, but connected.

A college degree is not the hingepin of success in this world. Your drive and ambition are.

I know plenty of people with college degrees working outside/below the level of their degree's influence (laborer, maintenance, clerks, cashiers, shelf stockers, gas pumpers, drive through window attendants, janitors, whatever).

More and more college educated people are seeking jobs that dont require a college degree.

I believe our future is in manufacturing (if we can ever get it back), trades, and services. It's al;ways been our bread and butter. If you can do something worthwhile and high quality with your hands and brain you wont have a problem getting a good job.

I started my career as a trademans helper. Since I was in my early teens til about mid-20's when I finished college I have also been a tradesman. When geek work gets slow I sub-contract and put ads on craigslist and in the paper and get tons of work. Much more work than I can handle, so I think a bit of diversity helps.

I dont really believe in an occupation or job really. I believe much more strongly in developing as many sources of income as possible. I think in todays economy, zoning in on an occupation or job holds you back. Its putting all your eggs in one basket.

This is all only opinion from my experience, but I think its directly connected to value of tuition and education in general.

[ElMoIsEviL]

Well...

My opinion(s) differ and are somewhat unique even amongst radicals. My view is that far too many people pigeon hole themselves into one of two camps. Liberal or Conservative. While a few pigeon hole themselves into the Libertarian (Ron Paul/Ancap/Tea party) or Left Libertarian (Anti-war liberals/Ancom/Occupy).

None of these groups could possibly understand or take into effect the whole picture. They either concentrate on the parts (logic) or the sum (feelings such as Love). So either they view things in a cold hard logical manner whilst ignoring ethical/social repercussions or they view things in a loving/overly optimistic feel-good manner whilst ignoring economic repercussions.

In my view it is simple. Our enemies are varied and many. I prefer to use the term "The State". And "The State" is not to be mistaken as being synonymous with "Government". Rather "The State" is not just Central involuntary Governmance but also any and all individuals/groups that benefit from relationships with "The State" (Banks, Corporations etc).

These "Allies of the State" are in fact part of "The State" and not apart from "The State".

It is often hard to differentiate between an Elected Official and the CEO of a Corporation as the roles are quite interchangeable (Dick Cheney being a prime example of that).

For example...
Banks are chartered by the State and are granted a monopoly on the printing of new money through a fractional reserve system. This is a perk that would get any "citizen" or person not affiliated with any such institutions locked up for the crime of "Counterfeiting".

G.E is another example. Due to close ties and financial support of a particular political party as well as the Corporatist means employed in an effort to achieve "Green Energy" (a worthwhile endeavor but not properly implemented imo) grants G.E enough tax subsidies that rather than paying taxes they get tax payer funded subsidies (they get a tax return).

Fox News, MSNBC, Sony, Intel, Time Warner etc etc etc.

So this conflation that exists, whereas so called "Libertarians" who criticize Occupiers (or the students in this case) tend to be under the illusion that entities emanating from our current "Market" are examples of the virtues of Capitalism (Apple for example) when in reality they're examples of Crony Capitalism.
On the other end the conflation exists, whereas so called "Left Libertarians/anti-war liberals" who criticize the Tea Party tend to be under the illusion that the State can be used to protect citizens rather than being at the heart of all that is corrupt.

In the end this creates an intellectual division that ignores the whole picture.

[bb113]

All the above posts are insightful but would I like to add:

In my view it is simple. Our enemies are varied and many. I prefer to use the term "The State". And "The State" is not to be mistaken as being synonymous with "Government". Rather "The State" is not just Central involuntary Governmance but also any and all individuals/groups that benefit from relationships with "The State" (Banks, Corporations etc).

These "Allies of the State" are in fact part of "The State" and not apart from "The State".

It is often hard to differentiate between an Elected Official and the CEO of a Corporation as the roles are quite interchangeable (Dick Cheney being a prime example of that).

Getting rid of the state is really just getting rid of the idea of legitimate involuntary "transactions". Most likely some entity/entities would arise to fill that space and force people to pay for things one way or the other, the difference is that people would see it for what it is.

If you have free education from Level 1 to Level 3, you ensure that, in your population, everybody who have the skills to become a Level 3 can access it.

It doesn't work this way in practice.