US higher education has been regarded among the best in the world for a long time--long before it became a "system" that tries to squeeze into it thousands of "students" that are not interested, nor major in those disciplines that make our universities and colleges "fine." Our universities were regarded as among the finest before our Federal Government began to massively invest in them. They were considered among the finest when they were relatively affordable for those who were truly interested in a "fine" education and were willing to sacrifice a bit of time and money to acquire it. Our higher education was considered among the finest when university and college administrations were willing to operate more as businesses who would charge market affordable rates and pay market sustainable salaries rather than basing their rates on a willing and seemingly bottomless Government pocket. Government "investment" in education has not made it finer. It has just made it more expensive.

Your being "all for Government assistance in education" is being all for making education ever more expensive and endlessly requiring Government assistance.

The education industry to which I referred was not simply higher education. It also encompasses K-12. It is the huge Government investment in that portion that has made it labor intensive as opposed to service oriented. And with the monetary investment, of course, came the directives of what and how to teach. I don't think that our lower education is considered to be the finest in the world. Actually, it has been losing the prestige it had before the big government "assistance."

And this K-12 is the portion that spits out the less educated, less ready for higher ed., less prepared for an independant, unassisted life.

Federally assisted abortion doesn't keep the education system humming along, it helps to keep down the amount of those that the Government has to "assist"--especially the poorly educated and poorly prepared for an independant life. There is a limit to how many unproductive people that a "village" can sustain.

And, the more you assist poor education, poor preparation, and the expectation that big mama Guv will provide, the more you encourage it. I can see why the Guv wants to keep Federally paid abortion in the health "care" bill.

This isn't really true.

Without Federal assistance to create land grand universities we probably wouldn't have the system we do today. I think this started back in the 19th century (I went to Iowa State, one of the big ones) so I'm not sure who the system was catering to before then aside from perhaps the upper crust.

Perhaps the better solution is a taxpayer funded "public option" to compete with those over priced private institutions :devil2: :hihi:

-spence

It really is true that we had some of the finest universities before the Federal Gov. provided MASSIVE monetary funding. Although some of them, as far back as the 17th century, did provide some private scholarships to "worthy" students that couldn't afford the tuition, it is true that they were not accessible to the masses. But for the first 70 years in this nation's history the Feds followed the Constitution and allowed the states and local communities to provide education--which included two land grant colleges. These were the models for the first Federal intrusion--the Federal Govt. providing of Federal land to the states to build land grant colleges. The purpose was laudable, to provide education to many that was relevant to their daily lives--basically agricultural and industrial. And there was no negative impact on the Federal budget. That slowly expanded to providing actual funds for creation of agricultural experiment stations for scientific research. It took another 80 years for a new Fed wrinkle, the GI Bill to accomodate WWII Vets. Then another 15 years, in response to Sputnik, for the National Defense Education Act that provided aid to all public and private levels of education, though still basically aimed at improving technical studies, but far larger in scope than the original land grant idea, and far more expensive (notice the trend). Then enter the 1960's. The War on Poverty. New Deal II. New Deal #1 being interrupted by the post-war boom, now came the opportunity to expand further into the area reserved to the states, started by the GI Bill. Now followed a plethora of acts and revisions of acts to provide Federal assistance that has blossomed (mushroomed), with a slight pullback during the Reagan Administration, and intruded into education as the Feds have done into every aspect of our lives.

Although it is not the only reason, several studies have found a correlation between the rise in Federal Aid to the rise in tuition, including, interestingly enough vis-a-vis your little gift from POTUS, not only direct assistance, but tax credits as well.

F. King Alexander, a president of Murray State U., said "ironically, Federal Programs in totality give incentive for institutions to increase tuition and to set high sticker prices." This succinctly expresses the sentiments of many others.

Of course, with the support of the Federal purse, comes an attached suggestion or mandate and direction of how and what is taught, and not taught. This reminds of Hayek's caveat--"the conception that Government should be guided by majority opinion makes sense only if that opinion is independent of Government."

I am not anti-government. We are the government. Those we vote for merely represent us. When they begin to brazenly dictate to us, not only in the most extreme and real crisis, but on a constant and all pervading basis, we must, to sustain a democratic process, be educated, informed, and independent from that government. The more we depend on a central government, distant from us in space, and in values, that enforces a cookie cutter education, a one size fits all as you referred to what you think health care should be, the less we can contribute diverse, new, re-generative ideas and solutions. We can thus be transformed from a large, truly diverse society connected by a desire to be free, that generates a robust hurly-burly of growth and innovation from the bottom up, to the anomoly of passive, polite, correct, adolescents waiting for the next Federal spending bill to cure our ills. And we will be taught, by institutions, dependent on Government largesse.

Of course, the saving grace is that the Government is broke, has been broke, is getting broker and broker, and there are still enough adults that understand this.

every time that Spence and Det engage in one of their "Battle of the Brains"...Spence crawls away with a massive concussion:uhuh::rotf2:

Spence....you make a repulsive Gimme Girl.....

For the first 70 years of our history we were still primarily a nation of farmers, and as you've stated higher education was mostly for the elite. The majority of colleges founded early on were short-lived religious based institutions that served a particular sect rather than a local population.

The influx of government spending which started in the last 1/2 of the 19th century and continued into the 20th was a direct response to a transforming industrial base as well as shifting demographics.

These macro trends (like conflicting civilizations, radical advances in technology or transforming economies) aren't going to be solved by States providing local educational assistance alone, and the free market certainly isn't going to solve the issue. These are national issues and in some cases might require national solutions.

Is education too expensive? Sure it is, but I don't need Glenn Beck's chalkboard to understand this. Has government exacerbated the issue? I'd think it has, although that alone doesn't invalidate the benefits...

Put simply, I'm not sure America would have been able to rise to dominance during the 20th century had we not had the infrastructure to enable the people to keep pace with the opportunities.

K-12 is another issue, one I don't have time for this morning...

-spence

If so I can only hope to one day be beaten down to your level, but if so Butch has a lot of work to do :devil2: :hihi:

-spence

a Gimme Girl Narcissist...even more repulsive :uhuh:

America rose to dominance with military and productive might. The Great institutions of higher learning are a beneficiary of that might. And the influence of collective, anti-capitalist thought beginning to dominate those institutions, may be a Trojan Horse to "fundamentally change" this country.

Are people any less free to start private or religious based institutions today? I think the real question is why these early colleges failed. One might ask if they were really delivering what the people needed.

Starting well? Perhaps the feds saw a good thing and accelerated it's progress. I don't think there were more than a few state sponsored colleges before 1860. Good thing too because the industrial revolution was just getting going.

Not resolved by, but definitely influenced. As for different philosophies, there are many different conflicts for many different reasons.

Via a lot of Federal grants mind you, one area of investment that the taxpayer has seen a good ROI.

The evolution of the global economy has shown that our behavior as a nation is quite important. The Federal issue was smaller in scope as many of the Founding Fathers didn't believe the US would or should be running a global economy...which we still do today. Could they even imagine what the US Navy does to control shipping lanes around the entire planet? I don't think so...

A lot of this is private institutions setting the pace. More access to education creates more competition.

Not why, but a solution perhaps.

Also there's the evolution of education where a college degree is the minimum for most non-trade skill work. Hell, even a MS or MBA isn't considered that special any more...to a large degree because of the rapid advancement of the global economy and technology.

We're competing against a larger and smarter global workforce. Yes the corporate world can respond by becoming more global (more access to markets and sources of revenues) but that doesn't mean our people will be the source of their productivity, not if they're not ready. I don't expect any state to think at this level.

One could also argue that without an educated people would we have been able to harness our resources and geographic fortune to rise to such military and productive might? The Federal land grant program was precisely to encourage such industrial education versus a more classical one. The rise of the liberal arts college isn't a Trojan horse but rather a blessing of our strength that bolsters the sciences.

-spence

Again, the Federal influence is not necessary. The college and university personnel will be the same without the Federal Government. The State and private institutions do the hiring. Again, the Federal influence is inflationary as to cost and restrictive to diversity. If the Federal Government was, as is constitutionally mandated, restricted to defence, foreign relations, interstate commerce (as originally intended--not as currently "interpreted"), it might need only collect a fifth to a third of the taxes that it does. Government funding, now, is topsy turvy. The States should be collecting the lions share of revenue, not the Federal Government. And the States would create more diverse solutions to health and welfare problems and have the money to do so. And they would have to be more responsive to their constituents than the Federal Government is. The current health "care" that may be about to befall all of us, would be approached in a more diverse, innovative, and necessarily more responsive way, if it was in State hands.

And the Trojan Horse to which I referred, is not the liberal arts college but its antithesis--an anti-liberal, undiverse, restrictive, close-minded, collectivist, anti-capitalist mindset that pervades public education. It is a mindset that detests military might and sees production primarily as a result of labor more than a gift of capitalist, or free market ingenuity. A mindset that is about class struggle, so-called "social justice," redistribution of wealth, all of which, intended or not, will not only "fundamentally change" this society, but remove the foundations of what made it great.