My argument against government funded universities is not based on whether it is capable or not, rather, it is against the principle that some people should be made to pay for other people's education. Also, education in a true free market would be cheaper and better than it currently is. Under the current system, it is impossible to know if the current solution is optimal, because it is coerced.LCollins said:What Labor is proposing is in no way impossible as some people have made out. Denmark, which has similar demographics to Australia and most other western countries (aging, fattening population), and is capable of paying entirely for university for those who deserve it, according to merit.
Yes, I would think the exact same way no matter how rich or poor I was. How rich/poor one individual is, changes nothing about what the optimal solution is.LCollins said:I, like Triangulum, am of the belief that if someone is smart enough, that should be the sole consideration in awarding them a university place, not the size of their parent's wallet. Those of you that think otherwise, I ask, would you still think that way if you were poor?
So your argument is that you feel that university education is cheaper when the government provides it? The government is not able to 'make something of value from nothing', it is only able to redistribute. If its value creation you're looking for, then you should be leaving the profit motive to work its magic.LCollins said:University is different however - if all the courses cost you $5 a year, I'm sure there wouldn't be much argument against having entirely DFEE, but in reality they are obviously not.
eg. when TVs came out, would you argue that the government needed to run out and make them available to everyone? No, over time, they became cheaper and practically every family was able to get one. It may offend your sensibilities that only the rich can afford new things when they first come out, but this is actually necessary for the market to work out how it can produce this stuff for the masses. Government control over education is not only a poor solution, its part of the problem. The longer we try to coerce a solution, the more we're losing in potential growth down the track.
It may not be the case that university education is necessary, what if it were the case that most people were able to just get on the job training? But since the govt coerces university funding, it changes our incentives. People then decide to go to uni where they might not have otherwise. Firms might start to view university degrees as a requirement, when they might not have otherwise. The point I'm making is, when you coerce a solution, you have no way of knowing if it really is the optimal one. If we let others trade voluntarily, soon enough the market would find a way to bring education to the masses cheaply, but govt is only slowing this process by forcing everyone to pay for a 'one size fits all' solution, stifling innovation.
You're morally posturing your way onto the higher ground, and disregarding the fact that you want "ordinary joe" to pay for all this against his will. If he wanted to voluntarily pay for our university education, he would do it yeah? So why does he need to be made to do it via govt force?LCollins said:so thus should be given according to merit, as everyone deserves a fair go and this is what egalitarian societies do (very foreign ideas they are right?).
What if "ordinary joe" would rather not go to university, feeling he can make more money by just joining the workforce? He's still forced to pay for the university education of other people. What an "egalitarian" way to do things. Make the ones who don't benefit pay. Surely you don't consider this giving "ordinary joe" a fair go?
Last edited: