[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

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.

Probably various reasons for failure. Some didn't fail, and grew to larger institutions. Many come and go today.

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.

Who's to say that the growth of State Colleges wouldn't have grown as well or better without the Feds. In some ways the Federal involvement has hampered diversity as well as contributed to raising costs.

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

The Federal grants are mostly returning a portion of the money that was taken from the States in the first place. If the Federales would stay out of what is State business, the amount of money the national government would need would be greatly reduced, and the States could would have a great deal more to do their business, and do it without Federal mandates.

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...

The Founders didn't believe Federal Gov. should be running a global economy, nor that even the States should, I suppose. But if the citizens of a given State voted to allow their State to run some global business, I guess that would have been OK. I believe the Founders wanted business to be in the hands of the private market. I don't recall if they proposed a ban on global business. Quite the contrary, not only cotton, but even industrial goods, maybe some foodstuff was sold to foreign markets, and a good deal, if not all, of the Federal income was tariffs on incoming goods. Nobody could have forseen how huge the world market would become, but I don't think that would have changed their view that the market is in the private sector. The Navy is a legitimate, constitutional arm of the Federal Government, and its use to protect Americans and American interests is not an infringement on States Rights.

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

The private institutions have to follow the inflated pace that government intervention creates.

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.

This is another ill effect of Government promoting the value of higher ed. We are told that college is the necessary path to good employment. So more go to college. Colleges need to expand. Govt. "invests". Costs go up. An excess of graduates that are truly needed for traditionally college required jobs are now available, so employers, to weed out applicants, can require a degree for jobs the hadn't previously required degrees. Most occupations, that are not highly technical and in need of strong preparation of math and some form of science education, are actually learned on the job, and the degree that was required to get the job is superfluous.

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.

All this is being, and has been done by State and private institutions. All the Federal Gov. does is "invest" a pool of money that it doesn't have and that should have stayed in the States. Thus artificially raising costs. The State and private institutions are the ones to "think at that level." And they do.

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.