Free College For Everybody! Whoopee! 60% Psycho!

[audiophile]

A chicken in every pot. Now add college.

Frankly you can teach college material in high school now. If it's truly about learning, it can be done...now.

[TC Shuts Up]

A chicken in every pot. Now add college.

Frankly you can teach college material in high school now. If it's truly about learning, it can be done...now.

Advanced Placement is becoming an industry. And many colleges are offering actual college classes to High School students at satellite campuses. These are also subsidized, with extreme tuition breaks. Still more expensive than 40 years ago though. One class will run as much as a whole full time student semester used to be, even with the subsidy.

[Bryce]

Here's a perfect example with what's wrong with the "free" college idea.

My youngest is a incoming freshman this year. She is required to take (and dad has to pay for) a course that teaches time management, study habits, test taking skills etc. Isn't that something that was supposed to be accomplished in high school? Isn't the what the current "free" education was supposed to get done? Evidently students are showing up to college ill prepared as it is. If "free" college is going to be offered, shouldn't there be some sort of litmus test?

On another note, while having a few cocktails and conversation with a Wayne State professor Sunday night, he was lamenting the fact that he had to "dumb down" (his words, not mine) his course work as a large percentage of his current students weren't able to handle the work that was originally designed for the course.

As BMW so rightly said, maybe we should fix the current "free" education before we spend money on more "free" education.

[TC Talks]

Getting rid of No Child Left Behind would be a great start. Why not do both; Get politicans out of school funding, AND have free state college.

There is plenty of money for it, just trim the military complex fat.

[Bryce]

Why not do both;

How about we fix one BEFORE we consider the other.

[Deleted User 8570]

Why not do both;

How about we fix one BEFORE we consider the other.

We probably couldn't afford to fix both at once... It would gum things up. What's going on now with college is the same thing that happened to high school... High school was an extra step that wasn't required once. Now you wouldn't think of not getting a diploma. College is going to be the same eventually and the degree will mean jack...

[Lester The Nightfly]

Why not do both;

How about we fix one BEFORE we consider the other.

Hey buddy, where's that American can-do spirit? I thought you guys had more backbone? (unlike us pussy liberals) LET'S SWING OUR EXCEPTIONAL GOD-GIVEN DICKS AROUND AND GET THIS THING SOLVED !!!
Surely you're not going to roll over like a two-dollar suitcase on something as important as our children's' education? You guys run Congress, show 'em who's boss, pass some legislation and clean house like Jesus and Socrates would have wanted. Are you saying this nation is incapable of doing two things at once?

Why do you hate America?

We put a man on the fucking moon!

[Bryce]

You guys run Congress.

Us guys? I know you have nothing but contempt for me, but really. Linking me with current congressional office holders is really below the belt. There may be a few I would claim as "us guys", but Boner Boy had them locked out and rendered them powerless.

And no. I don't want to do them both at the same time. Congress is good at throwing money at things. Once that money is earmarked, it's funny how the promises to fix what they're already spending money on, and is broken, gets forgotten about.

[Lester The Nightfly]

You guys run Congress.

Us guys? I know you have nothing but contempt for me, but really. Linking me with current congressional office holders is really below the belt. There may be a few I would claim as "us guys", but Boner Boy had them locked out and rendered them powerless.

And no. I don't want to do them both at the same time. Congress is good at throwing money at things. Once that money is earmarked, it's funny how the promises to fix what they're already spending money on, and is broken, gets forgotten about.

Another swing and a miss.
First, unless you've been marking your ballot in the "D" column, they are your guys (and no, voting independent really doesn't count until the day comes that the "I"'s, with any consistency, are able to actually win an election rather than just be a contrary data point). Pottery Barn rules apply.

Second, don't mistake me calling out your shit as contempt. If there's any emotion to it would be a measure of bemused sadness watching a demographic that sat fat and happy with the status quo of times past struggle with coming to terms that part of their success was built on standing on the necks of others and now realizing that it's a new day where that kind of behavior is less than admirable. Even more troubling is the sense that y'all are really the one's being oppressed because last time I checked there's not much in the way of history of white, male Christians being hung from trees, being denied voting rights, barred from legal matrimony or (to stay on topic) gaining a higher education regardless of financial wherewithal. It seems like your storyline is more about primarily not getting screwed even if it means needlessly screwing others who may or may not have anything to do with the set of circumstances you find yourself in rather than seeking a way we can all win.

Gobsmacked perhaps, but not contempt.

[Bryce]

First, unless you've been marking your ballot in the "D" column, they are your guys (and no, voting independent really doesn't count until the day comes that the "I"'s, with any consistency, are able to actually win an election rather than just be a contrary data point). Pottery Barn rules apply.

No, I won't accept that. I am NOT a Republican. At least not by today's standards. As a famous person once sort of said, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, they left me." I renounced them on this very board a while ago. Don't hang that group of idiots around my neck.

last time I checked there's not much in the way of history of white, male Christians being hung from trees,

Yeah? I guarantee you that those people doing the hanging, to a man, were died in the wool supporters of the party you love. Democrats. The Republican Party, as it once was, was the party that championed racial equality. Most people don't know this, but the first black U.S. Senator, Hiram Rhodes Revels, was a Republican. The Democrats tried every procedural trick in the book to block him and the Republicans overrode their objections. THIS is the Republican Party I was once proud to be a part of.

gaining a higher education regardless of financial wherewithal. It seems like your storyline is more about primarily not getting screwed even if it means needlessly screwing others who may or may not have anything to do with the set of circumstances you find yourself in rather than seeking a way we can all win.

Gobsmacked perhaps, but not contempt.

I'm all for the people with the ability and mindset to have the ability to "gain a higher education", but a "higher education", at least by today's standards, isn't for everyone. Again, almost three quarters of today's high school graduates don't score high enough on three out of four core areas to be deemed college ready. As witnessed by my youngest, colleges are having to teach things that should have been mastered in high school because so many students are showing up ill prepared.

We should have more government involvement in continuing education when they (the government) failed miserably during the first 13 years?

I submit to you that a high school diploma earned in 1950 prepared a person for life and a career in better fashion than a Associates Degree does today.

[Deleted User 8570]

First, unless you've been marking your ballot in the "D" column, they are your guys (and no, voting independent really doesn't count until the day comes that the "I"'s, with any consistency, are able to actually win an election rather than just be a contrary data point). Pottery Barn rules apply.

No, I won't accept that. I am NOT a Republican. At least not by today's standards. As a famous person once sort of said, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, they left me." I renounced them on this very board a while ago. Don't hang that group of idiots around my neck.

last time I checked there's not much in the way of history of white, male Christians being hung from trees,

Yeah? I guarantee you that those people doing the hanging, to a man, were died in the wool supporters of the party you love. Democrats. The Republican Party, as it once was, was the party that championed racial equality. Most people don't know this, but the first black U.S. Senator, Hiram Rhodes Revels, was a Republican. The Democrats tried every procedural trick in the book to block him and the Republicans overrode their objections. THIS is the Republican Party I was once proud to be a part of.

gaining a higher education regardless of financial wherewithal. It seems like your storyline is more about primarily not getting screwed even if it means needlessly screwing others who may or may not have anything to do with the set of circumstances you find yourself in rather than seeking a way we can all win.

Gobsmacked perhaps, but not contempt.

I'm all for the people with the ability and mindset to have the ability to "gain a higher education", but a "higher education", at least by today's standards, isn't for everyone. Again, almost three quarters of today's high school graduates don't score high enough on three out of four core areas to be deemed college ready. As witnessed by my youngest, colleges are having to teach things that should have been mastered in high school because so many students are showing up ill prepared.

We should have more government involvement in continuing education when they (the government) failed miserably during the first 13 years?

I submit to you that a high school diploma earned in 1950 prepared a person for life and a career in better fashion than a Associates Degree does today.

And all those folks you loved became Democrats and all the blockers of said black senator became Republicans. Note that the blockers were always Conservative.

[Lester The Nightfly]

And all those folks you loved became Democrats and all the blockers of said black senator became Republicans. Note that the blockers were always Conservative.

Yeah, as if that was the only inconsistency of his chickenshit response, going to the wayback machine of the 1870's as an example of what his kind of a Republican means. Way to keep it relevant by going back more than 100 years.

I also noticed he ducked addressing marriage equity and voting rights. As far as "No, I won't accept that. I am NOT a Republican. At least not by today's standards." I suspect we're going to be seeing quite a lot of that backpedaling once Trump gets his ass handed to him. Hey it's not my party all the while laying down that No. 2 Ticonderoga pencil in the "R" column.

Incidentally, who the fuck made you an arbiter of who deserves to pursue a higher education? What arrogance to presume who is worthy of attaining a better education.

On second though maybe contempt was the correct appraisal.

[TC Talks]

Throuout this thread, I have eriely suspected we have an education divide here. Who has a 4 year degree, who has their post graduate degree?

"Now try a question that reveals something about the class divide in the United States: How many of your closest friends didn’t graduate from college?

The insularity of elites has been noted frequently in this election season as an explanation for the failure of political operatives, journalists and scholars to recognize the political ascendance of Donald J. Trump. But it isn’t a new phenomenon. As my colleague Nate Cohn and others have pointed out, Americans tend to sort themselves geographically by party or ideology so that like-minded people tend to live near one another.

With the help of Morning Consult, a research technology company, we sought to measure such insularity. In a poll of more than 2,000 registered voters, it found that 29 percent of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree say all five of their closest friends have at least a four-year college degree.

And 31 percent of adults who either never attended college or never graduated say none of their closest friends had at least a four-year college degree.

The survey shows that the less educated aren’t quite as insular as the educated. Among those without a college degree, 10 percent said all of their five closest friends didn’t attend college. Among those with a college degree, 3 percent said all five of their closest friends never attended college.

Among Americans who say they had postgraduate educations — doctors, lawyers, professors, business-school graduates — 57 percent say four or five of their best friends have at least a college degree. Half of the people with a four-year college degree say that.


Liberals are about as exclusive in their friendships as conservatives: 34 percent of them say four or five of their five closest friends have college degrees. Among conservatives it is 30 percent.

Others have tried to measure the elites’ bubble. PBS NewsHour created a quiz for its viewers based on “Coming Apart,” the 2012 book by Charles Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The quiz sought to determine just how isolated the American elite are. It asked questions like “Have you ever bought an Avon product?” and “Have you ever bought a pickup truck?”

What it found was that on a scale of 1 to 100, the average score was 40, with a lower score indicating insulation from mainstream American culture. The quiz was a lot of fun, but it still left unanswered the question of how isolated and polarized Americans are.

Despite the separation of the college educated from the less educated, the Morning Consult survey shows that race still reveals a sharper separation. Among whites, 48 percent say all of their five closest friends are white. Thirty-six percent of blacks say all of their five closest friends are black, and 31 percent say none of their five closest friends are white.


Not surprisingly, people of the same income level say they flock together. About one in three adults in households earning less than $50,000 a year say all of their friends have incomes that level or below. Almost four of 10 adults in households earning more than $100,000 a year say none of their five closest friends earn less than $50,000.

A bubble envelops people by party affiliation as well. Among Democrats, almost 34 percent say all of their closest friends are Democrats, while only 7 percent of Democrats that say that none of their closest friends are Democrats. With Republicans, 28 percent say all of their friends are Republican.

It should come as no surprise that Americans who tend to spend time with one another share the same views. Almost six in 10 people who disapprove of Barack Obama’s job performance as president say all five of their closest friends disapprove as well. Asked about the Affordable Care Act, 43 percent of those who oppose it say all five of their closest friends also oppose it. And 39 percent who support the health law say none of their five closest friends oppose it.

We see a sharper divide with abortion: 56 percent who oppose more restrictions on abortion say their friends feel the same way, and 39 percent who support more restrictions on abortion say all five of their closest friends support such restrictions.

People who identified as political moderates tend to have views that are closer to those of self-identified liberals than to those of self-identified conservatives. But in terms of sharing friendships among people with less education, political ideology seems to make little difference. Nearly the same percentage of moderates, conservatives and liberals — about 36 percent — have few or no friends without college degrees."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/up ... vides.html

[Deleted User 8570]

And all those folks you loved became Democrats and all the blockers of said black senator became Republicans. Note that the blockers were always Conservative.

Yeah, as if that was the only inconsistency of his chickenshit response, going to the wayback machine of the 1870's as an example of what his kind of a Republican means. Way to keep it relevant by going back more than 100 years.

I also noticed he ducked addressing marriage equity and voting rights. As far as "No, I won't accept that. I am NOT a Republican. At least not by today's standards." I suspect we're going to be seeing quite a lot of that backpedaling once Trump gets his ass handed to him. Hey it's not my party all the while laying down that No. 2 Ticonderoga pencil in the "R" column.

Incidentally, who the fuck made you an arbiter of who deserves to pursue a higher education? What arrogance to presume who is worthy of attaining a better education.

On second though maybe contempt was the correct appraisal.

Oh there was lots more wrong for sure... I had just done a trip to Okemos and back for some High School Football so I was exausted and didn't feel like picking it apart too much...

[Bryce]

Yeah, as if that was the only inconsistency of his chickenshit response, going to the wayback machine of the 1870's as an example of what his kind of a Republican means. Way to keep it relevant by going back more than 100 years.

Not sure what in your mind constitutes going to the "wayback machine". How about 1957? President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a resolute civil rights bill to increase black voting rights and one that added protections. Democratic Senator James Eastland (D) Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee made every effort to kill the bill. Because ten Democrats joined with the Republicans, Eastland was unable to kill the bill in committee. Then, Democrats responded with one of the longest filibuster speeches in Senate history. As a side note, President Eisenhower created a Civil Rights Division within the U.S. Justice Department.

ducked addressing marriage equity and voting rights.

This thread is about free college. Those issues have been covered ad nauseam in other threads.

Incidentally, who the fuck made you an arbiter of who deserves to pursue a higher education? What arrogance to presume who is worthy of attaining a better education.

I along with millions of other Americans will be asked to pick up the tab for another government program even though the current government program has failed miserably. Spending money on people that aren't college ready (over 60%) will either cause those folks to fail, or force the colleges to dumb down their curriculum and cheat those that are college ready out of the advanced education they are hoping for. THAT is what allows me and the other taxpayers to be a "abitor".