Re:NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students
by neap24 on Friday August 17, 2018 @11:52AM
(#17783683)
Indeed, many do advocate that paying for the roads you drive on through tolls would be a much better system. I don't think it's unreasonable to not want to subsidize certain fields of study with public money.
In the past, when a smaller percentage of people were "educated" the marginal value of educating an extra member of society was very high. It seems much lower to me now that information is cheap and freely available.
Re:NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students
by iak8god on Friday August 17, 2018 @12:28PM
(#17783973)
Education is not about memorizing information. It is about learning how to think. If anything, this is of much more value now that we're drowning in so much information -- and so much misinformation.
Re:NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students
by dionidium on Friday August 17, 2018 @10:51AM
(#17783229)
> "That is like saying you only want to pay taxes towards the roads you drive on yourself."
People who use roads should be paying a lot more for their usage and they should be paying much more directly. So, in short, yes.
The current system is far too diffuse, masks enormous externalities, and generates incredible waste.
Re:NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students
by mdorazio on Friday August 17, 2018 @10:17AM
(#17782948)
You've basically just described Dallas (although it's mostly just the freeways that have tolls), which a lot of Americans seem to be fine with.
Re:NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students
by originalbryan2 on Friday August 17, 2018 @09:49AM
(#17782799)
I love the private toll road idea! I'd never imagined them all being that way before.
Re:NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students
by oculusthrift on Friday August 17, 2018 @12:19PM
(#17783886)
Not really. It’s more like getting outraged when the government wants to build a road that does nothing. imagine they build half a bridge over a body of water and stop. Do you want to pay for that useless thing?
Would you be better off if all publicly funded roads where instead private and required you to pay tolls per usage? You would defiantly get an bill more matching your usage, and people who don’t drive would pay less. But it at least feels like we are better off with public roads because they all add value to society as a whole.
The same goes for education. You don’t care about Akkadian studies, but perhaps someone does who thanks to his education can focus on that and earn enough money to buy a car from you auto mechanic keeping him in business making life better for you.