Originally Posted by
BlackPeter
Not sure it's that easy. Sure - a student benefits from his/her education and should therefore contribute to its cost. However - a country benefits as well from having well educated physicians, teachers, researchers, engineers, lawyers and so on. This means that part of the burden of education should as well be carried by the country.
Obviously - how much on the country and how much on the individual is a pure political question ... as well as in which form the country contributes. Paying part of the tuition? Paying all of the tuition? Paying the tuition plus maintenance? Paying a percentage of all of above?
Personally - I did enjoy "free" tertiary education (though not in this country) and I suppose you did that as well (though probably not in this country?). I did study a subject which I could immediately use in the workforce and gave my tuition costs (in form of taxes) back to the society.
I think this is a fair schema.
More concerned about the society subsidizing courses which are highly likely to not contribute afterwards to society (because there are not enough relevant jobs). I guess nothing wrong with archeologists, scuba divers, musicians, art historians, psychology and similar - and if they work in their profession afterwards and pay taxes - good on them. Question is more - is it sensible that society funds many more students in these fields than it is afterwards able of usefully employing? I'd call it madness to subsidize somebody to study something which will send them after completing their degrees on the doll.
Not too concerned about interest free student loans per se as long as students study something useful and sought after in society. But as indicated before - this is more a question of where you stand in the political spectrum, I would not consider a different view as madness - just different.
I agree however that we fund too many students to study things the society does not need afterwards. And we don't motivate capable students to study subjects we need. We fund them all irrespective of usefulness of their studies to society. This is dumb.