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Originally Posted by DiracSpike
I'd take the opposite approach. Fund the actual useful degrees like Science and Engineering so more spots are available and the best and brightest are able to attend regardless of the cost.
If you want to take a frivolous degree you pay the full cost of that degree, that should separate out the people who are actually dedicated from the people who are there just to be there.
Student loans need to be restricted more, I believe its the number one factor causing tuition to rise well above inflation. We need to have an honest conversation about who should go to University and who it's not meant for. As someone who graduated a couple years ago I have almost a dozen friends who are still in school floating through meaningless classes. They went to University just because it was "the thing to do after high school". Cheap student debt allowed them to go and not take it seriously, and now they've wasted 7 years of their lives and tens of thousands of government dollars for nothing. Adding on to that, a lot of them went to University out of town for no reason and are now crying about how much debt they racked up. I'm sorry, but you had your fun studying nothing and partying it up, and now the bill is due. I imagine that a lot of the people bemoaning their student debt have similar circumstances.
Universities keep charging more and people keep paying it because cheap debt is plentiful, its what caused university to go from something my parents easily paid for in the 80's to something that is much less affordable now. I fail to see how relaxing debt terms or further subsidizing degress that will almost surely have extremely low post graduate employment rates helps that more.
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Alright, well first, who decides what's frivilous and what's not? And why does someone choosing something frivilous (let's say Film) preclude them from "wanting to be there"? I would argue that people largely end up doing things that our society deems as not-frivilous, purely because of the potential future monetary gains and not because it's something they actually like, excel at, or are interested in trying at all. Of course not everyone is meant for post-secondary, and I think the general idea that we HAVE to go to university is more of a detriment to the system than people taking frivilous degrees is.
My main point is that money should not be a motivator or inhibitor for someone attending post-secondary. You can't use the people who may leech off the system as the reason for not having a proper system in place. Healthcare and justice see plenty of people working the system, are those reasons not to have universal healthcare, or rights to an attorney? If you have a few people that got their english degrees because "it's the thing to do" and end up as a drain on the system, does it get offset by those who otherwise couldn't have afforded to go through engineering or med school but did and are bettering society for it?
The more money it costs to go to school, the less people will go into things that are low-paying, but crucial jobs. Social assistance, child development, non-profits, etc... We can't have everyone trying to get through engineering school just because it's the lucrative position of the day. We should want people to end up in positions that interest them, because that's where they will serve society best. People's personal feelings on the frivility of certain degrees is irrelevent. Your thoughts are predicated on the idea that, given the choice, a person would rather choose what is easy but boring, than what is difficult, but interesting. I don't necessarily think that's true.
I agree that the low-cost student debt is what has ended up with prices skyrocketing. If you take that part out of it (IE the need for students to pay their fees), the cost becomes more static and controllable. And yes, that cost would be to everyone through taxes, and that's where a lot of people will just come a full-stop "no", personally there aren't many things I'd rather spend taxes on.