So What Changes if Romney is Elected?

• Con_Alma

  I Wear Pants;1211008 wrote:Public education at least through high school should absolutely be a right.
  
  ....

  It's not a right. We do, however, make it available to everyone. I don't advocate stopping that at all.
  
  Collegiate education is a service. When you speak about funding reform you are speaking about your income. We do subsidize secondary education with tax dollars but at the end of the day it's still a service to be purchased.
• sleeper

  

  Con_Alma;1210999 wrote:I think we rely too much on the public education system. We are trying to transfer the responsibility of educating kids to the system itself and then fund it as such. You can't do it. It won't work. The responsibility to educate exists with the parents and the students. If they don't own such responsibility they won't become educated.
  
  Public education is a tool to become educated. It isn't the only tool and yet we treat it as such culturally.

  I was mostly addressing higher education, but yes I do agree parents need to be more involved. My mom is a teacher and the level of effort for kids is absolutely appalling. They straight up do not care about doing HW or getting good grades. It's all about when they can play with their iPhones and iPods.
• I Wear Pants

  sleeper;1211018 wrote:I was mostly addressing higher education, but yes I do agree parents need to be more involved. My mom is a teacher and the level of effort for kids is absolutely appalling. They straight up do not care about doing HW or getting good grades. It's all about when they can play with their iPhones and iPods.

  That is simply bad parenting. My sister is a teacher and one of the parents yelled at her because their shitty kid wasn't doing his homework. Fucking really? Do they not understand what homework is? It's to be done at home. Plus this damn kid was 16, not the job of the teacher to hand hold him through every assignment.
  

  Con_Alma;1211013 wrote:It's not a right. We do, however, make it available to everyone. I don't advocate stopping that at all.
  
  Collegiate education is a service. When you speak about funding reform you are speaking about your income. We do subsidize secondary education with tax dollars but at the end of the day it's still a service to be purchased.

  I'm speaking about the current situation not working but also that I don't think no help for people is the solution either. Where some would say we need more federal loans,etc because college is too expensive others would say we need to eliminate all federal loans,etc because college is too expensive.
  
  I'm saying they're both wrong.
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211000 wrote:You really think that the energy companies who have a vested interest in absolutely nothing but profit can be trusted to honestly report/recommend regulations when those might be very expensive to them? I don't. Do I think they need to be ignored entirely in the conversation? No, because you are right that a lot of very smart people work for them obviously.
  
  But I never said anything about having random douchebags of the street "asking for more handouts" or proposing regulations.
  
  You would just rather have it that corporations can do whatever they want with no limitations because in your mind "might makes right".

  More expensive for whom? The company? Or the customers? At the end of the day, its not like companies are just like "Yeah let's dump shit in the water table because its cheaper"; but they can avoid stupid stuff like "Any waste product needs to be go through rigorous inspection to ensure it doesn't contain more than 10 PPB of C02. If so, $1,000,000 fine given to the poor average joe shmooo so he can go buy a new iPhone".
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211022 wrote:That is simply bad parenting. My sister is a teacher and one of the parents yelled at her because their shitty kid wasn't doing his homework. Fucking really? Do they not understand what homework is? It's to be done at home. Plus this damn kid was 16, not the job of the teacher to hand hold him through every assignment.

  I don't disagree at all. But the boomers will dismiss it as "Every generation goes through this blah blah". The boomers have ruined this country at every level and history books are already being written on their collective failure.
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211012 wrote:Who in the fuck in this thread asked for more "handouts"?
  
  Not thinking that the rich and massive corporation are perfect gods on earth who can do no wrong and should get whatever they want/can buy from our government doesn't mean I want "handouts".
  
  Edit: O-Trap, I repped him a second time for you.

  Because when you add regulations, costs will go up. Average Joe Shmoo will then bitch about costs going up and the government will give him more handouts so he can pay his bills. It's fraud at best and fraud at worst.
• I Wear Pants

  sleeper;1211023 wrote:More expensive for whom? The company? Or the customers? At the end of the day, its not like companies are just like "Yeah let's dump shit in the water table because its cheaper"; but they can avoid stupid stuff like "Any waste product needs to be go through rigorous inspection to ensure it doesn't contain more than 10 PPB of C02. If so, $1,000,000 fine given to the poor average joe shmooo so he can go buy a new iPhone".

  That's exactly what they did before we started regulating and fining the fuck out of them. And they still do that sometimes too.
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211026 wrote:That's exactly what they did before we started regulating and fining the fuck out of them. And they still do that sometimes too.

  And they are fined and dealt with. Incredible that they have all these lobbyists and paid for Senators but they still get sued by people for millions and have fines handed down to them by the government. Sounds like corporations are running everything :rolleyes:
• I Wear Pants

  sleeper;1211027 wrote:And they are fined and dealt with. Incredible that they have all these lobbyists and paid for Senators but they still get sued by people for millions and have fines handed down to them by the government. Sounds like corporations are running everything :rolleyes:

  Are you seriously debating this point?
  
  And why should the average person not be able to sue a corporation when they fuck up the water supply or the air or whatever yet you're perfectly fine with massive corporations constantly suing individuals. You're probably even cool with the RIAA thinking Limewire owes them $75 trillion dollars.
• Con_Alma

  I Wear Pants;1211022 wrote:...
  
  I'm speaking about the current situation not working but also that I don't think no help for people is the solution either. Where some would say we need more federal loans,etc because college is too expensive others would say we need to eliminate all federal loans,etc because college is too expensive.
  
  I'm saying they're both wrong.

  This whole idea of going away to school and taking out loans to fund living expenses ...then crying about how much debt a person graduates with is ridiculous.
  
  College isn't too expensive according to the market. They have yet to reach the point of diminishing returns.
  
  I don't mind "helping" people seek out the credentials of a secondary education but there's a difference between helping and providing them a solution to cover their expenses. Maybe the service academies have it right.
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211029 wrote:Are you seriously debating this point?

  Uh yes. Bear in mind corporations make up a small fraction of companies in this country and an even smaller fraction vote(technically corporations themselves don't vote). What's really running this country is a bunch of dumb fucks who want more handouts and don't care about logic, reason, economics, or anything as long as they get theirs.
  
  Pretty easy way to solve this. Get rid of the income tax and make a national sales tax on everything except food. If joe shmoo wants free healthcare, have a bill outline how much his sales tax goes up. $10 says he might think twice.
• I Wear Pants

  Con_Alma;1211031 wrote:This whole idea of going away to school and taking out loans to fund living expenses ...then crying about how much debt a person graduates with is ridiculous.
  
  College isn't too expensive according to the market. They have yet to reach the point of diminishing returns.
  
  I don't mind "helping" people seek out the credentials of a secondary education but there's a difference between helping and providing them a solution to cover their expenses. Maybe the service academies have it right.

  The market working without flaws requires perfect people of which there are none.
• Con_Alma

  I Wear Pants;1211040 wrote:The market working without flaws requires perfect people of which there are none.

  I agree and yet doing so doesn't change my opinion above.
• I Wear Pants

  sleeper;1211032 wrote:Uh yes. Bear in mind corporations make up a small fraction of companies in this country and an even smaller fraction vote(technically corporations themselves don't vote). What's really running this country is a bunch of dumb fucks who want more handouts and don't care about logic, reason, economics, or anything as long as they get theirs.
  
  Pretty easy way to solve this. Get rid of the income tax and make a national sales tax on everything except food. If joe shmoo wants free healthcare, have a bill outline how much his sales tax goes up. $10 says he might think twice.

  Having only a sales tax would disproportionately tax the poor who have to spend far more (all) of their income out of necessity. So they'd be taxed on 100% of income while wealthy people would be taxed on a tiny fraction of it.
• O-Trap

  

  I Wear Pants;1211008 wrote:Public education at least through high school should absolutely be a right.

  I don't necessarily think so. I think the availability of the materials USED in public education (ie the curriculum) should be affordable and available. Education is a powerful thing, and it can be just as effective through self-education (potentially moreso). In our current system, those who wish to learn do. Those who don't wish to learn don't. Now, while we have class rank and such, those who have no real desire to learn still earn degrees with people pushing them through. While a benefit to the student, having a qualification that he or she may not have cared to earn, it has cost the community a substantial (relatively) amount of money to get him or her that qualification. If someone doesn't want to be educated, and the parent or parents don't do enough to ensure that a child is educated, why are we forcing information onto them for so many years that they will not care to retain? Moreover, why are we qualifying them as "educated" by giving them a diploma at the end?
  

  I Wear Pants;1211008 wrote:I'll agree more that the current situation with college loans and stuff is not working though I think it's not only due to federal loans.

  Naturally. Cost of living continues to rise with inflation, meaning professors and staff are asking for higher wages. That cost doesn't get eaten by the university. It gets passed to the students and their families.
  

  I Wear Pants;1211008 wrote:There are other factors that need fixing as well there. If we stopped the loans prices still wouldn't drop.

  I'd actually be willing to bet they would. Without the federally-funded loans, fewer kids would go to college, resulting in lower revenue for the school. Given that many of a school's costs are static, and are not affected significantly by the number of students, they'd have almost the same cost, but with fewer students. I'm willing to bet they'd find ways to cut the cost in order to get more students back through the doors.
  
  However, it would obviously come at the cost of something. Possibly the quality of the professors or the school's athletic programs. Maybe the arts. Maybe new equipment costs, or from the fund used to update the campus.
  
  My personal belief is that the REAL problem is the archaic stigma associated with the Bachelor's degree. Given the sheer number of them being pumped out today as opposed to back when the stigma developed, it would appear that the ease by which a person can obtain one has increased. When ease increases, its credential decreases. It is of less value. So while businesses are slowly beginning to recognize this, it's definitely overdue.
  
  I'll take a self-educated person with an aptitude or skill for a job over someone with a college degree (well, I would if minimum wage wasn't so damn high ... as it is, I have to outsource), but there are still too many companies that wouldn't want to hear from the former because he didn't have a piece of paper that said he went on a four-year trip spent MOSTLY doing whatever he wanted.
  
  This is why schools like Oxford produce such high-level graduates. The education experience is so different. Each written assignment is 100% the student's responsibility, even in terms of determining length/word-count, number of sources cited, etc. You pretty much meet once a week with each professor, get a topic, and it's your job to learn it and establish something worth saying about it. Then, you meet the next week, and the professor critiques your work. If you slack, the professor proverbially makes you eat it, and you don't pass.
  
  Now THAT necessitates learning. It sounds difficult, but when did we decide that learning ... changing our understanding of some aspect of our universe, should be easy?
  

  I Wear Pants;1211008 wrote:There needs to be a lot of reform in the college funding area.

  I certainly don't disagree here.
• Con_Alma

  O-Trap;1211046 wrote:I...
  My personal belief is that the REAL problem is the archaic stigma associated with the Bachelor's degree. Given the sheer number of them being pumped out today as opposed to back when the stigma developed, it would appear that the ease by which a person can obtain one has increased. When ease increases, its credential decreases. It is of less value. So while businesses are slowly beginning to recognize this, it's definitely overdue.
  
  I'll take a self-educated person with an aptitude or skill for a job over someone with a college degree (well, I would if minimum wage wasn't so damn high ... as it is, I have to outsource), but there are still too many companies that wouldn't want to hear from the former because he didn't have a piece of paper that said he went on a four-year trip spent MOSTLY doing whatever he wanted.
  
  This is why schools like Oxford produce such high-level graduates. The education experience is so different. Each written assignment is 100% the student's responsibility, even in terms of determining length/word-count, number of sources cited, etc. You pretty much meet once a week with each professor, get a topic, and it's your job to learn it and establish something worth saying about it. Then, you meet the next week, and the professor critiques your work. If you slack, the professor proverbially makes you eat it, and you don't pass.
  
  Now THAT necessitates learning. It sounds difficult, but when did we decide that learning ... changing our understanding of some aspect of our universe, should be easy?
  
  
  
  ...

  I completely agree. People are going into debt today to gain credentials as opposed to becoming educated. They are seeking credentials that are losing value in the marketplace while often times 50% of their debt was incurred for living expenses. I'm not real excited to "help" them in that process at all.
  
  Colleges are subsidized businesses. If the market reduce,s they will cut costs along with finding ways to attract clientele.
• I Wear Pants

  O-Trap;1211046 wrote:I don't necessarily think so. I think the availability of the materials USED in public education (ie the curriculum) should be affordable and available. Education is a powerful thing, and it can be just as effective through self-education (potentially moreso). In our current system, those who wish to learn do. Those who don't wish to learn don't. Now, while we have class rank and such, those who have no real desire to learn still earn degrees with people pushing them through. While a benefit to the student, having a qualification that he or she may not have cared to earn, it has cost the community a substantial (relatively) amount of money to get him or her that qualification. If someone doesn't want to be educated, and the parent or parents don't do enough to ensure that a child is educated, why are we forcing information onto them for so many years that they will not care to retain? Moreover, why are we qualifying them as "educated" by giving them a diploma at the end?
  
  
  
  Naturally. Cost of living continues to rise with inflation, meaning professors and staff are asking for higher wages. That cost doesn't get eaten by the university. It gets passed to the students and their families.
  
  
  
  I'd actually be willing to bet they would. Without the federally-funded loans, fewer kids would go to college, resulting in lower revenue for the school. Given that many of a school's costs are static, and are not affected significantly by the number of students, they'd have almost the same cost, but with fewer students. I'm willing to bet they'd find ways to cut the cost in order to get more students back through the doors.
  
  However, it would obviously come at the cost of something. Possibly the quality of the professors or the school's athletic programs. Maybe the arts. Maybe new equipment costs, or from the fund used to update the campus.
  
  My personal belief is that the REAL problem is the archaic stigma associated with the Bachelor's degree. Given the sheer number of them being pumped out today as opposed to back when the stigma developed, it would appear that the ease by which a person can obtain one has increased. When ease increases, its credential decreases. It is of less value. So while businesses are slowly beginning to recognize this, it's definitely overdue.
  
  I'll take a self-educated person with an aptitude or skill for a job over someone with a college degree (well, I would if minimum wage wasn't so damn high ... as it is, I have to outsource), but there are still too many companies that wouldn't want to hear from the former because he didn't have a piece of paper that said he went on a four-year trip spent MOSTLY doing whatever he wanted.
  
  This is why schools like Oxford produce such high-level graduates. The education experience is so different. Each written assignment is 100% the student's responsibility, even in terms of determining length/word-count, number of sources cited, etc. You pretty much meet once a week with each professor, get a topic, and it's your job to learn it and establish something worth saying about it. Then, you meet the next week, and the professor critiques your work. If you slack, the professor proverbially makes you eat it, and you don't pass.
  
  Now THAT necessitates learning. It sounds difficult, but when did we decide that learning ... changing our understanding of some aspect of our universe, should be easy?
  
  
  
  I certainly don't disagree here.

  I don't think so. These stupid bastards frankly aren't that intelligent or caring. I haven't attended a school that didn't have the administrators getting a pay raise while at the same time making bullshit excuses why the need to raise tuition 3-10% each year. Hell when I was at Ashland the damn president there got a pay raise about the same time they cut 40 some staff positions.
  
  And yeah, they might eventually do that but I think it'd be at least a decade or so before they started actually bringing the cost down. That's 10 years of people not being able to go to school and I'm not okay with that.
• Con_Alma

  I Wear Pants;1211055 wrote:I don't think so. These stupid bastards frankly aren't that intelligent or caring. I haven't attended a school that didn't have the administrators getting a pay raise while at the same time making bull**** excuses why the need to raise tuition 3-10% each year. Hell when I was at Ashland the damn president there got a pay raise about the same time they cut 40 some staff positions.
  
  And yeah, they might eventually do that but I think it'd be at least a decade or so before they started actually bringing the cost down. That's 10 years of people not being able to go to school and I'm not okay with that.

  We do look at it very differently. I personally wouldn't care what the President made nor how the staff was managed. Was the service equal to the value you were being charged? If it wasn't, then your decision to continue purchasing it is not their fault. By the way, they have one of the best collegiate cafeterias I have ever eaten in!
  
  There are options for people outside of residing on campus. People wouldn't go a decade without being educated before the impacts of such activities permitted them to re-engage in the process.
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211029 wrote:Are you seriously debating this point?
  
  And why should the average person not be able to sue a corporation when they fuck up the water supply or the air or whatever yet you're perfectly fine with massive corporations constantly suing individuals. You're probably even cool with the RIAA thinking Limewire owes them $75 trillion dollars.

  I believe I said I'm okay with those lawsuits. If corporations were running everything, you'd think they'd make themselves impossible to sue. Too bad your theory doesn't work, how does that feel?
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211044 wrote:Having only a sales tax would disproportionately tax the poor who have to spend far more (all) of their income out of necessity. So they'd be taxed on 100% of income while wealthy people would be taxed on a tiny fraction of it.

  That sounds awful. I guess your version of fairness is having the rich pay for everything and the poor pay nothing. Yeah, real fair. :rolleyes:
• I Wear Pants

  sleeper;1211062 wrote:That sounds awful. I guess your version of fairness is having the rich pay for everything and the poor pay nothing. Yeah, real fair. :rolleyes:

  Okay isadore. Let's just not even read what people say huh?
  
  I didn't fucking say that. I said what I said. Learn to read.
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211055 wrote:I don't think so. These stupid bastards frankly aren't that intelligent or caring. I haven't attended a school that didn't have the administrators getting a pay raise while at the same time making bullshit excuses why the need to raise tuition 3-10% each year. Hell when I was at Ashland the damn president there got a pay raise about the same time they cut 40 some staff positions.
  
  And yeah, they might eventually do that but I think it'd be at least a decade or so before they started actually bringing the cost down. That's 10 years of people not being able to go to school and I'm not okay with that.

  Okay now for reality, the President was undervalued and the staff positions were no longer needed.
  
  Sorry to spoil your sob story with reality. Maybe the university should hire a less talented President and keep wasteful staff. Yeah, that'll help cut costs. :rolleyes:
• sleeper

  

  I Wear Pants;1211063 wrote:Okay isadore. Let's just not even read what people say huh?
  
  I didn't fucking say that. I said what I said. Learn to read.

  I don't care about your supposed logic. I understand what you wrote. But the poor are always screaming for fairness, but they don't really want fairness. They want a system that dis proportionally benefits them; sound familiar? I said a tax on everything except food. If you're poor, you don't need much more than food and some clothing; and since you aren't paying income tax you'll have more money in your paycheck each month(this was said tongue in cheek because the poor don't pay income tax).
• O-Trap

  

  I Wear Pants;1211055 wrote:I don't think so. These stupid bastards frankly aren't that intelligent or caring.

  Oh, I don't suggest that it's caring at all, but it's surprising how smart people get when being stupid is bad for their wallets.
  

  I Wear Pants;1211055 wrote:I haven't attended a school that didn't have the administrators getting a pay raise while at the same time making bullshit excuses why the need to raise tuition 3-10% each year. Hell when I was at Ashland the damn president there got a pay raise about the same time they cut 40 some staff positions.

  I've seen that as well, but eventually, 40 fewer employees affects the school's bottom line, which affects the profit potential for the administrator.
  

  I Wear Pants;1211055 wrote: And yeah, they might eventually do that but I think it'd be at least a decade or so before they started actually bringing the cost down. That's 10 years of people not being able to go to school and I'm not okay with that.

  When compared to schools like Ashland, there are still far more affordable schools. Granted, this was back during the 2003-2004 school year, but I spent a year going to the U of Akron's Wayne Campus and was able to write checks for tuition. I lived at home. I had little social life, sans a few friends who would go out once a week, and I worked multiple part-time jobs.
  
  Also, it isn't as though one cannot still get loans. They'd just be bank loans instead. Hell, MOST of my loans are bank loans. I don't like paying them, but they weren't unachievable, and they're not outrageous.
  
  And the higher the cost gets, the more drastic that drop in student enrollment is going to be. And admins will see that coming. Again, when it's going to affect your wallet, it's amazing how smart someone can be.
• sleeper

  

  What the poor need is a dose of reality; take away their welfare checks and raise their taxes. We'll see this country right the ship almost overnight.