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Originally Posted by rubecube
This is the whole "well if the policy doesn't remove every barrier, then no point in implementing it even it removes some of the barriers" mentality, and I don't buy it.
Also, with regards to food and housing, this is straight from Bernie's platform:
You might also see regulations requiring universities to reserve a certain percentage of spots for low-income applicants (similar to affirmative action).
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These things are all done already. There are lots of need based scholarships and grants that cover living expenses. Universities take a quota of top students from all low performing districts that wouldn’t otherwise make the cut. The poor have it ok if they can overcome their odds and do reasonably well in school. It’s the lower middle class whose parents can’t really afford school but aren’t poor enough to get the full grants that end up saddled with debt.
It’s a complex problem. The biggest difference I see between the US and Canada is that there is a lot of pressure to go away to school. A lot of the big public schools are in small college towns and require room and board on top of tuition. The In state tuition isn’t drastically more expensive at Virginia tech or uva than U of C or U of A. Most kids in Calgary and Edmonton live at home the first year or two or all the way through and that makes a big difference. I always question whether kids all really are getting a better location at the bigger annex schools. There are often close to home options for lesser named universities and 2 year schools that might make more sense at least for the first couple years that provide five education but with a stigma.
Another anecdotal story here. I’m a mid level IT manager at a large pseudo government org that is generally considered a desirable place to work. Through some executive level horse trading I ended up with a fresh out of college employee who made it through an intern rotational program and got hired on. He’s a young, white guy that I don’t think grew up with much money at all and went to a historically black university that I don’t think anyone in my upper middle class suburb would ever think of sending their kid to and they definitely wouldn’t post on Facebook if they did. So far, he is one of my most impressive employees with all sorts of valuable technical skills and ideas.
There are a lot of opportunities out there for people who want to learn and make the most of whatever school they go to. There is a lot of room for improvement too but I just don’t see free tuition as that magic bullet and think it would cause more problems than it solves. And there are a lot of problems that have much more to do with parents caring about the status of where their kids go than what they are actually getting out of their education.