Should College Be a Constitutional Right?

The reason prices got so high is because banks and schools realized they can catch people at the gate by ratcheting up the debt on students, knowing that they have no other choice if they want to make a living. It's predatory lending, not an fascist government. The increase in college tuition (up 375% since 1980) closely matches with the shift toward supply-side economics.

Also, the Scandinavian countries have free education. Guess what? They're doing fiscally better than us. Sure, people get taxed a lot more, but their average wages are also a lot higher and they have a lower unemployment rate.

And this whole "colleges are plotting against 'Murrica" stance is not conducive.

My girlfriends daughter worked her way thru college. My co-workers daughter got pregnant and the government is paying for her college.
What are we saying by doing this?
Government should stay the heck away.

Here we are with more liberal bullsh$t

So that Thousands of Families be stuck paying College Loans for the rest of their lives?; especially those families that do not have money to pay... I doubt that would fly over. UNLESS the government is willing to help pay!

Where does the government get its money???? From taxpayers!

Wouldn't surprise me

Wouldn't surprise you that our taxes are used for stupid things?????
What wouldn't surprise you?

Absolutely ridiculous idea... SHUT UP ALREADY!

Though I am very liberal, I believe that college is an earned privilege, not a right.

It's already a right, just college for nothing is not a right.

An earned privilege is driving, you earn it by passing a test and driving responsibly. Earning a privilege is not having to pay thousands of dollars for it. College is overpriced and overvalued (in a lot of areas at least).

True, college is a right already - not a constitutional right though. However, driving does require payment of fees too. It just costs a lot less than college.

You are right that college is overpriced and overvalued, but prospective employers need some way of telling the competence of a stranger.

Before colleges sold them on the college degree being the best they somehow managed. There are lots of ways, just most employers are too lazy to do it.

Like what? Have applicants sit for 20-30 hours of exams?

What are you, 12? Don't recall a time when you had to actually look up things in a book instead of type it into a google search? When college degrees were for doctors and lawyers? When cashiers at stores actually had the capability of doing math without their registers?

Before college sold everyone on the necessity of a degree employers managed fine. They still could, but don't bother to utilize tools available to them. They want a college degree, they also have you do a personality test (bogus crap as it is though) and an interview is more like a beauty pageant. Use your head.

Actually, I am an attorney. I depose people for a living and after reading their answers to interrogatories and questioning them for 2-3 hours I still don't know much about them other than what relates to the specific case.

When I hire an expert to testify, I want him to have multiple degrees and to have published multiple books or papers on the topic for which I hire him.

The degrees matter to me because I do not know what questions the opposing counsel will ask the expert and I need for the expert to know the answers.

Of course, that makes sense. You won't put me on the stand as an expert in medical practice. Do you need me to have a college degree, though, to hire me as a warehouseman? Perhaps you want me to have a college degree for applying for a job to work packing boxes for shipment? There are a lot of ways in an interview, or even pre-interview, to figure out if I'll be a bad seed on the team or not able to do the job without me having a college degree.

It's a matter of what you need. I don't expect anyone to hire a manager of a mulit-million dollar warehouse without either a crap load of experience or a college degree showing he knows what he's doing. I do expect them to be able to pull their heads out of their asses and figure out a college degree isn't necessary to drive a forklift.

All of those are real world experiences by the way, I'm not making things up when I tell you I applied for those jobs and was turned down when they asked if I had a degree.

Wow, you were turned down as a fork lift driver & shipping packer because you lack a college education? The only excuse for that decision is that your competition has degrees or they used that as an excuse when they didn't hire you for another - illegal reason.

To get into college you have to get the grades. To get into college you have to pass the test, you have to take the SAT's and ACT's. To get into college you have to write an essay. I studied. I worked. I got good grades, I earned my way into college. I earned the privilege of getting my degree. College is NOT a right. Now, if you want to barter words, I will rephrase. Everyone has the RIGHT to go to college. But to use that RIGHT, you must earn your way.

Exactly

I went to college, didn't have to do any of that. If you want to go to a big college perhaps, small and community colleges not so much... they just want your money.

I'm a very good example of someone who didn't want to go to college but had to. I worked 15 years starting out in a company as a trash guy and worked up to management, when I was laid off I couldn't find work anywhere. Jobs anything below management refused to hire me because I would get bored (their words) and quit so it wasn't worth whatever minimal training needed, and jobs for the skill level I had required a college degree. Asking one of these schmucks what degree I should look at and they said anything, just had to have the piece of paper. So I went and got a degree in manufacturing management, learned all the fancy words for everything I'd been doing the last 7 or 8 years but nothing new. Learning fancy words so I could get a job cost a really beautiful looking penny though.

College should be higher education, but our school system sucks so bad (because kids aren't expected to learn) that it's become nearly necessary.

Colleges have also done a very good job at selling a box of crap to American business, everyone should have a college education to do anything. When business wakes up and vets prospective employees correctly, instead of simply accepting 'college education is best' idea we'll be stuck with it.

The piece of paper that you have to pay enormously for is all most care about, your experience in the field means next to nothing. Most of that rests on the shoulder's of a pathetic education system that must march everyone forward instead of expecting the child to learn, and if he/she does not do so then he/she doesn't continue forward.

Don't we all have "access" to college? Who is denied? Who wants to pay the price for all those LIBERAL instructors??

You already posses the right to attend, but you don't have the right to demand me to pay for your education.

It's not the right thing for everyone and not everyone wants to attend college.

I will pay for my college and you can pay for your own.
Remember... the colleges set the rate. The banks loan the money. If you want to make college more affordable, BOYCOTT THEM!

this is not. nor should it ever be a right.it should be left as a individual choice for those who want to try and better themselves.

I want to know why tuition has outpaced inflation for years? In either case the people that can pay get stung with the lions share of the cost. Folks that have lower incomes pay substantially less. Another socially engineered govt overeach. If you make more than 110k per year you pay list price. That's considered middle class in metro NY or any urban metro area for that matter. By the time you pay for road and bridge tolls and exorbitant property tax's then you still get hit with list price for tuition. In 30 short years the college I attended went from 9k to over 30k per year. There is something wrong with that picture

The truth is, we have too many people in college right now. College is not for everyone, and if everyone does it not only will we devalue a degree (it's quickly becoming the equivalent of a GED), we won't be able to afford the expense. College costs 160 thousand per person, which we have subsidized so that the student only pays half (80k for you liberals out there). So if you know high school level math (which would be required to get into any good school) you will understand that if we enroll everyone we simply cannot afford the RECURRING cost (that would increase every single taxpayers tax burden by 160k). College degrees have become cheapened by all the jocks, partiers, potheads, and cheaters. Very few people are actually in college to learn a trade, instead they are in college for the "experience". If you want to be in college to drink, bang, and smoke pot, that's fine with me, just don't make me pay for it. (honestly I don't understand why you couldn't just take four years to sit around, spend your 80k on booze and women and just have a good time without having to pretend to study).

You do make good points. In fact, there is going to be a shortage of tradesman in the workforce within the next decade. Most high schools don't even have 'shop' classes anymore...

true

Maybe the first 2 years of general classes.
But no one has a constitutional right to waste my tax money on a degree in French Impressionism or some other worthless degree.

It's not even a gaurantee to get the job. Degrees are overly glorified. I make much more money with the job I have without the degree than I'd ever make using my degree.

I'm bothered that lately people seem to be confusing a right from an obligation. I have the right to keep and bare arms, but no one is obligated to buy them for me. By the same token everyone has the right to go to college in this country, if you can be admitted and pay for it then go.

We need to leave the Constitution out of it. Many countries value higher education so much that they make it much easier for those who qualify to attend college. They also run trade schools for young people who want to enter a skilled trade. America has far too many unskilled workers for an industrialized country. They are putting kids through schools that teach them to read and write but little else. Unlike many other cultures the value of the education alone is not instrilled in them at very early ages.

Actually, only college teaches children to read and write. High school students often graduate with knowing either of those - at least beyond text messaging short-hand.

When will people wake up and actually study the Constitution? Better yet, read it.

Constitutional Rights are what the Government CANNOT do TO you, not what the Government CAN do FOR you.

Better yet, it isn't a right, except for the right to attend, if you qualify based on if you are smart enough, have the desire and the financial means to do so.

Not to mention, college isn't for everyone and if everyone has a college degree, then the value of what a college degree means is devalued.

not a Constitutional right but a human right and an important piece of America. We are falling behind the world in many areas of advanced education and bankrupting our children and our nation while doing so. Also it would help the economy because there would be less off shoring and H1 Visas

True about the US falling behind. Maybe if we gut the NEA, can the teacher unions and put the education back on the state, then MAYBE parents will take part in their children's education, rather than using the Public School system as a babysitter.

Did you notice not one single thing you mentioned really had anything at all to do with getting a college education.