[Rally]

As it is now students make one of the largest economic decisions they will ever make ( whether/where to go to college, whether to borrow money, what to major in) at the age of 17/18. Without good guidance from parents or elsewhere, many students will make poor decisions.

Although it has been getting better, schools in general provide limited info on job prospects/salary by major to help students make decisions. Not that this is the only factor, but it sure needs to be understood.

We need to look at more than getting kids the money to pay tuition, we need to discuss how to reduce the cost of college.  I would start with much better use of technology (eg, cant the UC system share profs who teach large lecture classes by having one prof teach a class for the whole UC system by streaming video?), or is the tenure the problem ( where universities cant reduce the number of profs , as happens in other industries, so students are stuck with higher tuition)?

If society is paying for tuition, should society get a say in how it is spent......should grades and/or major factor in?

If we go to the no debt/pay later model, should private industry be encouraged to participate together with govt? They will fund some tuition for a percent of future income. Of course they will likely focus on best prospects.....might be harder for the less capable students or less lucrative majors, but maybe govt/more charitable type orgs step up to fund the less lucrative majors. As for the less capable students, maybe this will force us to develop a better vocational educ system, rather than assuming that a typical college educ is best for most everyone.

Of course it would be preferable if all schools were like Stanford/Ivies with committed donor bases, but we cant depend on that. If we dont make sure kids can get a good educ I dont see how we address growing income disparity, which we must address.

Interesting choices:  would I rather make loan payments for a very long time, or be partially indentured to a corporation my entire adult life?  How about we follow the Greece model?  Everything is free for everyone, until we eventually run out of everyone's money then enjoy riots because everything isn't free any more. 

[Rally]

As it is now students make one of the largest economic decisions they will ever make ( whether/where to go to college, whether to borrow money, what to major in) at the age of 17/18. Without good guidance from parents or elsewhere, many students will make poor decisions.

Although it has been getting better, schools in general provide limited info on job prospects/salary by major to help students make decisions. Not that this is the only factor, but it sure needs to be understood.

We need to look at more than getting kids the money to pay tuition, we need to discuss how to reduce the cost of college.  I would start with much better use of technology (eg, cant the UC system share profs who teach large lecture classes by having one prof teach a class for the whole UC system by streaming video?), or is the tenure the problem ( where universities cant reduce the number of profs , as happens in other industries, so students are stuck with higher tuition)?

If society is paying for tuition, should society get a say in how it is spent......should grades and/or major factor in?

If we go to the no debt/pay later model, should private industry be encouraged to participate together with govt? They will fund some tuition for a percent of future income. Of course they will likely focus on best prospects.....might be harder for the less capable students or less lucrative majors, but maybe govt/more charitable type orgs step up to fund the less lucrative majors. As for the less capable students, maybe this will force us to develop a better vocational educ system, rather than assuming that a typical college educ is best for most everyone.

Of course it would be preferable if all schools were like Stanford/Ivies with committed donor bases, but we cant depend on that. If we dont make sure kids can get a good educ I dont see how we address growing income disparity, which we must address.

Interesting choices:  would I rather make loan payments for a very long time, or be partially indentured to a corporation my entire adult life?  How about we follow the Greece model?  Everything is free for everyone, until we eventually run out of everyone's money then enjoy riots because everything isn't free any more.