Cuomo w/Sanders unvails plain for tuition-free public higher education in NY

[JA]

Communism.

Same with free, public k-12, I presume?

[JA]

Communism.

Same with free, public k-12, I presume?

You can't get a decent job in the next few decades if you don't have good education as we see more automation, robotics & what not. So many jobs will open up in robotics, automation, design.If the US doesn't have take advantage now & get a good workforce, it will be difficult to compete with other countries.

On topic - Great move

Yes, great move on behalf of Cuomo if he's wanting to be a front-runner in 2020.

However, increasing access to a college education removes the comparative advantage of having a college degree.  In a world where most Americans go to college, the value of that education is inherently lessened.

Having an undergraduate degree today is essentially equivalent to having a High School diploma 20 years ago. It isn't simply a matter of scarcity generating a competitive advantage, it's almost a necessity for entrence into the Middle Class. Denying people access based on their ability to pay is fundamentally unfair as well, even if it was a matter of suppressing degree holders for competitive advantage, as it would unjustly discriminate against those at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, thereby suppressing their opportunity to experience upward mobility and the American dream. Even offering them student loans is unjust as it unfairly burdens those coming from lower and working class families with debt and an even steeper mountain to climb in life. I'm not sure where people acquired the notion that the poorer your parents are, the more hurdles are acceptable to be put in your path. If America's about upward mobility and equal opportunity for all, it must seek to balance the inequalities of life.

[JA]

Communism.

Same with free, public k-12, I presume?

You can't get a decent job in the next few decades if you don't have good education as we see more automation, robotics & what not. So many jobs will open up in robotics, automation, design.

If the US doesn't have take advantage now & get a good workforce, it will be difficult to compete with other countries.

Universal public education is not, and should not be about jobs. It should be about providing the necessary skills and knowledge for children to become independent adults who can participate in society. No, the current system does not serve that purpose well, but turning college into the new high school will only make the disconnect between public education's purpose and reality worse.

The four OECD countries with a higher percentage of college degree holders than the US are Canada, Japan, Israel and South Korea. All of them charge tuition fees at public colleges and none of them have student loan programs as expansive as the ones in the US. Abolishing tuition does not increase access or achievement, and only leads to "education inflation", excessive spending and high dropout rates.

It doesn't matter what you think public education and college should be about, what matters is what it is really about in the real world. Employers seek potential employees with the best education, skills, and experience. By basing access to those jobs on one's ability to pay, it establishes inequality of access that will deny access to upward mobility to countless individuals from lower and working class backgrounds. If you want to create a caste system and/or a rigid hierarchical class society, that's the best path towards achieving it.

In today's world of increasing complexity and knowledge based work, you have no choice but to acquire the highest level of education possible to have a competitive advantage in our economy. School, while ideally striving towards education for education's sake, must also equip students for the job market. Whether this is trade school or college should be up to the individual based on their interests and talents, not their ability to pay.

[JA]

However, increasing access to a college education removes the comparative advantage of having a college degree.  In a world where most Americans go to college, the value of that education is inherently lessened.

Also, given that SUNY schools have a limited number of seats, the short-term result might even be to crowd out affluent but less capable students and make admissions more competitive – a happy and value-enhancing result from any reasonable perspective.

While this would definitely be a giant leap in the right direction, we still have enormous systemic problems to address. First, there is undeniable segregation of American public schools, without even mentioning private schools. Those schools located in minority and/or lower socioeconomic areas are notoriously underfunded, understaffed, and operate within an educational cultured oriented towards shaping them into workers and followers, not administrators or free thinkers, as is the case in schools populated by students from middle and upper class families. This results in a failure of the state to ensure equal access to quality education for all students and causes students to, on average, perform more poorly the lower on the socioeconomic ladder their family and neighborhood is.

Second, compounding the aforementioned problem is the issue of unequal access to cultural capital in the home. Some families are simply better able to invest in their child to ensure they have greater access to future opportunities. Wealthier parents can afford extracurricular activities, tutors, more time to spend with their children, typically higher education levels, introduce their kids to art and other aspects of high culture, and better networking connections. All of this results in children from wealthier backgrounds typically outperfoming those from disadvantaged backgrounds, which would, yet again, result in more affluent students being admitted into notable universities such as SUNY. So we must even address this inequality if we want to truly help all students achieve their potential and improve American society.