Free College in New York
It's possible that students who attend New York's public colleges will soon be able to attend free of cost.
Yesterday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) said he wants to make New York’s public colleges totally free. Under Cuomo’s plan, students or students from families that make $125,000 or less a year would pay nothing to attend any two or four-year public college in NY state.
Of course, supporters of Bernie Sanders and free college education are probably totally on board with this because it will potentially level the playing field. However, the downside is that taxpayers will have to bear this burden. Do you guys think that free college education is possible? Will the effect on taxes really be that big? As a college student, I could only dream of no debt but how does this impact others?
"Do you guys think that freecollege education is possible?" "As a college student, I could only dream of no debt"
it's not free, you pay for it later in life through higher taxes. It's a subsidy, so let's refer to it as such. Technically you do not have "debt," but again, you will end up paying for it later in life, kind of like debt.
The people who get screwed on this deal are those who decide NOT to attend university, but end up paying for something they never used through higher taxes. I was listening to NPR this morning, and they mentioned tuition has increased ~85% over the past decade; meanwhile, wage inflation (per BLS) has been ~24% over that same period. We are paying more and receiving less, but I guess doubling down on broken policy is not exactly an anomaly.
edit: I am a big proponent of personal responsibility. The US provides public education K-12. I guess the real question is: at what point is it time for young adults to take responsibility for their decisions?
That's a good point; it goes back to the whole principle of "there's no such thing as free lunch."
I agree with everything you say, but I'll take it a step further.... the people who get screwed are everyone who pays taxes in NY. I am 100% convinced that giving your money to the government to return a good or service will result in more waste than if you managed it yourself.
This actually scares me more for the cost of college. I'm convinvced that colleges are going to have to start reducing costs and lower tuitions at some point to stay competitive. But, if it's tax dollars being paid instead of families taking out loans that pricing pressure won't exist.
Congrats all you wealthy IB analysts slaving away, you're now paying for Johny's 1 semester of partying before he gets kicked out and Suzy's 4 year art degree!
This takes all responsibility away from individuals and colleges and shifts it to the taxpayer.
Not really. Yes, pricing pressure won't exist for the SUNY system, but it will increase for every other college that competes with them because everyone will essentially have already paid for SUNY.
Good point, but one issue is that a basic (ie. average public) college degree these days holds about the same weight as a high school diploma when the US began providing K-12 education in the first place (I think Cuomo mentioned this during the announcement). So feasibly, I suppose you could counter this by either changing the labor market demands, which won't happen, or beef up the quality of the public school system, which we should probably think about doing anyways.
How is a high school diploma the same as a college degree? I'd have to disagree with this.
The should turn these college's into trade schools. I would support free, trade schools. We need more skilled workers and less "academics."
You are exactly correct, there is a HUGE skills gap that exists today with what people consider blue collar jobs. There is a small machine company based out of Peirioa, IL called Caterpillar, have you heard of it? They are having trouble filling entry level jobs to repair and maintenance of these machines. Sure the starting salary is 40k but with 5 years experience this becomes a 100k job. Their Las Vegas dealership is currently looking to fill 20 spots and they can't. Take that number as you will but there are currently 2,000,000 jobs that are unfilled because of a lack of blue collar skills.
A 40k starting salary is pretty good in Las Vegas.
People with college degrees from a large state schools would be lucky to make that their first year in a town like Vegas. I know of plenty of people that spent over $100k to get a comm degree and end up with a starting job in the low to mid 30s.
"The should turn these college's into trade schools. I would support free, trade schools. We need more skilled workers and less "academics.""
I would entertain this argument .. who is the booger eater throwing monkey shit around this thread?
EVERYTHING MUST BE FREE- bernie
If this became true and only happened in NY I'd seriously consider moving there for my kids to go to HS (assuming that would be a requirement) and then free college. Then, I'd likely move back to Chicago. I'll take Bernie's free handount
Edit: Just noticed the income limitation. Well, others could do this.
Move to Texas, Virginia or North Carolina. Way better schools at cheap in state rates. SUNY schools are cheap, but I still wouldn't go if they were free.
Unless you go to Sty,Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science(free) or Regis and Hunter then you are looking at between $15,000 and $45,000 a year for a private/catholic high school.
It has an income limit and NY state schools are cheap as it is. Como is positioning for presidential run and obviously sucking Bernie dick.
It's because the amount of debt a suny grad assumes to go to school is low and easily repaid. Upstate has dirt cheap COL as well.
Tax wise, it will mean more taxes which will piss the upstate ppl off and make NYC further impossible to live in. It's already disgusting that ppl in upstate need to pay 8% progressive tax.
Nothing is free and it's sad that we keep parroting this free college shit. It infects these ppls brains and they fail to see the cost is simply bourne by others.
yeah sure - it will be free like healthcare in Canada is free. "No such thing as a free lunch!"
This is why I support federalism. Let New York state experiment with something that will obviously fail. More power to 'em. If you make something free you will obliterate the supply/demand curve, causing scarcity, which will force the schools to expand, which will cost the state money.
Didn't Cooper Union, which was historically tuition free, just start charging tuition to cover rising costs? The reality is, without some form of structural reform, rising costs will force higher and higher taxes or will eventually require tuition again.
I'm okay with them offering "free" trade schooling-- a mechanic in my town clears $1MM. He started on his own at 18 and started his own business and now has 20 trucks going for him.
The kids in NY are just going to get a BS degree in "Gender Studies" or "History of the Lowlands" and end up right where they started but the taxpayers are still going to cover this. If they do go through with this (I pray to God that they don't), it should only be for business, medical, engineering, etc. degrees that actually advance society.
The media and academics promote that if you're interested, you can have to do a degree in it! Which if you are interested in something watch a 15 minute youtube video if you want do some more research, but don't let the taxpayer pick up your interests cost (in Australia at least)
Interesting to note: New York state's FY 2017 budget is $155 billion. Cuomo's office estimates that the net cost of covering tuition costs is a mere $163 million per year. A Democrat assemblywoman, with some doubt, asked why they weren't already covering tuition costs if it was so inexpensive.
This reminds me of high speed rail--initial estimates will be off by an order of magnitude and costs will rise twice as fast as projections. It would be like the Democrats to take on as a permanent liability to taxpayers a cost (tuition) that is outpacing inflation by multiple times.
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