Students

[Provost Harrison]

You think you know everything, yet you do not know the secrets of multiquote.

I rest my case.

[giblets]

Why? What makes you think that directed government grants correct a misallocation of resources?

If engineers are more valuable than English majors (which they are, in general) then the market will pay the engineers more (which it does), and in proportion to the value they can provide to others. It's not like this is a secret either. For some reason, people still choose English as a major. Perhaps they value things other than money, perhaps they're too stupid to do engineering; who cares? Overamplifying the price signal is just as counterproductive as dampening it.

Maybe, but grants for high value degrees probably have a lower net cost than grants for less valuable degrees, so it seems like a better way to make college more accessible.

So we're going to introduce an equality-reducing distortion in order to counteract an equality-enhancing distortion?

How are grants for tertiary education equality reducing? They reduce the influence of parental income on someone's ability to go to college.

[Kuciwalker]

How are grants for tertiary education equality reducing? They reduce the influence of parental income on someone's ability to go to college.

You are giving money to a group of people who will be disproportionately wealthy in order to make them even more so. Duh?

[Al B. Sure!]

That's why the Pell Grant is given based upon financial need.

Also, to gribbler's engineer thing, there are already grants for 'needed' positions. Many public school districts, for example, will finance the education of future teachers who agree to work in the district for X number of years.

[KrazyHorse]

You think you know everything, yet you do not know the secrets of multiquote.

I rest my case.

Knowing how to do something and choosing to do it are not the same thing.

[KrazyHorse]

How are grants for tertiary education equality reducing? They reduce the influence of parental income on someone's ability to go to college.

Programs like subsidized education provide equality of "opportunity", based on innate talents. The distribution of talents is no less morally arbitrary than is the distribution of parental income. However, subsidized tertiary education increases the inequality of outcomes, which is the same space that taxation generally operates in.

[KrazyHorse]

Also, as I previously stated, the limiting factor is generally NOT that students' parents don't have enough money. Only marginal students will be deterred by such a factor, given the LARGE returns to education. Student loans are readily available for the liquidity-constrained.

Who the **** cares about graduating with 160k in debt if you have a ****ing BSc in compsci from Carnegie Mellon or a BEng from MIT? And I agree that, at least in part, repayments of such loans should be allowed with pretax money (to the extent that the education was an investment in human capital rather than simply a consumption good).

[KrazyHorse]

If talents generally seen as innate were somehow due to moral rectitude then I would be sanctimonious as well as arrogant.

[giblets]

Programs like subsidized education provide equality of "opportunity", based on innate talents. The distribution of talents is no less morally arbitrary than is the distribution of parental income. However, subsidized tertiary education increases the inequality of outcomes, which is the same space that taxation generally operates in.

It's not just talent, but also choosing to study hard. And if the money put into subsidizing tertiary education is regained from increased taxes, it doesn't leave anyone worse off.

[KrazyHorse]

That's why the Pell Grant is given based upon financial need.

You're a ****ing idiot, Albie.

My parents were in perhaps the 70th percentile of incomes, but other than graduating debt-free (which was mostly due to the magnanimity of the Quebec government) I was in no better a situation than somebody with poor-as-**** parents would have been. PARENTAL WEALTH DOES NOT GENERALLY FIGURE INTO THE WEALTH OF CHILDREN (at least not directly). The Pell Grants simply take the luckiest children of poor families (those born with some brains and some ambition) and elevate them relative to their unlucky peers.

Somebody graduating with a university degree stands to make 3+ million dollars through his life. Unless his parents were super-wealthy, HIS BIGGEST ASSET IS BY FAR HIS OWN HUMAN CAPITAL

[Kuciwalker]

That's why the Pell Grant is given based upon financial need.

Dufus, that doesn't have anything to do with it. The people who get Pell Grants and do something worthwhile with them are virtually guaranteed to be much better off financially than the rest of the population.

[KrazyHorse]

It's not just talent, but also choosing to study hard. And if the money put into subsidizing tertiary education is regained from increased taxes, it doesn't leave anyone worse off.

1) I think you overestimate the effect that "studying hard" in high school has on future education prospects (for all but those aiming at the most elite universities) relative to simply being born smart
2) "If" is a hell of a word here. REMEMBER: the only gains to the tax base are those who DO attend college due to grants and WOULDN'T have otherwise. Unlike albie, most college graduates actually make something of their degree, and the cost is generally well worth it for PRECISELY those people you seem to favor getting the highest grants (engineering, etc). Therefore, unless you postulate ridiculously high risk-aversion, none but the most marginal students in these subjects should be deterred by cost. What you DO get more of is people choosing to study low-value subjects who wouldn't have otherwise.

[giblets]

Actually, maybe I'm not taking a very good position. I think college education in the US is overpriced, but having the government pay for it isn't a very good solution.

[Kuciwalker]

Dude, how does the logic "it's overpriced, so the government should subsidize it" even work?

[giblets]

Dude, how does the logic "it's overpriced, so the government should subsidize it" even work?

Yeah, that's why I'm changing my opinion