Your opinion on reservations (Affirmative Action) in this case

[Arrian]

Hey, look at that... it's nearly 5pm. It's Friday.

It's been fun and all, aneeshm, but it's time for me to head on home!

-Arrian

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by aneeshm


"Staying out of the way" in this context means that instead of demanding that all college admissions be through the government procedure, and that to be eligible for that procedure, you have to go through a government-approved school program, you simply let the colleges decide their own admission criterion, let them decide their own syllabus, and let them conduct their own tests. And let schools teach what they want, barring, of course, child abuse.

Basically, stop throttling the artificial bottlenecks you created in the first place!

That way, each community can make the trade-off optimal to them.

Even strong-free-market economists agree that there are some things the market does not provide for. Education is generally considered to be one of them. It is because of two things in the modern day:

1. While it is certainly to the benefit of me to have educated folks other than my own children, in general I would prefer to pay for my own children to be better educated than other peoples'. Thus there will be increasing barriers between 'educated'/rich and 'uneducated'/poor in a market-supplied education environment.

2. Social groups who are undereducated/uneducated often have less focus on attaining education - either because it is seen as impossible to move up due to poor schools etc., or because being 'educated' is seen as being 'snobby' etc., and the belief in being able to be successful without education is greater. The market will not correct this in general. Therefore, there is a need for governmental (or quasi-governmental) intervetion to correct this (hence, mandatory education, education-promoting advertising, etc.) This is particularly harmful in rural farming areas (where the labor of the child is valuable).

If the government is unable to handle this, certainly quasi-governmental entities such as major charities can and should - but unfortunately in general the fact that they are unable to require the assistance of others means that they will never be fully successful, particularly in #2, and further will have the effect of #1 (increasing overall education, but not increasing to the level of the first class citizens), because the charity (as you have already yourself noted) will be focused on bringing up the very bottom but not on the bottom-middle folks (that are very important as well), and will peter out when the entire bottom strata gets up some but not that far.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by aneeshm

When you wanted a landline phone connection, you ordered it when you started constructing the house. If you were lucky, by the time it was done, you would have telephone access. Today, the guy comes and sets it up either that day itself of the next day. And you have a choice.

This was true in the US, also, UNDER the free market. It wasn't until the governments stepped in and said 'you must provide service within X time' that it happened...

It sounds like the problem is not that the goverment is regulating, but that a BAD government is doing the regulating. You know you can change things like that, right? Vote in regulations for the government? That's the point of democracy...

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by LordShiva


True.

Instead of focusing on trying to equalise higher education opportunities, teh government should focus, in a huge, almost raison d'etre kind of way, on primary education in rural areas.

Certainly this is not a bad idea - but focussing on lower education and not on higher leads to a 'glass ceiling' where underprivileged folks cannot go up beyond a certain point because of lack of higher education. It might well fix that problem as well - but you had better be sure that it actually works that well...