Why is free college such a crazy idea? (Hint: IT'S NOT)

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Some people want to only pay taxes if it benefits themselves, but what they may not take into account is that supporting your fellow man will also eventually benefit yourself.

Of course, we can't and shouldn't have lazy unemployed people sucking off the system (which is why I believe the unemployed should have to do mandatory volunteer programs if they want to receive social security payments at all), but the unemployed genuinely looking for work will one day provide to society once again and, indirectly, provide for the economy and provide for you.

A young cashier that serves you at the shops was once an unemployed young person who received money from your tax-paying.

Of course, tax-paying to improve infrastructure eventually results in improved infrastructure.

You give a little, you get a little...

The only issue is when/if tax money is mis-used or far too high to the point the actual people who pay taxes are financially drained from it.

However, even if I do disagree with just how costly higher education is, I don't support giving university students a complete free-ride.

It's different as primary/elementary and high school are required education, higher education is not.

Beside, in Australia at least, parents do still have to pay tuition fees and such to put their child through school. Not just equipment either, it still costs money to have your kid educated (albeit much less).

Something most certainly needs to be done to reduce costs though, I'll give ya that OP.

Well, if you're going to have unemployed people do charity work, why not just pay them for it in order to make them employed?

Yeah, I'm aware of that.

I don't delve too far into details.

To keep things simple I simply believe if people have a problem with the unemployed 'sucking off of the system' at the very least the unemployed should have to do volunteer programs of some kind. Not just charity work. Just any sort of community service or volunteer work of some kind that contributes to society in some way. Maybe a certain number of hours per week, even if it's less than part-time hours.

An unemployed person doing 4-8 hrs a week in a volunteer program is still contributing more than one doing none Measures would be put into place to ensure the unemployed person is doing their hours e.g. they have to give a signature each time they show up/some sort of supervisor who can confirm they aren't lying.

In Aus at least, there is 'work for the dole' which actually is doing volunteer work for your continued payment for being unemployed.

Another thing is volunteering tends to be easier than actually getting a job.

The places I volunteer required no background checks, no pre-qualifications, no resumé etc.

I just filled out an application form, had a work healthy & safety and general tour induction, and that was it.

All they needed to know was my name, date of birth, contact details gender and goals and I got in just fine. No questions about me or anything.

If you volunteer somewhere here, to eventually work there you'd probable have to volunteer for quite some time before you earn your bosses' trust as well.

One issues I don't have an answer to though is if there's not enough volunteer program openings to go round.

If we give out "free money", then students have no "skin in the game" to be concerned about bad choices.

We have students graduating with $50,000 undergrad debt + $250,000 to $300,000 in law school debt!!

That's like $300,000 at 6% interest.

And many can't find a job, because the legal field is shrinking due to automation from sites like Legal Zoom.

Tenochtitlan, a few centuries ago: "The occasional human sacrifice is the price people pay for living in a civilized society."

To the extent that your society depends on coercion and violence … it isn't civilized.

I think you know as well as I do that human sacrifice accomplished nothing, whereas tax money gets a hell-uv-a-lot of things done.
We have taxation with representation in this country, which means there is no coercion, as we or our elected representatives chose to level this or that tax. If you don't like a tax, try to get it overturned legally, simple as that. And what's the alternative to taxation? How is anything supposed to get done? That is, unless you figure you can live without fire and police protection, roads, mail service, military protection, and a social safety net. I for one can't.

'Taxes' is just another word for something else - Bills.

We pay to use water, electricity, gas, rent/home-owner, etc.

Taxes is paying for things necessary to benefit you and society as a whole.

Not wanting to pay taxes is essentially not wanting to pay your bills.

It's contradictory to not want to pay taxes but still have no issues with paying your bills. "Issues" being even if you don't like having bills, you accept you must pay them as you are using a service and paying for using said service, and not actually doing anything to overturn it.

Even paying your bills, like taxes, benefits somebody else in some way - your money goes to the companies, and to the worker's pockets.

In short: Taxes and bills, same difference.

It pleased the gods. You can't prove that it didn't. (And if the Spaniards showed up a few years later, killed half the people, enslaved the rest, and took all the gold, that merely proved that they didn't sacrifice enough.)



Yes, many things are funded with tax money; some I approve of, many I don't. Killing people halfway around the world who pose no threat to me, for example, would be in the latter category. 



So if 50.1% vote for it, it isn't coercion? That's awesome. (Guess you've never read "The Lottery.") Well, we took a vote, and a majority says you should be the next sacrifice. Please come quietly as it disturbs the gods when the victim makes a fuss. Remember, it's not the bad kind of murder, it's democratic murder! 



If you don't want to be sacrificed, try to get it overturned legally, simple as that. 



People have written entire books on noncoercive ways the government of a free society could be funded. Not my fault if you can't, or don't want to, imagine a world without officially sanctioned bullying. 

You see, police protection, a military which guards against foreign aggression, and so on are of actual value to me and to pretty much every honest person. And while everybody likes a bargain, rational people don't mind paying for actual values. 

On the other hand, killing unthreatening foreigners, or handing millions to the president's corporate donors – or paying some stranger's kid to guzzle beer for four years while acquiring a useless degree in comparative feminist philology – these are not of any value to me. They do not benefit me in any way. To take money from my family, money which I might have used to buy nicer clothes for my children, and allot it for such purposes, is not civilized or necessary or "getting things done." It is plain looting. And it wouldn't happen without the sanction and approval of people like you. 

That human sacrifice certainly didn't work when your and my ancestors strangled and cracked the skull of a slave, who they then buried in a peat bog, so the wheat would grow - - but didn't.
Anyone can write all the books they want on non-coercive means of funding a society, but till any of that is proven true in real world practice, it's just so much theory printed on paper that funds only the author.
Maybe, just maybe, we can fund someone's kid to guzzle beer for a number of years so he or she can become an M.D., or maybe go on to teach feminist philology at the college level. And who's to say that earning what you deem to be a useless degree has no benefits. At least with a degree in one of the liberal arts, a person emerges from higher education with a broadened appreciation of the arts and sciences, and is truly an intelligent, well rounded individual. Compare that to someone who studies something like, say, business alone. In that case, you have an individual whose worldview begins and ends with a cash register and a balance sheet, and who is as uninformed as the rubes and yokels they attend their tea bagger meetings with.

I think free college is a great idea. A lot of deserving young adults would have a chance to pursue their passions and careers. I wish free college was available when I was young. I would have taken any course that I wanted.