ok sway, i've skimmed through this to see enough

yes there are in america a lot of wankers who waste their parent's money in college. yes there are.

and that is exactly the problem-- when higher education is only accessible to the privileged, you end up shutting out the willing and able whose parents do not have the means to send them away elsewhere.

i'm married to someone who got her whole education "free"-- and she's doing great. same case with her brothers. they grew up with very little, but were smart enough to take advantage of the opportunities offered to them (given that they are a "minority" that was mostly exterminated, they are getting some sort of payback for all those dead ancestors).

Higher education should be free of course-- free to those who qualify and have the talent to make good use of it in spite of their economic means. It's best for a country to develop their own resources to their full potential, and to waste good brains because the parents didn't have money is fucking stupid.

I don't know the case of Europe, but in the US we could use sliding scales because even state universities are fucking expensive.

I don't know exactly where you're coming from, but sounds to me like you're suffering from a case of sour grapes.

but that's kind of the thing.
no employer wants to test your ability or how good you are at anything to that extent, most people don't study because they want to study, they do because they want a better chance to make a half-decent living.
which is what drives all these people who are only interested in "partying" to university in the first place.

Laboratories, the army, the industry..
Places where people get paid.

not always

Agreed.
Especially the quotation marks around partying.

dude, are you serious? You really keep revealing your not-so-"working class" background here, only spoiled kids live like that. Most kids have to take care of their little siblings, clean up the house when their parents are at work, get all they school shit done, and even go to work to make some money! Fun is only an option a fraction of the time.. get over yourself, but I think !@#$% already explained all your rantings here


I do believe this is the evidence ;)

This is not to disrespect your life, I have maximum raspect for you brother, but don't be like most americans and let your own sour grapes distort your perspective about the rest of the people, as its been explained to you, these are dangerous generalizations.

and the way you been harrasing me lately about honesty makes me wonder what key yours are in?



Have you seen American debt and budget crises lately? The CBO just presented a new austere budget that would make Ireland or Greece or UK new austerity measures look rather tame! US is equally if not MORE so insolvent, but at the least in Europe folks are getting an education out of it! Here in the US, the only ones making money are banks and credit card companies, the people are as in debt and broke as the government..




its not about knowledge, that is free, as is the wisdom of experience. However, with higher education, as !@#$%! and others already pointed out, if we DONT have affordable education, than only those ungrateful, unrealistic, rich-kid assholes get all the privileges, all the jobs, all the resouces, all the clout, all the voice, all the feria, and what to we get? Jack and Shit, and jack just split town..

Higher education is not just status, it is opportunity. We should not have go get into debt which benefits the crooked banks and greedy creditors in order to be able to compete with those rich kids who are the very children of these bankers and creditors! Fuck that shit! I paid cash all ones for my degree, and I consider having pirated to get my feria to pay for school the ultimate protest against privilege, status and americana bullshit! I love the sheer irony of it now that I can mock the establishment, and get a degree instead of a parole certificate with the exact same investment and effort!
I-KO I-KO un-day
Jack-a-mo fee-no ai na-ne ("fuck the big boss if he don't like it" Bill Kreutzmann)
Jack-a-mo fee-na-ne

To lose your job and find it difficult to get another one? Would that be enough to make you understand that the same background which taught you to go out and work for what you want would meet the biggest obstacle of them all, the refusal of the very currency the working classes never run out of, their manual labour?

amen amen. you know I always found work, even if it was hard back braking undocumented manual labor in the docks and warehouses..

but lately, its been hard hard times. Money is truly scarce, and its not for a lack of effort or trying! and many many people in town and the country are feeling this, not just me.

it shifts our priorities and our definition of success, of independence, of earning your keep, of contributing.

now, since even very successful, legit, CEO type people can't find jobs for years even, we must reevaluate our criteria for success. It used to be to say that a person was self-suffecient, that a person contributed financially to the needs of their family, friends and communities. That a person went out to the 9to5 every day..

but today, that is a fleeting goal, hard to obtain. Upwards of HALF of all americans are either out of work, or under employed!! That means money is no longer the only successful thing we can contribute to our households and our communities. Now success is this

1) How much time are you investing in your families' spiritual, psychological and emotional well-being and health?
2) How much of our newly found free time are we spending having good conversations, sharing love, building community rather than just gripping or getting depressed.

I wouldn't need that to understand, but maybe to relate...sure, assuming I haven't already experienced similar situations in the past.

And still, not a soul has bothered answering my question of "free University"...

Who the fuck is going to be paying for the teachers and supplies if students are not expected to....????

The only problem I have with the last part of your post is that the jobless are more likely to end up depressed because their struggle to survive coupled with the constant search for employment will make them feel alienated, with everything that involves.

What about in that episode of Seinfeld where George is fired from the Yankees and declares his 3 months of unemployment the SUMMER OF GEORGE?

The government.
It can create/print money, and no one else can.

Or it can borrow to banks, and does not have to pay back. (I've read the us gvt has a $10000 billions debt)

The taxes paid to the state by the students' parents, as well as those paid by people who haven't go kids but might decide to use the benefits of free education for themselves, the kids they might produce in the future, members of their own family, or even some of their own friends.

On a tv series a character knows that they'll be unemployed for 3 months already.

Oh I see, by me. Fair enough....that said, lets say suchfriends is right and most people will attend college. That's going to be a lot of fucking tax dollars. Maybe that's why this isn't really working in the rest of the world. Schools free, but the country is still running for broke.

Oh god, everything is so fucked up. Really, it is.

You wouldn't need to relate, you'd be FORCED to relate.

Same difference, I will not dispute that...

That's beside the point though. I don't think any country will ever allow everyone to have free education as such because, even if you look at the more positive examples in some of the countries mentioned on this thread, the tax system there is designed in such a way to make it profitable in other areas to allow for the affordable education. The point is that education is a fundamental human right, not something you should have to fight for if you don't come from a privileged background.

don't you think that, if the government paid for (most of) the students, the fees would drop a whole lot? as i posted before, scholarships are very common here and our education system is a LOT cheaper. we get loads of foreign students here because they get great value for the price.