Re:Carnegie Mellon, University of Pittsburgh end use of lega...
by saghm on Thursday July 20, 2023 @01:19PM
(#36803653)
> I just don't see a reason to pick a fight if the status quo is "everybody wins".
> Billionaires get to send their kids to good schools and everyone else at the school gets their education subsidized by those billionaires voluntarily.
That's not "everybody though"; most people _don't_ attend elite institutions like that, and every spot that goes to a billionaires' kid means one less spot for a kid without wealthy parents able to work the system like that. The argument being made is that having taxes instead and using them for public goods that are accessible to a much wider swath of the population would be worth doing instead; I tend to think that the answer to this question is yes, it's worth the effort, but even I'm skeptical that "it's all going to suck anyways" or "anyone who doesn't go to an elite school is irrelevant to the question of how individual wealth can improve society as a whole" are the best counter-arguments to my point of view.
> Billionaires get to send their kids to good schools and everyone else at the school gets their education subsidized by those billionaires voluntarily.
That's not "everybody though"; most people _don't_ attend elite institutions like that, and every spot that goes to a billionaires' kid means one less spot for a kid without wealthy parents able to work the system like that. The argument being made is that having taxes instead and using them for public goods that are accessible to a much wider swath of the population would be worth doing instead; I tend to think that the answer to this question is yes, it's worth the effort, but even I'm skeptical that "it's all going to suck anyways" or "anyone who doesn't go to an elite school is irrelevant to the question of how individual wealth can improve society as a whole" are the best counter-arguments to my point of view.