[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

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.

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.

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

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

-spence