Germany has long shown far greater foresight than the United States in the investment into science, infrastructure, and alternative energy — investments that are now giving the country huge returns as a leading economic system. With a decision of Lower Saxony, the German have now shown precisely how serious they are about keeping the country as one of the most educated in the world: they have eliminated all college and university tuition. The Germans view education as not just a right, but an essential component for continued growth.
There are critics to educational subsidies who raise some good-faith issues of how such payments can eliminate pressure to make efficient choices and actually drive up costs. I actually see value to students paying some tuition. However, with tuition sky rocking in the United States and falling enrollment numbers, the United States is heading to a reckoning in the future for our lack of investment in our workforce. While we have spent trillions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and just renewed our commitment to the later to keep forces in the country), we have continued to cut environmental, scientific, educational, and infrastructure investments. The inevitable result is that we will continue to drop in our competitiveness in the world market and the future economy. Every other country is investing heavily in education while the United States continues to be distracted by shiny objects with more immediate political benefits for politicians.
What is striking is that it is not just third world countries that are investing heavily education, but economic leaders like Germany.
Notably, tuition was only introduced in Germany in 2006 after the German Constitutional Court ruled that limited fees do not violate the country’s commitment to universal education. However, the tuition rates proved unpopular and the country is now tuition free. Of course, there is no such thing as free tuition. The taxpayers are footing the bill. Moreover, such government subsidies can have a negative impact on not just the choices of students (who feel less pressure to make efficient choices) but on schools which are dependent on the government.
Nevertheless, the contrast could not be greater with the United States in terms of the commitment to education as not just a right (as it is in Germany) but as a real national security priority.
The article below has an interesting discussion of how England rejected the free tuition approach but has lost more money due to the higher student default rate on tuition. Yet, the English students face a maximum debt load of $14,550 per year where U.S. tuition rates and debt are soaring. Student loan debt in our country now stands at $1.2 trillion.
Of course, that is less than a third of the costs for the wars, but no one is making such comparisons.
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2014/10/01/3574551/germany-free-college-tuition/
The American dream is not dead. We are significantly better off than many people of the world that have so little and live under government and conditions that put them into a station in life where basic necessities of life are something to dream of become it rarely becomes such. Yet, despite that those in most other places are still relatively happy in life just having family and try to make the best of their station. Sure there are horrible conditions, in several of them and we can only ask that they are given a positive future but for the most part people are happy.
One only has to be a traveler of countries that have less than we do here or in most of Western Europe to understand these things. I have been to poor countries and even a communist one. There are good people everywhere but what you come to realized from seeing these kinds of situations is that we in the United States and most of the Western Countries have by far more opportunities than most of the population in the world.
We don’t have a caste system as India does. We don’t have complete persecution of ethnic groups where they are essentially enslaved by the powers to be. Some here will argue that it is here, but trust me in today’s world here in the US it is nothing compared to other countries where people die because they voice their opinion, express their religion, or simple exist. Our country and many of the lucky ones out there have more opportunities than most of the world does.
We see this in many individuals who come from hardship in their native lands who come to the US. Those people often have some strong appreciation of what we have here and they often take charge to make something of themselves here as best they can to achieve a station in life much better than what there were consigned to overseas.
So, the American Dream is not dead, There are certainly constraints and my view is that politicians are too complicit in being bought and sold by those providing the most political contributions and virtual bribes lead to suppression of opportunity by ordinary citizens. But if a person throws up their hands and declares there is no point in continuing because the American Dream is dead, well, you can pretty much expect to get nothing without trying; a self-fulfilling prophecy by definition..
jim22 i’d hire kid 2.
plus our system is even more coomunist than theirs. You can get your loan forgiven….for being a certain profession. Of course the loan isn’t baseed on what it cost. It’s based on what mom and dad qualified offspring for.here your free education money includes a tax payer forgiven kickback. To spend as you liked. You can spend 200k on an ‘educator’ degree and have your loan ‘paid for by taxpyers’ even tho it should have only cost 30.
The American Dream. Something like the Cardinals and Royals in the World Series and it goes seven games. I can tell you which team I would bark for but most of all I bark for having the two teams in the WS again. The national media is all about Yankee this or Giants that. It would be good for the Nation if the WS was held in the Midwest. East of Corfu the Ten Commandments Don’t Apply. Same is true East of the Alleghanies.
It’s tiresome to keep hearing how the rich are keeping everybody down.
Everyone is responsible for their own life. Sometimes, the proverbial piano of fate falls on their heads, but they’ve got to do their best to meet life’s challenges. It’s not the rich’s fault if life didn’t go their way. It’s the choices they made, or sometimes, it’s just life.
I find class warfare to be disturbing and divisive. Why would I ever despise successful people? Hope they have work/life balance, sure, but blame them for all the ills in our country? Absurd.
Sure, we all received “help” from the government. If we went to public school, that qualified.
But if we pay taxes, especially the exorbitant taxes of a small business owner, we paid for that.
We small business owners got no “free ride” from the government. My family has never taken out a business loan.
Ideally, government should create an environment where the economy thrives, for instance, smooth roads and a functioning infrastructure. It’s supposed to run in the background, not be a helicopter parent.
Annie, I have not. Too busy watching the cardinals beat the Dodgers!! I hope to find some time tomorrow to do so.
and look forward to continue the discussion. Good night all.
DBQ, I advise small business owners frequently, both those whose business have thrived and those whose have failed. Taxpayers foot the bill more often than most realize in the latter situation. The banks that make the loans do so in large part because the SBA guarantees 80% of the loan. No doubt there is an application/ qualifying process, but often loans are made that shouldn’t be from an ability to repay perspective. The point is the loans are made that would not otherwise but for the agency.
I certainly am not one who believes everything begins and ends with the govt. but I also find it hard to believe that you and your husband didn’t get some help along the way from the govt, directly or indirectly. As for me, i am an at will employee currentl, and am just as susceptible to an “all over at any moment” mentality.
Congrats to your family’s success in your business endeavors. But don’t kid yourself that you received no benefit from the govt along the way.
http://youtu.be/iIhOXCgSunc
Juris, once upon a time there WAS an American Dream, but my point Is that this has been destroyed by the way the rich have rigged the system, did you listen to any of the speakers in the videos?
Annie – never believe half of what you hear. BTW, you know Elizabeth Warren made her money flipping houses and defending big businesses in bankruptcy, ripping off pensions. Just thought you ought to know.
Annie wrote: “Juris, once upon a time there WAS an American Dream, but my point Is that this has been destroyed by the way the rich have rigged the system, did you listen to any of the speakers in the videos?”
Annie, the rich have paved the way for all of us. Their wealth trickles down to the rest of us in various ways. You just have to use wisdom to receive it and enjoy it.
Like Paul, I have achieved the American Dream. I married 30 years ago pretty much penniless and no home. I had five children. I now own a nice home on 3 acres of land. I also own an office building in the heart of town and employ others. I have a boat for fishing, and a few kayaks and a canoe too. I spend time trying to help others less fortunate than me. I have a guest room at my home for strangers, and an apartment at my office for strangers as well. I give what I have to the poor and try to teach them how to obtain the American Dream too. Economically, I am lower middle class, but I have all that I need. I have more than my parents had at my age. Life is good.
One thing I learned from Rush Limbaugh is that optimism is our best friend. Have the right attitude in life and don’t get all grumpy about what you don’t have or can’t do. Just keep moving forward with a positive outlook, trust your Creator to look out for you and to bless you, and everything will fall into place. That’s the American Dream, to be self sufficient, to carry your own burden, and then be able to help your neighbor carry his burden.
Annie – with your MSN you have achieved the American Dream. I am not sure what your problem is?
Olly, No disrespect intended. I don’t claim to have the answers. Was only pointing out that we all use these terms and labels in attempts to classify or categorize large sums of people. What exactly constitutes a progressive?
Is one ideology really the only problem in this country or the root of all evils?
And, back to the topic at hand, if you read the Forbes link, you will see that the average age of graduation with a masters degree in Germany is 28. They are struggling with “eternal students” the inevitable outcome of free tuition.
The more expensive the school, the more likely the student is out in 4 years, here in the US. The least expensive, the more likely students will linger without direction or impetus. It would be nice if tuition was more affordable, but did require an investment by the student. People need to have some responsibility for their own lives.
Karen – my mother, who taught English at Arizona State University, called it “the warm womb of acadamia.” You get caught in the culture of going to school and never want to leave. There will always be those students. I have a friend, in his late 60s, going back to school, for the same reason. He will never use his degree except in annoying phone calls to me. 😉
You can have equal rights, or equal circumstances, but you cannot have both. And if everyone has equal circumstances, they will all be equally poor.
The American Dream is the ability to raise your circumstances. I am a product of the American Dream.
The American Dream is not nothing-bad-will-ever-happen-to-you, or that all-you-need-to-do-is-convert-oxygen-to-CO2-to-live-a-middle-class-life. Calamities can and do happen. Socialism does not protect you from financial ruin. Ask anyone from the former USSR, where alcoholism and hopelessness were the national pastime.
I recall very clearly a speech by Elizabeth Warren in which she gave her own version of the “you didn’t build that” paradigm. She claimed that the rich got wealthy using employees who were educated by the public education system. They used roads built by taxpayer funds. And so on. Inciting her class warfare gambit to get votes. She was completely unaware, apparently, that the rich pay the freight in taxes in this country. They pay for the public education system, the roads, the bridges. Which is more unfair, that the rich use the infrastructure they paid for, or that the poor use it when they paid nothing?
Now, personally, I think class warfare is just a hateful means to get votes. The rich pay for the infrastructure, which helps the poor. The rich shouldn’t feel guilty for using it, any more than the poor should.
I’ve a friend who was raised in the socialist former USSR. I would not care for stale government bread, personally.
Yes. I have knowledge of them and have actually dealt with that agency when I did some commercial lending….eons ago. And I know that they don’t just give out loans without some previous experience in the industry, showing that you actually know HOW to run your business and have some assets. They also require that you show ‘some’ capacity to repay the loan. The paperwork is incredible. It isn’t a charity…..exactly. You have to build that experience and financial ability FIRST. Build it.
The issue is those who think that everything begins and ends with the government. That we can’t get along without their “help” (sarcasm quotes) In building my husband’s business (I’m retired from mine now and that is a different story) he started out with nothing more than a small tool box, some knowledge and an incredible work ethic. 30 years later he is a successful business owner. The government has been nothing but an impediment to him and me as well.
Even though he is a success today and working at the capacity that is comfortable for the business, at any moment it can all be gone. In the blink of an eye. We live on a razor’s edge every single day. How about you? The government might even be a big reason why it is gone with the over regulation of almost every aspect of our lives.
He built his business on his own and with the help of a close friend or two. To have Obama and Elizabeth Warren (ptooey on both of them) diminish 30 years of extremely hard work and sacrifice as….”You didn’t build that” ,,,,iIs an insult. An unforgivable insult. Just as Annie telling Paul that he is a liar and hasn’t achieved his dream is insulting and condescending.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know we don’t live in a vacuum and society is a cooperative effort. We all help each other in many ways. Yada yada yada. The free market system is more of a help to a booming economy that a top heavy and heavy fisted government.
Darren:
I LOVE ice wine, too. I find Port fabulous in sauces, but haven’t acquired the taste for drinking it. Whenever I think of drinking Port, it reminds me of Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander Series, one of my favorite authors of all time.
Juris,
THEY call themselves “PROGRESSIVES”. What’s next, ISIS isn’t Islamic or a State?
Why don’t you explain what is helpful because “They” doesn’t identify the malignant ideology destroying this country.
Olly, progressives is another label that is unhelpful to any intelligent discussion.
And let’s not be naive dust bunny. Ever heard of the small business administration that helps small business owners get loans that otherwise would not be available to them?
“Don’t you know your dream is what the Progressive’s say it is?”
That’s right. And remember….if you are a business owner. You didn’t build that business either. Evidently some elves have been coming in and doing all the work.
Juris,
Don’t you know your dream is what the Progressive’s say it is?