Obama proposes free community college for first 2 years..........

[iris lilies]

One facet of government paying for school - I remember getting Pell grants when I went to a 2 year school (all I could afford and my parent did not have a lot). I also remember getting a much better paying job afterwards. It didn't take long for the extra taxes I was paying into the system to offset what I had gotten in grants. In that respect it was not a bad investment for the government.

That economic equation only works if there is an assumption that untrained/uneducated candidates can't be found for open positions. And back in those days, it may be true. If you had not been ready for the job, was someone else ready for it? The job existed to pay someone who would pay income taxes. Back when I started my professional career, national unemployment was 10%. Had I not taken that first job, someone else would have taken it, it would not have gone unfilled.

It is very difficult for me to reconcile these seemingly conflicting concepts:

1) Today, there is a serious lack of good paying, professional jobs any more
2) Today we need to push more people into white collar job tracks, traditionally performed through college education, by making it free

If it is true that Jr. college (aka community college) is replacing the education that high school once did, we are no further ahead. We have only stretched Nanny Government to cover more years of schooling, not "better" or "higher" ed. I have been hiring for 25+ years in an urban environment, and I can assure you that people come out of community college unable to write standard English at what was once a medium Jr. High level of a competence. I won't address their reading comprehension because I really don't expect them, at minimum levels of employment, to read and comprehend much on their own.

There is national outcry about out society's need for STEM graduates, but that's not what the President's program is about.

[Miss Cellane]

Children should definitely not go hungry. I am just wondering if this allows some of the slacker parents to slack even more. DH told me that they recently started sending home food for the weekends for these children.

We just seem to be throwing bandaid upon bandaid on situations that should be dealt with in a different way. Seems like we're not even trying to deal with anything but bandaids any more.

(

You know, it probably does allow the slacker parents to be even bigger slacker parents.

But at what point do you remove children from their homes? Force sterilization on people who won't be good parents? How do you even determine that?

There are slacker parents and there are parents who are trying really hard--the children of both types shouldn't have to suffer.

What other ways would you suggest to get food into these kids?

[iris lilies]

You know, it probably does allow the slacker parents to be even bigger slacker parents.

But at what point do you remove children from their homes? Force sterilization on people who won't be good parents? How do you even determine that?

There are slacker parents and there are parents who are trying really hard--the children of both types shouldn't have to suffer.

What other ways would you suggest to get food into these kids?

Feeding stations. Just set up feeding stations run by the gubment and forget it. 3 squares a day, just show up and present your FeedStation card, children, mom, dad. The end.

The end to thousands of gubmnet bureaucrats who administer SNAP, WIC, EBT, etc benefits. Move them into The Feeding Stations Department.

It's annoying for me as a taxpayer to feed the children BOTH at school AND AT HOME. Yes, I know there are irresponsible parents who can't manage to do it. So why are we paying the parents to do it?

[ApatheticNoMore]

It is very difficult for me to reconcile these seemingly conflicting concepts:

1) Today, there is a serious lack of good paying, professional jobs any more
2) Today we need to push more people into white collar job tracks, traditionally performed through college education, by making it free

If it is true that Jr. college (aka community college) is replacing the education that high school once did, we are no further ahead.

even if it provides a better education, let's say it really is better than high school used to be, we are not further ahead economically if the jobs that exist out there are the same one's that always did (I make no comment on the value of an educated citizen. One argument at a time! I'm talking economics). Instead of a HS diploma being the absolute minimum now a more advanced degree is.

The concept is basically the "tragedy of the commons" or alternately has been described as the fallacy of composition (what is true for the part is true for the whole).

It may be individually rational for an individual to get more education to improve their economic position, but if everyone did so everyone would be no further ahead. Now there are possible flaws with that as an absolute model, but what about foreign competition, maybe the competition isn't just local, won't it slightly improve us against that (perhaps but I'm not sure foreign competition isn't more a race to the bottom than about education). But but if everyone has more education won't a few rare people use it to produce things that are beneficial for everyone thereby raising the standard of living? Perhaps, then again they could just invent more robots to put everyone out of a job! But the argument can't get to nuanced until one agrees that just because more education for an individual means more pay does not necessarily mean that if everyone had it everyone would get more pay.

I don't really see Europe as always being a model. There are a lot of very educated unemployed people there. There are educated unemployed people here too. However I bet in Europe they are even MORE educated! Sigh ... I do get a sense that that is true though.

[quote]There is national outcry about out society's need for STEM graduates]/quote]

even this is maybe mostly nonsense. "Society's need for STEM graduates" may just = employers need for cheap labor. If there was enough people in a field but you wanted to pay them less and were an industry lobbyist wouldn't you say there wasn't? Some say this is what is actually going on with STEM.

Higher education has almost become a "right", but what about the "rights" of everyone who has to pay for it. We paid for our higher educations, and the same opportunity to do so is there for everyone who is willing to work for it.

Actually higher education in CA was subsidized then quite a bit and is now by the state (it was once free by the way, became not so in the 80s). And people benefited from it then and pay taxes for it now and so the virtuous circle turns - pay it back if you can't pay it forward. But that is different than seeing education as solving problems it will not solve. And I deeply distrust what Obama is up to. The mistake would be to see him as a liberal. He is not.

[Alan]

And I deeply distrust what Obama is up to. The mistake would be to see him as a liberal. He is not.

The fact that many progressives and socialists consider themselves liberal shows how little understanding they actually have. There's nothing liberal about today's mainstream left.

[JaneV2.0]

even if it provides a better education, let's say it really is better than high school used to be, we are not further ahead economically if the jobs that exist out there are the same one's that always did (I make no comment on the value of an educated citizen. One argument at a time! I'm talking economics). Instead of a HS diploma being the absolute minimum now a more advanced degree is. ...

I don't really see Europe as always being a model. There are a lot of very educated unemployed people there. There are educated unemployed people here too. However I bet in Europe they are even MORE educated! Sigh ... I do get a sense that that is true though. ...

Well, education isn't just about employment. Those in power might not find an educated electorate desirable, but I, for one, would prefer to live in a country where people are literate and well-informed.

[ApatheticNoMore]

What is Obama really up to with all this? He can't possibly pass these things by executive order or just through executive departments can he? I'm not even talking about what is constitutional as this country is post-constitutional. But I mean what is the precedence for passing these things by executive order?

And if not then he has to work with the Republicans right? How? Now it's possible this is a proposal that can't be passed and is just a suggestion that noone even expects to be passed but it makes Obama look good giving a speech ("it wasn't my fault, the evil republicans, look what you made me do ... " etc.). It doesn't help Obama that he is proposing this when the congressional odds have never been worse for him in his term prior to now. It is also possible that congressional Republicans are all for this without concessions. I regard that latter as extremely unlikely, the current crop of legislators is bought and sold period and will not do anything unless they get concession for their donors. Now it is also possible the Republicans could be for it with concessions but the concessions could make it a really really bad deal. What might the concession be? I don't know. Keystone XL? Cutting Social Security? Fasttrack for the TPP?

Let's dwell on that last point, the TPP. So there are the trade agreements the TPP and the TPIP, the strongest objections to them are based on them being 1) entirely negotiated in secret (that's true) and 2) them being a coup against democracy as they will have a global corporate appeal body that will be able to economically punish democratically passed laws. If they don't like laws on poison in the river because it interferes with profits they could sue the city that passed them etc.. Those are the good objections, please research the TPP and the TPIP if you haven't. But to circle back to the point there are also economic objections to those laws. Fear that more trade agreements will outsource more good jobs and leave us just with more and more low paying service level jobs. That certainly seems to be what has happened. If so these trade agreements will mean less good jobs while meanwhile people will be fooled by the tragedy of the commons and an assumption that the external job environment remains stable (when in fact it could get worse if more and more jobs are outsourced) into getting more and more education for less and less jobs! This seems to me a very bad situation. Obama giveth (free 2 years of college) and Obama taketh away (trade agreements unless we are sure there won't be irreplaceable loss of good jobs - they are still bad for other reasons mentioned, but here I am just speaking about the mess young people could find themselves in).

[jp1]

The fact that many progressives and socialists consider themselves liberal shows how little understanding they actually have. There's nothing liberal about today's mainstream left.

Nor is Obama a progressive or socialist.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well, education isn't just about employment. Those in power might not find an educated electorate desirable, but I, for one, would prefer to live in a country where people are literate and well-informed.

I'm skeptical whether more years of formal education on average will produce this, however it's possible it could (running a social experiment at that point I guess). I guess it depends on to what extent education is seen as valuable for it's own sake, and to what extent it is seen as worthless but absolutely necessarily economically to get an education (so cheat your way through if you have to. Or if you are more ethical than that, but still don't care: memorize and forget, memorize and forget your way though.).

I guess there's an assumption that it's ok to blackmail everyone to get an education if necessary (by having it be the only way to survive economically so that's it's a choiceless choice). Don't know how cool I am with that no matter how beneficial an educated citizenry is (and also because I doubt education if viewed so cynically has much effect anyway).

[JaneV2.0]

I'm skeptical whether more years of formal education on average will produce this, however it's possible it could (running a social experiment at that point I guess). I guess it depends on to what extent education is seen as valuable for it's own sake, and to what extent it is seen as worthless but absolutely necessarily economically to get an education (so cheat your way through if you have to. Or if you are more ethical than that, but still don't care: memorize and forget, memorize and forget your way though.).

I guess there's an assumption that it's ok to blackmail everyone to get an education if necessary (by having it be the only way to survive economically so that's it's a choiceless choice). Don't know how cool I am with that no matter how beneficial an educated citizenry is (and also because I doubt education if viewed so cynically has much effect anyway).

Cynical, indeed--but your point is valid. Maybe we're post-cerebral as well as post-constitutional...