It is fundamentally dishonest to compare public high schools to public colleges

[dsc]

Public high schools don't have admission requirements, public colleges do. And those requirements tend to favor the wealthy (and that isn't even counting the recent scandal and people putting up buildings). Good public universities, and there are many of them, require good test scores, good grades, AP courses, and good extra curricular activities to get in. All of those to some degree are easier to obtain if one has money than if one doesn't. Many schools charge fees for extra curricular activities, in any event you have to be able to not work while in high school. AP courses cost $85 per exam (one exam per course). Tutors to prepare for tests and classes cost money.

If you want to justify free public college on grounds that society benefits from an educated population, that is one thing. But stop trying to justify it as a wealth transfer to the poor, it isn't. I feel that students should have some skin in the game (after all college graduates privatize the benefits of a college education to a large degree) but that tuition is out of control. I think a more reasonable approach is for there to be sliding tuition fees and aid for lower income students but I don't think the children of lawyers should be getting free educations while those of cashiers are working minimum wage.

[pnwmom]

1. Public two year colleges often have no admission requirements; they even take high school students

[dsc]

2. and I have no problems with them being free

but I do take issue with colleges with admission requirements which favor the rich being free for the rich and paid for by the poor.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

18. "favor the rich being free for the rich and paid for by the poor." Yeah, that's a pretty

fucking stupid plan. Good thing no Dem is proposing that.

[dsc]

21. actually Sanders is proposing exactly that

He wants states to provide 20% of the funding for this, and state taxes are notoriously regressive. So yes in most states the poor and lower middle class will be paying for this while the upper class and rich will get the benefits.

[NotHardly]

3. I want mine but not if they get it too? Republican talking point pasted on Dem values... nice

[dsc]

4. No I don't think the poor should pay the cost of educating the rich

when they are banned from the same education themselves.

[rhodytowny]

17. Rich or powerful people rarely go to public colleges.

IIRC: Pete and Deval went to Harvard. Amy and Tom went to Yale. Cory and Julian went to Stanford. Liz went to GWU. Joe went to Syracuse. Kamala went to Howard. Mike went to Johns Hopkins. Andy went to Brown. There's not a public school in the mix.

[dsc]

22. Yes, Presidential candidates tend to avoid public schools

but to take one example, here is a list of the governors of NC who went to UNC (a public school in case that needs to be said).

https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/uarms/index.php/2017/01/north-carolina-governors-at-unc/

There are 32 of them out of 78.

[fleabiscuit]

26. Non Sequitur. nt

[dsc]

31. really you post rich and powerful people rarely go to public colleges

and use Presidential candidates as an example, so I look up the number of governors of the 9th largest state in the union who come from one, just one public school in the state and find it to be about half. Just how is that not related to your point?

[fleabiscuit]

56. That wasn't me. nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

27. The (Surprising) Undergraduate Institutions Fortune 100 CEOs Attended

EDITOR'S PICK | 25,087 views | Sep 7, 2019, 08:37pm

A New Study On Fortune 100 CEOs: The (Surprising) Undergraduate Institutions They Attended

Kimberly A. Whitler Senior Contributor
CMO Network

What does it take to become the CEO of one of the 100 largest U.S. firms? More specifically, where do they come from, and does the undergraduate alma mater matter?

To provide insight on these questions, I looked into specific attributes of the career paths of F100 company CEOs: undergraduate schools, undergraduate degrees, graduate schools, graduate degrees, educational majors, functional emphasis, the number of years at their current company (at which they are CEO), and the companies that produce more CEOs. The study is based on data pulled for 2018 (for more insight on the methodology, see below). In an earlier article, I shared data on the importance of experience (see results from the study here) at the focal firm. In this article, I look at the undergraduate schools of the F100 CEOs.

For parents and students who believe getting into an Ivy League school is a requirement for success, the educational paths of the F100 CEOs suggest otherwise. Of the F100 CEOs who obtained an undergraduate degree (yes, some did not complete college), a dominant 89% graduated from non-Ivy League schools with only 11% having attended an Ivy League school. Forty-seven percent of the F100 graduates came from state schools (e.g., University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, University of Texas, etc.) while 53% came from other schools.

The undergraduate institutions most commonly attended by the F100 were Texas A&M University and the University of Michigan. Other non-Ivy League, non-state schools attended include Illinois Wesleyan University (State Farm CEO), Clark University (Metlife CEO), Grove City College (DowDuPont CEO), St. Bonaventure University (Delta Airlines CEOs), Pepperdine University (RiteAid CEO), Manhattan College (AMEX CEO), West Point (JNJ CEO), and international schools such as University of Melbourne (Morgan Stanley CEO).
....

BUSINESS LEADERS > RICH & POWERFUL
Where the Ultra-Wealthy Go to School

BY JESSE EMSPAK Updated Jun 25, 2019

If you graduated from a private, Ivy League school in the U.S., congratulations — you have a better chance of being worth more than $30 million than someone who didn't. And if you're a financial advisor seeking to build up or build out your client list with wealthy individuals, pay attention to these findings.

Research firm Wealth-X compiled a list of schools that produce millionaires and billionaires. It looked at alumni and reviewed the schools they were graduating from and whether they inherited, were self-made or both. The firm then ranked the schools according to how many ultra-high-net-worth individuals — people with more than $30 million in assets — each school had among its graduates. The results only included undergraduate and graduate degrees but did not count diplomas, certificates, honorary degrees or any degrees that weren't completed.

According to the firm, the term "net worth" is defined by all holdings including privately- and publicly-held businesses as well as investable assets.

The results aren’t too surprising at first blush. Harvard University dominates the list, and all but six of the 20 schools with the most millionaire alumni are private.

Bet on the Crimson
Harvard counts some 1,906 high-net-worth graduates. That's near twice the number of the next ranking college, the University of Pennsylvania, with 832 (despite its name, it's a private institution).

Rounding out the top five were Columbia University (578), New York University (488) and Stanford University (466). The Bulldogs may have the upper hand against the Crimson on the football field, but Yale University came in ninth place with 360, behind MIT, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. Both Princeton and Cornell followed in 10th and 11th place. The University of Southern California hit 13th place, while other private schools, the University of Notre Dame and Boston University, ranked 16th and 19th place.

The public universities on the list were the University of Virginia (12th with 300), the University of Texas at Austin (14th place with 293), the University of California, Berkeley (in 15th place with 290), the University of Michigan (at number 17 with 272), and UCLA in 20th place with 235. (For related reading, see: Dropping Out of School to Start a Business.)
....

[TidalWave46]

50. "Rich or powerful people rarely go to public colleges."

Inaccurate statement. Probably why you made no case to back it up.

[thesquanderer]

23. In no "free public college" plan do the poor subsidize the rich.

Look for how those candidates look to finance free tuition at public colleges. It all comes from the top.

However, since the wealthy would have to pay for it in any of these plans, while their own kids almost always go to private colleges anyway, the plans DO do the opposite of what you suggest, the rich subsidize the education of the poor.

And if public colleges become free to attend, the wealthy will be even LESS inclined to send their kids there. If there's one thing the wealthy like even more than their money, it's prestige. That's probably the thing they most like to spend their money on.

The problem with means tested plans is that they are stigmatized and perpetually on the chopping block, and we can avoid that issue here because the free-public-college-for-all is somewhat self-means tested anyway, since the wealthy generally won't go to those schools anyway.

That said, if Pete gets in, I'd be perfectly happy with his plan as well. We're arguing about whether chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla, when the real issue is just getting ice cream at all. So I have no problem with either plan. I just think Pete's knock on the Sanders/Warren plans as helping the children of millionaires is silly. And I think Pete is smart enough to know it's silly, and is saying it, not because he sees it as a real problem, but because it's a good political sell.

[dsc]

32. that isn't true from Sanders own plan

he specifically says states will finance 20%

[crazytown]

5. And I think this is a fundamentally dishonest characterization of the argument

I was making in my OP. Not impressed. I never justified anything as a wealth transfer to the poor. Amongst all the talk about entrance requirement, and practicalities, your argument is at heart " I don't think the children of lawyers should be getting free educations". Fine. Free free educations include public schools and I disagree. That was the point I was making.

[dsc]

6. do you dispute the fact that college admission requirements favor the rich?

If you don't, then how isn't this the poor and lower middle class paying for middle class and rich people to get an education they can't get.

[msongs]

7. grocery stores/movie admissions favor the rich too. its all relative. nt

[dsc]

10. I really have no words for that argument.

[crazytown]

8. This is my argument, posted in thread of my OP

believe in free public education. It is a public good. I don't believe there should be discrimination against the children of wealthy families when it comes to public college. A high school education may have been sufficient in the 1950s, but it is not now. If the wealthy should pay more taxes to support public education, well and good, but don't charge kids fees.

I believe in opportunity for all as a fundamental goal. It's not good enough to argue that lower and lower middle class kids have more difficulty reaching admission requirements - that is acceptance of the unacceptable. Public education requires well funded remedial programs and better schools - it is not an argument for spending less on public colleges.

[dsc]

9. they do favor them

and will for the conceivable future. I vividly remember having the highest SAT in my county and going to a recruitment for West Point, at some point we said our SAT scores and I was dead last among the 4. I was also the only one who went to a school catering to the middle class. At the end of four years of college my GREs were in top one percent in both math and logic. That is what a good education does vs what a lower one does.

[crazytown]

12. That's terrible.

I know this has been studied forever - my personal preference would be breaking the direct nexus between district public schools and local property taxes. Education should be funded on a needs basis - although that's as likely as Congress passing M4A

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. INVESTMENT in the poor, so they can generate their own wealth and not need transfers

People who say they want to run government like a business purposely forget (because their statement is a ruse) that businesses invest in people.

[BuffaloJackalope]

13. Sanders wants to have more people attend college w/o them going bankrupt. Buttigieg does not.

[dsc]

15. that is flat out bullshit

His plan would make college free for 100k and under.

College costs squeeze families and stifle our future—putting the brakes on new industries, businesses, or scientific discoveries that could accelerate economic growth. Pete will invest $500 billion to make college affordable for working and middle class families, so that 80% of families of public college students that earn up to $100,000 will not pay any public college tuition. Larger Pell Grants for students at public colleges will help students from low-income backgrounds graduate completely debt-free. A Buttigieg administration will also make $50 billion in new investments in HBCUs and MSIs to help students of color thrive.

I don't know what part of free entails debt maybe you do.

[Voltaire2]

14. There are quite a few public high schools that have admission requirements

generally in large metro regions. They most certainly do exist.

So,like your premise is nonsense.

[dsc]

16. and that is one way that rich have gamed the system

but at least a school is provided unlike at the college level.

[Voltaire2]

19. So you agree that public education ought to

be freely available at the college level as well. Your op makes no sense, in addition to its premise being simply wrong.

[dsc]

20. No I think magnet schools should be disbanded except those for music and art

and those for bullied minorities. I understand why cities have them, they are keeping the rich from fleeing their systems and getting their buy in for spending on them but that doesn't make them good ideas. Why should people who can't get into colleges be paying for the educations of those who are vastly wealthier than they are who can get in by pretty much buying entry. IF you don't understand why those people might find that insane I don't know what to say.

[Voltaire2]

24. So in addition to not supporting public education

Through college you want to abolish magnet schools, but only apparently STEM magnets, because rich people pay to prep their kids. You are going to fix an unfair advantage by denying everyone a chance. Great plan.

[dsc]

30. NYCs magnets are very racially imbalanced

In 2017, 3.8 percent of offers to attend NYC’s eight SHSAT schools went to Black students, while 6.5 percent went to Hispanic ones. That’s roughly 10% of the 5000+ teens who passed, out of the 28,000+ who took the exam. This year [the first year of de Blasio’s initiative], 524 kids were accepted. Which is actually down from 530 last year.

http://newyorkschooltalk.org/2018/06/lack-diversity-nycs-elite-high-schools-nothing-admissions-test/

NYC as a whole

White: 42.78%
Black or African American: 24.32%
Other race: 15.12%
Asian: 14.00%
Two or more races: 3.33%
Native American: 0.40%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.05%

Now imagine you are a black or Hispanic New Yorker who is paying school taxes every year and see those stats. Your kid is going to a typical, overcrowded school and you have a small chance of attending university while your taxes are going to people wealthier than you, in now a much better high school, and now you are going to pay for their college, the college you can't get into because you had to fight to survive in a school with a class size of 34.

[Voltaire2]

52. Yes and the fix, according to you is to abolish them, but only for the STEM magnets.

1. you somehow appear to believe that rich people don't prep their kids for the arts magnets. They do.
2. abolishing the magnets doesn't address the problem, it eliminates the opportunity they provide.

But this is all irrelevant to your original argument that had as a premise that public high schools do not have admission requirements.

This: "Public high schools don't have admission requirements, public colleges do."

That assertion was simply false. Your argument in your op is fatally flawed.

[dsc]

55. yeah if we can't fix those numbers they need to go

Why should 25% of the city pay for schools that they only get 3% of the slots in? If this were whites getting this kind of shaft it would have ended long, long ago but since it is only black and brown kids people like you don't give a damn.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

29. Drop dead, engineers, right? We sure as hell don't need them. NT

[Voltaire2]

53. Exactly. WTF.

[Humanist_Activist]

25. Here's the thing, the basic argument is dumb and can be used to argue against...

any public good that everyone has access to.

Under a progressive tax structure, the rich would be paying for the college education of everyone else, even if there kids also take advantage of the system.

Means testing such a system just restricts opportunity to take advantage of it by everyone, particularly edge cases. Subsidies are nice, its just too bad your parents make 10 dollars more than the cut off for subsidies, guess you are on your own.

I don't care if rich people take "advantage" of public libraries, as long as I have the same access.

I don't care if rich people can get free(at service) medical care, as long as I can get the same.

I don't care if rich people have access to quality free public education, as long as I have the same access.

Yes, there are advantages to be rich, but there are ways to mitigate those advantages. Just because we can't eliminate all of them(without a revolution), doesn't mean we shouldn't support good policy.

[dsc]

28. the problem is higher ed unlike every single other thing you mention

have admission requirements. So everyone doesn't have access to it. Add to that, by raising state taxes you would be increasing the taxes of those who can't get in by a greater percentage than those who can. Why oh why might that piss people off, I have no earthly idea. Oh, and let's not forget the legacies that even public schools give advantages to.

[Humanist_Activist]

33. Question, how come it wasn't such an issue in the past with state schools in many states...

Tuition free college has been a thing in this country in the past. This argument you are putting forward wasn't the reason it regressed.

In fact, tuition free University is a thing in Europe, and there were huge student protests in Britain when a extremely low tuition was instituted less than a decade ago.

Not sure where admission requirements are even relevant.

[dsc]

34. In Europe their primary and secondary schools are no where near as inequitable as ours

also free tuition at state schools wasn't a thing for long nor was it everywhere. Also our schools weren't as inequitable then as they are now (other than the obvious racial division but in terms of economics our schools weren't as unfair then as now).

[Humanist_Activist]

35. So because our current public education standards are regressive, we shouldn't attempt to do...

anything to improve them?

You are literally instituting a purity test on public education, so because its not pure enough, no one should be able to access college?

[dsc]

36. No that isn't close to what I said

I don't think we should be in the business of providing free college to people making 250k a year on the backs of burger flippers making $15 an hour until we fix the primary and secondary schools those burger flippers children are attending.

[Humanist_Activist]

37. How is it "on the backs of burger flippers" when its under a progressive tax system?

You are using an extremely dishonest framing here, not to mention an absurd one, and again, this argument can be used for EVERY public service that everyone has access to in this country.

15 dollar an hour workers don't even earn enough to pay for 1 year of college tuition, how the fuck are they going to be subsidizing the tuition of people making 10x more than them?

[dsc]

39. 20% of the funding for Bernie's plan, the one AOC is extolling the virtues of

comes from state funding. State funding, state funding, state funding, state funding. Not federal funding. And state tax systems are notoriously regressive. And again, not everyone has access to higher ed. And many who don't, don't because they went to crappy, underfunded schools.

[Humanist_Activist]

40. State taxes don't need to be regressive though. There's a lot of reform that should be instituted...

on the state and local level as well, we need to elect leftists from dogcatcher to governor as well, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Progress can be useful in shifting the Overton window leftward.

[dsc]

41. even in progressive states

the taxes are regressive. Washington and Oregon are two examples of that. California was until just recently as well.

[Humanist_Activist]

45. Those are "socially progressive" but economically conservative states, I'm talking true leftists. nt

[dsc]

54. Honestly most states have regressive taxation systems

Illinois literally just this year got a progressive income tax. Many states don't have any income tax at all. In part because states are played against each other to such a large extent.

[The Mouth]

38. Not everyone needs to go to university

We need to focus, and spend, at least as much on good, well funded, focused and cost-effective trade, tech, and vocational schools.

It's just as honorable, and of as much societal value (both "spiritually" and in terms of the economy and wealth generation) to be a welder, a lineman (excuse me, utility line worker), a plumber, mechanic, or electrician as it is to be a teacher, physicist, doctor, artist or academic.

It's elitist as hell to reason from the premise that a "real" education is a 4-year university education.

[booley]

42. Not sure the writer has been to a public college

I went to CMSU in Warrensburg, Missouri.

They aren't' that hard to get into. And when you are poor they are probably the only real options you have.

Also, how does this justify having to put out money one may not have to get what is pretty much required to have to advance in society nowadays?

I could spend all day explaining all the wrong and frankly privileged things this OP contains.

[dsc]

43. I went to Ole Miss

but under a special program with its own admission requirements. I chose ECU as my example since it is a relatively easy to get into public university. But even those do have requirements that often are hard for people to meet. BTW I was on welfare the year before I went to college.

[rhodytowny]

44. I visited Oxford once

Watched them sing Dixie and chant "The South Will Rise Again!" as all the black players sat with arms folded disgusted while Colonel Reb (Ole Miss' mascot) pranced around. There and another incident in Florence, South Carolina taught me a lot about the deep south...

[dsc]

49. I taught in a Delta school district (meaning virtually entirely black)

the whole point of the program was to staff those schools with teachers who knew their subjects well (kind of a stronger version of Teach For America). The program was self contained with only the students in our program in our classes, the professors largely only taught us and we had no interaction with other students. In short, I couldn't tell you much about Ole Miss from my program. I did see one football game or more accurately part of one.

[booley]

46. Thats seems contradictory

I chose ECU as my example since it is a relatively easy to get into public university. But even those do have requirements that often are hard for people to meet.

Which is it?
Are they easy to get into or are they hard to qualify for?

Both things cant' be true at once.

And what about junior colleges?

In any case, the OP's argument seems very flawed.

[booley]

47. Also to my original point

how does this justify having to put out money one may not have to get what is pretty much required to have to advance in society nowadays?

[dsc]

48. Actually both can be true

ECU is easier to get in than most 4 year schools in NC but there are still many who can't get in due to the poor quality schools they attended

[TidalWave46]

51. One of my smallest concerns.

Not well thought out, even by people offering proposals. Sanders proposal is insignificant. He is floundering so bad he is just going around yelling "free, free, free!!!!!" The worst part about his plan is that it doesn't address anything meaningful at all. Sanders: "Kids are going broke going to college. Then college will be free!" It's beyond absurd. It's like he is desperate to keep class and structural divides in place while acting like he is at war with each.

The system is pretty solid where it is at. We need to have greater oversight of the university systems themselves.

[Act_of_Reparation]

57. We've been over this again and again and again and again.

Employers are using the bachelor's degree as a baseline standard for thousands of jobs that in no way require it. It has supplanted the high school diploma as the barrier to gainful employ.

If you want to level the playing field, you gotta do one of two things:

1) Stop requiring a BS for a fucking data entry job.

2) Remove the barriers keeping poor kids from getting those degrees.