Louis Gossett Jr
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Free college for the sake of free college is bad, free college through accomplishing some baseline competence like a 3.5 or better in high school is good.
kinda arbitrary to cut it off at 13 if this is your argument
It blows my mind how many people can't understand that people need more and more education to be competent citizens as society gets more and more advanced.
There's simply more to learn than there used to be.
That's not to mean everyone needs to go to college. The bar is just higher.
Why should you have gone to college?
1) Because I was smart
2) because I was motivated to apply myself
3) because i had ideas about how I wanted to live in and contribute to society and college was necessary for those goals
4) because I earned scholarships on my own merit and through my hard work to help pay for it
5) because my parents could pay for the rest
To say not everyone should go to college is not necessarily an insult to those people. I knew people in HS who could not have cared less about school and only wanted to be farmers - or stay-at-home moms - or mechanics. There were other people in HS who were just idiots and screw-ups - they also had no business going to college.
Apparently not talented and/or hardworking enough.
One of our systemic problems is an overabundance of people with virtually worthless college degrees who can't find jobs. I fail to see how creating even more college degrees with lower values helps anyone. The poor kid smart enough to go to Princeton is already getting a free ride somewhere if he wants to take it. We're talking about the kids who over the prior 13 years have already established that they shouldn't get the free or significantly-paid-for ride to SUNY-Buffalo State. Einstein, they are not. This just pushes them off to the next level for no real reason.
Would be a better argument if there weren't so many dumbasses at good schools because they could afford to pay full tuition.
Thanks for responding to my question seriously, scooter.
I think that 1-3 apply to a lot of kids going to college and that a lot of students are willing to do a combination of 4-5 to the extent that they are able. I may be spoiled, but I have a lot of students who apply for every ounce of scholarship cash in sight and work multiple part and full-time jobs off campus. College is absurdly expensive, though, so if you don't have 5 (and even if you do), you'll probably have to rack up some loans along the way.
I think you're setting up a straw man argument, though. Nobody is saying that everybody should go to college, but rather that if you want to go to college, then you have an opportunity to do so. Plenty of students in NYC and NYS will continue to not want to go to college and not go to college. Those that do and might've been deterred by the cost will have the opportunity, conditions permitting, to do so. I don't see how that's a bad thing.
There seems to be a persistent myth among well-to-do white people that every poor or minority kid who wants to go to college can go for free.
Like I said, this is a complicated issue and I still believe the biggest problem is the hyper-inflation of the cost of college - which, I believe, has been exacerbated by the easy availability of loans and grants which has artificially increased demand. My thoughts with respect to the bolded is that there aren't many low income kids that fit into this bucket - there are so many other aid packages available for them already. The kids that need help are the middle class kids who won't qualify for this type of program anyway.
There seems to be a persistent myth among well-to-do white people that every poor or minority kid who wants to go to college can go for free.
Well, you state it too broadly - obviously it is limited to poor or minority kids that otherwise qualify for admission. But, in my experience, the myth is pretty close to reality - especially when the emphasis is on the poor. Maybe not for free, but certainly with a lot of help. And clearly the better the kids academic record the more help that is available.
We checked in with David W. Chen, a New York Times investigative reporter who has been covering the free-tuition plan, called the Excelsior Scholarship, to understand how it will work.
How free is free tuition?
It’s actually not. Excelsior would fill in the gaps of costs not covered by financial aid, Mr. Chen said. It would need to be added on top of other scholarships and grants to make college free.
For students who are not receiving any other financial aid — those who are making too much money to qualify for need-based support — Excelsior would help even more.
“It’s primarily aimed at middle-class families,” Mr. Chen said, “and the governor has been clear about that from the beginning.”
How much would a family pay after the scholarship?
The total cost — tuition, fees, and room and board — for four years at a State University of New York college is about $83,000 — roughly $21,000 per year or $10,000 per semester. This program would pay about $26,000. Families would still need to shoulder nearly $60,000 to send a student to college.
How does one qualify for the scholarship?
Families must earn an annual income of $100,000 or less during the first year of participation in the plan.
New and existing students may apply, and you don’t need to be a native of New York State (or even a current New York resident) to do so.
It’s unclear whether there will be a grade-point-average requirement, but applicants must continue to college from high school with no interruptions. If the scholarship recipient becomes a part-time student or graduates from high school late, the option is off the table.
But what if I had to take some time off school for personal reasons?
That’s where things get tricky.
“If the program were applying to those who are now in school, not that many students — or certainly a minority of students — would qualify for the scholarships because most of them are working part time or taking longer than four years to graduate,” Mr. Chen said.
With that rule in place, more than 90 percent of students at the state’s community colleges would not qualify for free tuition.
Are there any additional requirements for those who qualify?
Yes. Recipients should plan to live and work in New York after graduation, for as many years as they received help with the tuition. If that obligation is broken, they will need to repay that year, similar to repaying a student loan, though the plan includes some flexibility and exceptions, such as personal hardship or military service.
Because people accomplish more when they pool their resources together.
So I assume based on your posts that you believe there's no role for public higher education. You seem dead set against taxpayer funding for public institutions.