“the government fucked it up so the government should fix it on the backs of the working and middle classes” is such a tired argument made by privileged people who are reliant on the govt for almost every aspect of their existence

Yes, we would be in a vastly superior position to adopt any number of European models. From healthcare to education, we're just inferior.

"The government did something so the government can't fix it" is such a tired argument made by brain dead conservative shitposters.

One aspect in favor of your current college system is that its top-heaviness lends itself to the formation of some of the finest elite universities on the planet, which in turn help the U.S. attract a lot of the brightest minds of the world. Your country is THE main beneficiary of international brain drain, while universities in continental Europe struggle with recruiting top tier international researchers. The access to top tier talent boosts your country's economy and helps retain its technological edge, factors which help all Americans to some degree, even those with pleb tier degrees or no college at all.

Overall, the advantages of the European model for the bulk of students imho outweigh this "brain drain factor", but this factor still has to be accounted for when comparing the two systems.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 29 2020 04:56pm

European models have their own short-comings, and many American-esque short-comings stem fundamentally from ineffective government regulation and market distortions. American government needs less regulation, more discretionary spending, and a fundamental overhaul of entitlements.

The success of European models also varies significantly depending on the country in question. To live in Spain or Italy is to live a far less prosperous life than the vast majority of American states (in strict wealth terms, almost all of them), and yet their economic and social models involve heavy, significant government intervention.

"Why can't we be Denmark?" is a question that presupposes the asker does not understand why Denmark is Denmark and the United States is the United States. Bernie Sanders commits this error quite frequently, so much so that he had to be publicly rebuked by the Danish PM.

I largely agree, but what do you mean with the bolded part? More discretionary spending sounds a lot like slush funds and serving special interests.

As simple as this tbh

I have cousins who are in Sweden and England and can attest that there is not the difference in quality many attribute to a government funded education.

I fully believe there needs to be some skin in the game, but right now the balance is completely off

I don’t understand why it has to be an all or nothing, need to completely overhaul everything at one time. I think incremental changes, especially ones that everyone agree on, are long overdue. For example amount of interest on student loans, and inability to write the interest off in taxes as you pay them. You get fucked on the same dollar multiple times

I mean that discretionary spending on infrastructure, technology, sciences, and education represent good investments from which we can expect to reap rewards.

The problem isn't that government spends money on these things, but that the money spent is poorly used and wrapped up in layers of bureaucracy and red tape that imbed perverse interests into the process. Bureaucracy needs to be streamlined, regulations of firing government employees cut, but at the same time there is a dearth of investment that needs to be rectified, and government salaries need to go up if government agencies have any hope at siphoning off a small slice of private sector talent.

youre the one reliant on the government and who always votes for racists to ‘fix racism”, not me

forgiveness of student loans would mostly benefit privileged people like you, not me. im open to it as long as people who paid for it “out of pocket” get to benefit as well

This post was edited by excellence on Nov 29 2020 07:59pm

College loan forgiveness is the middle class getting free stuff. People with degrees have the highest employment rates and fill the middle to middle upper classes.