Proposal
I had an epiphany tonight, and I'm writing it down in order to not lose it. It starts on a negative note, but this is just build up for my actual idea.
College is bullshit. It's an institution designed to help the government preserve the upper class. It's too expensive for the poor to attend despite the handfuls of scholarships out there and though it is cheap enough for the middle class fairly easily attend whatever loans a person takes out to pay for it will keep them middle class until typically their earnings get soaked up by the family they're building leaving them where they are.
And what are you buying with a lot of these colleges? Typically a text book, and someone to read it to you, a place where you can eat and sleep, and a place for the less socially competent to meet people. All that and a very costly membership card to allow you to work in whatever field, maybe.
Anyway, I could rant about that for a long time, but I'd rather rave about my idea. People should be paid to be students. This is what I think. Students are doing a service, even if it's only the service of becoming potential service. If we paid people instead of charging them to be students education would be DRASTICALLY improved. People regularly spend forty hours a week on a job, and most people probably dislike their job, but imagine what people devoting 40 hours a week to study would build up to!
And sure there could be people dropping in to make some money for nothing for a couple months or weeks or whatever, but regular businesses today already have to put up with that, and if McDonalds and the government can do it I'd hope universities could as well.
So how would the university pay for everything?
Firstly, how much does it really cost to provide an education? I'm not talking about the million dollar buildings and GIGANTIC parking lots and all of that. Mostly, it's all labor cost I should think plus chalk, and textbooks (that REALLY shouldn't cost as much as they do) paper, and maybe some cleaning chemicals and the occasional vacuum cleaner. My point anyway, is there isn't much reason for it to cost much to have a teacher, except for teachers with college debts. And if colleges stop worrying about remodeling so much their costs probably wouldn't be horrible at all. Yes, managing expenses can lower them, where as charging as is wanted for tuiton means you can waste money all over the place.
Secondly, and this is clever I think, the college/university would contract out labor, namely its graduates. University's would compete with each other, which would drive down white-collar labor prices, and certain blue collar jobs as well. Business could hire straight from the university, so graduates wouldn't have any trouble finding work. The university takes a cut and it builds up. Price of labor drops means earnings drop, which means the price of everything else goes down as well to adjust.
Anyway...it's not fool-proof, but what is? I couldn't think of many arguments against the idea that weren't on some level "But the universities are supposed to preserve the hierarchy!". Ultimately, all good ideas are for being trampled on.
College is bullshit. It's an institution designed to help the government preserve the upper class. It's too expensive for the poor to attend despite the handfuls of scholarships out there and though it is cheap enough for the middle class fairly easily attend whatever loans a person takes out to pay for it will keep them middle class until typically their earnings get soaked up by the family they're building leaving them where they are.
And what are you buying with a lot of these colleges? Typically a text book, and someone to read it to you, a place where you can eat and sleep, and a place for the less socially competent to meet people. All that and a very costly membership card to allow you to work in whatever field, maybe.
Anyway, I could rant about that for a long time, but I'd rather rave about my idea. People should be paid to be students. This is what I think. Students are doing a service, even if it's only the service of becoming potential service. If we paid people instead of charging them to be students education would be DRASTICALLY improved. People regularly spend forty hours a week on a job, and most people probably dislike their job, but imagine what people devoting 40 hours a week to study would build up to!
And sure there could be people dropping in to make some money for nothing for a couple months or weeks or whatever, but regular businesses today already have to put up with that, and if McDonalds and the government can do it I'd hope universities could as well.
So how would the university pay for everything?
Firstly, how much does it really cost to provide an education? I'm not talking about the million dollar buildings and GIGANTIC parking lots and all of that. Mostly, it's all labor cost I should think plus chalk, and textbooks (that REALLY shouldn't cost as much as they do) paper, and maybe some cleaning chemicals and the occasional vacuum cleaner. My point anyway, is there isn't much reason for it to cost much to have a teacher, except for teachers with college debts. And if colleges stop worrying about remodeling so much their costs probably wouldn't be horrible at all. Yes, managing expenses can lower them, where as charging as is wanted for tuiton means you can waste money all over the place.
Secondly, and this is clever I think, the college/university would contract out labor, namely its graduates. University's would compete with each other, which would drive down white-collar labor prices, and certain blue collar jobs as well. Business could hire straight from the university, so graduates wouldn't have any trouble finding work. The university takes a cut and it builds up. Price of labor drops means earnings drop, which means the price of everything else goes down as well to adjust.
Anyway...it's not fool-proof, but what is? I couldn't think of many arguments against the idea that weren't on some level "But the universities are supposed to preserve the hierarchy!". Ultimately, all good ideas are for being trampled on.