All college should be free. Id rather my tax dollars go to college students than billionaires and Israel.
This is an actual investment in America, not just the economy, but I don't want to see Baby Boomer Part Deux when I'm eventually trying to retire.
I want the generations coming after to understand basic simple things.
I agree that college (or at least public schools) should be free, but is there a way to do that on the federal level when they're always state schools? And, of course, good luck getting Republican legislatures to agree to that. Keeping the poor ignorant and only allow them a way out if they sign up for the military sort of seems like their sort of thing.
We already fund a significant portion of schools federally, even if the majority of funding is local. An argument can be made that education can be considered interstate commerce since people can move at any time and take their education with them.
That said, when I took my first semester at a state university in the 90s it was able to be paid with a summer job working minimum wage while my parents paid for the dorm. Four years prior I could have paid for the dorm and the entire year with the same summer job, but university costs had doubled in four years because the state funding was cut and they shifted the costs onto the students. It has only gotten worse since.
Yeah, i started college in '99. After only 2 years at the school tuition increased 125%. And yes, it keeps getting worse.
Maybe this will shed some light on what a billion dollars can really do. I know this is a small school, but to be able to say "in perpetuity" is a big deal and means there could be a scalable plan to work on a federal (or state if we could get the red states to cooperate) level.
It needs to be emphasized that this article is about a medical school, where a strong majority of graduates will become millionaires.
I'm all for increasing education funding, and medical school tuition is a real barrier for under-represented populations, but if you're trying to divert limited funds into helping the most people, medical school is targeting the people who need help the least. Making undergrad at public schools tuition-free would do a lot more.
I'm not gonna tell a random widow how to spend her money, but if we're talking finite tax dollars and public policy, that's a very different question.
I'm sure there are many that go to med school because they want to help under-served communities but end up needing to chase $ to pay off student debt.
Completely agree!
It's nice to see it being used like this and not just slapping someone's name on a new stadium or conference center or whatever.
Applications about to skyrocket
Who decides what where money should be spent? Great that it benefits this school, but perhaps it could have been spread among multiple schools.
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