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A comment on Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education. Parent comment

Re:Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ ab... by HarryHirsch on Thursday April 30, 2020 @02:21PM (#23034191)
Why is this downvoted? In the European nations (with the notable exception of Britain), university is free or nearly so.
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Re:Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ ab... by chongli on Thursday April 30, 2020 @04:58PM (#23036039)
It may be free but fewer people attend university in European countries (apart from wealthy Luxembourg) than in the US. So essentially, the “free” university is a tax on everyone that mostly benefits the rich. I don’t think Americans want that.
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Re:Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ ab... by JamesBarney on Thursday April 30, 2020 @06:05PM (#23036749)
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS?end=2...

Our government spends more money on education in both a relative and an absolute sense than the European average.

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Re:Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ ab... by pmorici on Thursday April 30, 2020 @03:19PM (#23034938)
It's not 'free' it's paid for through taxes.
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Re:Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ ab... by dyadic on Thursday April 30, 2020 @03:53PM (#23035331)
It is free to the person that receives it.

Imagine I bake and give you a cake, it's still a "free cake" even though I've put the work into baking it and other people have put the work into harvesting the ingredients and bringing them to me.

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Re:Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ ab... by pmorici on Thursday April 30, 2020 @07:02PM (#23037279)
No it isn't, presumably that person will graduate and go on to have a career where they are paid a salary and pay taxes on that salary. How is paying higher taxes for one's entire working life different than making payments on a loan with lower taxes?
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Re:Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ ab... by HarryHirsch on Thursday April 30, 2020 @03:43PM (#23035228)
Good point. The rich need to pay taxes, else there is civilization only for the rich. Consider Alabama, a lowtax state, thanks to the 1901 constitution that the landowners and industrialists wrote to protect their wealth and look what shape the state is in.
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