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/
Nick, I am a fan of the show, so I know that part.
Could someone criticize anything without being attacked in turn? No one here is harder worker than I am. And no one here has come from lower means than me.
I am an immigrant, who came to the US speaking no English. Took menial jobs that took me to less menial ones, went to college, graduated, married, started businesses. Worked my ass off and am still working it off.
I do understand however that nothing is guaranteed to me. I am not blaming anyone, I am rejecting the idea that the American dream still exists and is well. it doesn’t. Whatever success my wife and I have achieved is not guaranteed, not because of our own actions, for we do make smart choices, but because the system is unfair enough and unstable enough that it cannot guarantee us anything.
If the banking system brought the country on its knees, and a great number of people lost their investments, their savings, their homes, their jobs, their lives, what dream is that?
Can any of you guarantee me that now that you have achieved the dream, that you will keep living it? IF not, why?
Once again, complaining about the rigged game does not preclude working hard and trying to improve one’s conditions. If one is not a mafiosi, and one is hard worker and goes the straight way, should one keep the blinders on and be happy with the status quo, whatever it is?
“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.”
Thank you Juris. However……
I cannot think of ONE way in which the government has been helpful in my husband’s business. Not.. one… single… way. Other than perhaps maintaining the roads so we can get supplies. But then they would do that for everyone, wouldn’t they. 🙂
I understand banking and finance quite well. For approx 10 years I was a lender and commercial lender at a regional bank dealing mostly in small business loans and agricultural loans. In the early 1990’s the bank decided that they would set up a separate arm of the institution to do investments and insurance…thanks to the relaxing of Glass Steagal (which personally I think was a very very bad thing and a big part of the financial melt down. Clinton abolished it entirely about 2000). Since I was already hip deep in customers finances, I should move into that area. So I became licensed and covered many branches in my territory.
A few years later determining that the bank was mostly interested in churning and selling annuities instead of investing or planning for my clients…. I became an independent advisor with a nationally known firm and obtained the licenses that allowed me to do to financial planning as well as investment counseling and some other advanced securities licenses for portfolio analysis. For almost 20 years. I managed portfolios for my clients in California, Nevada and Oregon and dealt with financial planning: networking with attorneys, CPAs and other independent advisors. I managed many portfolios that were individually in the millions of dollars. I am retired now for the past few years…. and do miss my customers if not the business itself :-). I have been able to use my skills to avoid the government pitfalls that beset and strangle most small business.
The government Federal, State or County. There has not been one instance that I can think of where they were of any help. In fact the amount of money I pay in FEES every year just to exist as a corporation really grinds my gears. Taxes to the Feds. Taxes to the State. Taxes to the County. Ridiculous paper work to fill out. Money for nothing as far as I can see.
NO WHERE is there a guarantee. The only guarantee is the opportunity to succeed. That is a ludicrous statement. There are NO GUARUNTEES in life. There is NO GUARUNTEE TO LIFE. You can keel over today. So, enjoy today like it may be your last. There are glass half full and glass half empty people. To a large extent, we are hardwired that way. Po. how do you see yourself? Half empty or full?
po, I don’t listen to Limbaugh. Your ideological pants are falling down. I engaged your comments w/ thoughtful responses. I expect the same from you. There are some here w/o the ability for thoughtful response, but you are. Step up your game.
Olly
There is an assumption of a guarantee in it. The American dream is based primarily on the idea of hard work. Without it, as most pointed out here, there is nothing to achieve. The american dream presupposes that the system if fair enough that hard work affords success.
What Annie has been saying is that the system is neither just nor fair, it is rigged, and therefore hard work does no guarantee you anything, or only perhaps a couple of steps onto the ladder.
Previously, those who achieved the dream could maintain it. Can we maintain it nowadays?
po- Annie has achieved the Dream, she is just not admitting it. She has the MSN, the marriage (I assume), the kids, the grandkids, the nice job because of the degree. Because of her medical conditions, which she has admitted on here, she seems to have lost the Dream.
BTW, I do not bait. My questions are pointed to get a specific answer. If you fail to answer or avoid the answer then I have to assume the worst. This is the way an investigator works (I watch a lot of police procedure shows).
po, The rich have always had a rigged game. There was a great interchange between Tony Soprano and Dr. Melfi about the American Dream. If not a fan of the show, Tony was a Mafia boss. Dr. Melfi judged Tony for his choice of profession, something she would later apologize for. paraphrasing Tony he said:
We Italians came to this country and worked hard. Some of us started legitimate businesses and experienced the American Dream. But, some of us saw the Rockefellers, Whitney’s, etc. making big dollars in a rigged game. So, we started our own rigged game, just like them. The only difference is making money off of gambling and prostitution is illegal. Otherwise there’s no difference. We in my business wanted a big piece of the pie like the Rockefellers, SO WE TOOK IT! Mefi was duly chastised.
So po, there has always been a rigged game. One can whine and cry about it, or one can get off their ass and make it work. They can take the legit route or they can take it. It’s not fair that the Rockefellers can have their rigged game w/ impunity. Well po, my immigrant Italian grandfather came to this country w/ nothing and through incredibly hard work, in stages, w/ no help from anyone, built a family restaurant business. The people selling this negative message can’t sell it to me, because I did the same thing.
It is easy to tell those who listen to Rush Limbaugh, words such as takers and lazy and the like keeps coming up, and yet, those are the ones who accuse others of class warfare.
The republican party, the party of God and Jesus, has been demonizing the poor, obnoxiously and relentlessly, through their mouthpieces, Fox and Limbaugh. They are the rich, there are the poor, and you, the middle class, are the ones fighting their battles for them.
Why would you let Rush speak for you? A multi-millionaire drug addled loudmouth who cares little for you and yours?
Trickle down economics? Really? Still? When it has been widely dismissed and disparaged?
po – nice little ad hominem attack on Rush Limbaugh that you did there. He did get treatment for his legal drug addiction and to the best of my knowledge is clean. Personally, I do not let anyone speak for me. That includes religious figures alive or dead.
When the middle class is picking up a big share of the tax burden, they get to do a big share of the complaining. Over 40% of the people in the USA do not pay taxes. Someone has to pay for their SS, etc.
In my opinion Po, your assumption of a guarantee sets the stage for how you perceive the obstacles along the way. “you work hard and make smart choices” MUST result in success yet if it weren’t for the BAD choices others make you would reach your dream.
Perhaps we should step back a minute and identify what we see as the American dream? My understanding has been that if you work hard and make smart choices, you are guaranteed, through the system being just and fair, to achieve success and maintain it.
In general, it is true, in general…
If you start at the bottom and achieve through hard work and taking hold of the opportunities available, you are no different from MOST people around the world who bettered their lot. That is the essence of capitalism, whether here or in Senegal. What I saw there, and I am seeing it more and more here, is that rich have rigged the system to keep getting richer, which directly impact the poorer people, and the middle class as the proverbial donkey looking at the carrot, keep trudging along, seeking to achieve what they see to be the dream.
Your success isn’t proof however that there is an american dream, it is only proof that ward work and smart choices, more often than not are self- rewarding.
Has your success protected you from losing your job?
Has your success afforded you good choices that make your live better?
Can you afford to move your children to good neighborhoods with good schools, away from gangs and crime?
Can you afford to eat well, breathe good air?
Can you afford to see the doctor whenever you feel that you should?
Would a serious illness such as cancer bankrupt you?
Were you to die right now, could your family maintain their lifestyle?
How is your success translated into your child’s life? Can she attend a good school without being saddled with lifelong student debts?
Do you have a voice in the process?
DO you have a pension? If you do, is it safe?
Are you safe from abuse? Governmental? Judicial?Police? Bureaucratic?
The house is a symbol of the american dream, so you bought one, spurred by the system that told you it was safe and right to do. Then the bank that caused the problem took back the house, what was your recourse?
Paul: “Why are you here? Why aren’t you someplace where there is another dream you can be living?”
What does that have to do with anything, Paul?
I have yet to mention what my dream is, why do you assume that it isn’t the American one? Simply because I criticize the system?
po – there is no guarantee you are going to achieve the dream, just as their is no guarantee that I will make an NFL team this year. However, the Dream is there and the majority of people who work for it make it.
And again po, you beat around the bush and did not answer the question. 🙂
Those who think the American Dream is false are often the ones too lazy to achieve it. They are malcontents who go to rallies to support Occupy or govt. union employees. They are the takers, not the producers. But, they truly believe what they say because that is indeed their reality. We create the world in which we live. If a person is positive and hard working it is a world in this great country where anything is possible. How many examples need to be given, there are MILLIONS! If you are a taker, a negative person who thinks you are owed a living, then the dream is dead, because that is the world created by that sad and lonely mindset.
Annie,
My dream when I was a child was tightly focused on my next day being better than the day before. My abusive mother did her best to dash any expectation of happiness (at least that what it seemed to me) but I still knew if I could move beyond that life I had a chance for something better. I secretly allowed myself to dream of something better.
When I was graduating high school I allowed myself to dream of a possible career in Forestry as I headed off to college. I had not prepared myself for the reality of college and was out after the first semester. I had to come up with a new dream and the Navy gave me that opportunity. Then came a wife and children and a new dream that I could go back to college and get my Accounting degree and get out the Navy after 8 years. I wasn’t able to complete the degree before my shore duty was up so I had to define a new dream centered on retiring from the Navy.
Each and every event in my life has provided me an opportunity to change my dream and that is what America is all about. It’s not that the American Dream is just one thing but the fact ANY dream is possible. Until that day comes when we no longer get to choose a path or we are told what the limits of our future WILL be, then DREAMS will still have an opportunity to become a REALITY.
Karen S – “Paul:
There has been hot discussion here in CA lately on the enormous salaries of university regents. Many are paid close to $1 million/year. The problem is that the universities say they want to keep their salaries in line with other universities. So, when one raises salaries, they all raise salaries. This year alone saw an increase of 20%, and there is a 3 year plan for even more increases.
Greed, indeed.”
Karen, Why is that greed? It is the going rate for what that position pays. Don’t fall in the trap of blaming greed for whatever rung of the ladder you are on resenting the ones above you since sure enough, there is someone under you who no doubtedly thinks you are greedy for what you have.
“Tell minimum wage workers, single working mothers and two spouse working couples with children how their ability to get ahead is equal to that of their parent’s generation.”
Annie,
Every American has a dream but not everyone will reach it. The American Dream IS NOT a guarantee but an opportunity that at this point still exists. Not every dream comes with the EQUAL ability to reach it. We live in a nation that still allows the self-reliant to pursue their own definition of happiness and as long as we can keep the tentacles of government bureaucracy out of the way we can keep that dream alive. The nanosecond we give in to the will of others then we become serfs and not citizens.
Annie, Sorry, but I am not responsible for other peoples choices good or bad.
Also, to counteract your list earlier:
My parents: Mom was an RN, Dad college graduate
Had 8 kids all got bachelor. degrees
4 with masters degrees.
One P.E.
Of my 8 nieces and nephews over 22 years old:
All have bachelor degrees.
1 Doctorate.
We were no rich by any means. We had what we needed not what we wanted and we lived and are living the American dream.
Oh, and the only 1% of all of us so far, is my most liberal sister.
Of course what is often forgotten is that the social market economy produces income levels in Europe at about 1/3 less than the US and Germany is actually no exception. When the Germans subsidize these things, ultimately the taxes needed to support it discourage something. There’s no free lunch, there never is.
Yes Paul, everywhere YOU look. Do you ever look outside your bubble?
Annie – I live in a town of 250k and growing, almost all middle-class. The city next to us is a middle class community. It is not a bubble but a whole geographic area.
Darren, it’s easy to be philosophical and say “life is what you make of it”, that is condescension American style. It’s not true and it keeps people chasing rainbows. It doesn’t help those struggling with a reality you don’t share.
Why do some people who live comfortable lives seem to lack the ability to see other’s struggles? Lack of an ’empathy gene’? Tell minimum wage workers, single working mothers and two spouse working couples with children how their ability to get ahead is equal to that of their parent’s generation. Why do about roughly half of Americans still delude themselves and dismiss the realities of a vanishing middle class?
Annie – it is nice to say the middle class is disappearing but I am surrounded by the middle-class. Everywhere I look are middle class families. Oddly enough, they are friendly to each other and multi-ethnic. Horrors!!! The progressives worst nightmare. The dream that the American Dream is dead has died.
Life is what you make of it.
Keep trudging after that carrot. Far be it from me ( and others) to try to take off your blinders for a moment. I know it’s uncomfortable. It’ll be much more uncomfortable to Americans when other countries surpass us and the realization hits that our middle class has vanished, while theirs have grown. When our student debt bubble bursts it may make the housing bubble burst look mild. When even the poor can’t afford Walmart goods any longer perhaps it may reverberate a bit louder. Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, it’s Americans with the “Oh I can live the American Dream too if only I work hard enough!” delusion. Keep on trudging along, maybe you too will get a carrot! As for Americans like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who keep telling the truth, some are listening.