Obama's Free Community College Plan

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
We need more doctors and less schooling for them. It shouldn’t take that long to educate people how to remove sickness.[/quote]

The problem is that actually finding out what’s wrong and treating them is very difficult.

I think an easier method is to train more general practitioners and make the standards a bit lax. AFAIK most people go to the doctor for rather mundane things and you shouldn’t need an actual doctor who has trained for decades to look at you.

But obviously there’s a perception issue. Would you rather have a guy who trained for a decade to look at you, or a guy who trained for 4 or so years after UG?

42

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
We need more doctors and less schooling for them. It shouldn’t take that long to educate people how to remove sickness.[/quote]

The problem is that actually finding out what’s wrong and treating them is very difficult.

I think an easier method is to train more general practitioners and make the standards a bit lax. AFAIK most people go to the doctor for rather mundane things and you shouldn’t need an actual doctor who has trained for decades to look at you.

But obviously there’s a perception issue. Would you rather have a guy who trained for a decade to look at you, or a guy who trained for 4 or so years after UG?[/quote]

Medical school is a racket designed to protect high pay for doctors. I am not trying to imply that learning medicine is not difficult but rather that there are artificial barriers into entry into the profession. These barriers also prevent alternative ideas from making it to the mainstream.

I believe medicine could be learned like any other high skilled profession through apprenticeship. I also believe the first statement you make about the difficulty of figuring out what is wrong is exactly what is wrong with the profession. The fact we call it medicine is a clue. Imagine if instead it was just called nutrition, for example (I am biased though; I don’t see any issue with disease that could not be cured or prevented through proper nutrition).

43

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

Medical school is a racket designed to protect high pay for doctors.

[/quote]

That’s how I’d describe the American Medical Association and the Australian equivalent which serve as Doctors’ unions for all intents and purposes. But what makes you say medical school is a racket?

[quote]

I am not trying to imply that learning medicine is not difficult but rather that there are artificial barriers into entry into the profession. These barriers also prevent alternative ideas from making it to the mainstream.

I believe medicine could be learned like any other high skilled profession through apprenticeship.[/quote]

It used to be done like that as was the profession of law.

44

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

But what makes you say medical school is a racket?[/quote]

Precisely because the American Medical Association (in the US) pulls way too much weight in the educating of doctors. Monopolies are generally not a good thing when they can control ideas.

45

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

But what makes you say medical school is a racket?[/quote]

Precisely because the American Medical Association (in the US) pulls way too much weight in the educating of doctors. Monopolies are generally not a good thing when they can control ideas.[/quote]

Yeah, but the AMA is the real racket. They cover all the legal fees of Doctors on negligence and even criminal raps. We had an Indian Doctor here recently who pretended he was a surgeon and maimed and killed a whole lot of patients then the AMA(Australian Medical Association) covered all his court costs. And every time a Doctor molests a patient the AMA is there to find the rapist’s legal expenses. And they’re always pushing government to do things in their interests. Thousands of Doctors were caught ripping off the public health system by filing phoney visitations and all kinds of outright fraud. The AMA funded a multimillion dollar effort on the Doctors’ behalf and worked out a deal with the government so they wouldn’t be criminally charged. Essentially an amnesty was issued.

46

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

But what makes you say medical school is a racket?[/quote]

Precisely because the American Medical Association (in the US) pulls way too much weight in the educating of doctors. Monopolies are generally not a good thing when they can control ideas.[/quote]

Yeah, but the AMA is the real racket. They cover all the legal fees of Doctors on negligence and even criminal raps. We had an Indian Doctor here recently who pretended he was a surgeon and maimed and killed a whole lot of patients then the AMA(Australian Medical Association) covered all his court costs. And every time a Doctor molests a patient the AMA is there to find the rapist’s legal expenses. And they’re always pushing government to do things in their interests. Thousands of Doctors were caught ripping off the public health system by filing phoney visitations and all kinds of outright fraud. The AMA funded a multimillion dollar effort on the Doctors’ behalf and worked out a deal with the government so they wouldn’t be criminally charged. Essentially an amnesty was issued. [/quote]

The American MA is also a racket and a trade union, but they don’t cover legal fees for doctors accused of malpractice. They just lobby for laws that don’t allow recovery for malpractice.

47

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

But what makes you say medical school is a racket?[/quote]

Precisely because the American Medical Association (in the US) pulls way too much weight in the educating of doctors. Monopolies are generally not a good thing when they can control ideas.[/quote]

Yeah, but the AMA is the real racket. They cover all the legal fees of Doctors on negligence and even criminal raps. We had an Indian Doctor here recently who pretended he was a surgeon and maimed and killed a whole lot of patients then the AMA(Australian Medical Association) covered all his court costs. And every time a Doctor molests a patient the AMA is there to find the rapist’s legal expenses. And they’re always pushing government to do things in their interests. Thousands of Doctors were caught ripping off the public health system by filing phoney visitations and all kinds of outright fraud. The AMA funded a multimillion dollar effort on the Doctors’ behalf and worked out a deal with the government so they wouldn’t be criminally charged. Essentially an amnesty was issued. [/quote]

I think we can agree that everything that has to do with the medical profession is corrupt. Don’t even get me started on the FDA.

48

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
President Obama will propose two years of free community college for American workers Friday, part of what the White House says is an effort to make community college as universal as high school is today.

“Put simply, what I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for anybody who’s willing to work for it,” he said aboard Air Force One amid a three-state tour to preview his State of the Union Address. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it;s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anyone in the world.”

Thoughts ?[/quote]

Just seeing this thread, haven’t read it yet–off the cuff however…

I like the idea of making education cheaper. It needs to be. Lord knows that even with a lot of students making dumb decisions on what to do with their “free” student loan money, the rest of them are almost drowning. Let’s leave aside the notion of “useful” or in-demand degree fields vs. say…art…and the bottom line is it should not cost 10,000+ in tuition alone to go to a state college and certainly shouldn’t cost 40,000+ to go to a private college or medical school every year (although private colleges are certainly free to charge whatever they feel like, that is sort of the meaning of private companies and institutions).

I had friends that took pre-requisites at community colleges, they saved 10s of thousands by getting 2 years out of the way. I didn’t, I don’t regret it–both because of the nature of my degree and opportunity for lab work early on and the actual “college experience”–but I think it is entirely too inflated in cost.

However, I also don’t think that this is necessarily the answer–tax subsidy for higher education is one of the less stupid ideas for using tax money, but this is an ad hoc solution to a systemic problem and for that reason I don’t see it succeeding in the goal.

The reasons Germany and some other nations can have “free” college is multi-factorial:

  1. Their education systems are much more demanding to get to college–you take comprehensive board exams to enter each successive level of school, and if you fail (you do have one re-take chance, I think), you are forever locked out of the chance at University or Medical school. Your ONLY options are tech and vocational schools. Hell, if you score low enough they don’t even let you into those either–although that was in an older system and I’m not sure if that holds true any more. You are expected to be self driven and work up to standards and if you fail you fail…this is not true for us in the USA.

This is also part of the “grade inflation” question in indirect terms.

  1. Their taxes are much much higher than ours, their military spending miniscule in comparison, their worldwide presence in terms of bases, FOBs, forces, etc is almost non-existent in comparison to ours. The infrastructure they spend on is social net and education. In other words, to make things like that happen here on a national level we would have to change everything about our spending, budget, and worldwide force deployment (due to funding changes obviously).

Bottom line, I doubt this works–although this is prior to looking at the “plan” in any details so I dunno, maybe I’m surprised…but given politicians’ “plans” are usually really “half baked ideas that sound good” I am skeptical.

49

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
I’m pretty sure most post-secondary education is subsidized. If that is the case, then people should have to compete for seats in fields where there is expected growth. I know this might lead to delays in qualified people being available, but to me, it’s better than graduating a bunch of shitheads without any useful skills.[/quote]

I’m not sure what you mean by your first sentence, but I do agree with your second sentence–I’d rather have qualified people than a glut of idiots.

50

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

Thoughts ?[/quote]

Shit, I donno man there are pros and cons either way. It’s relatively cheap (went to a community college for a year), people can learn a trade or at least get started, it could communities that use to or still do rely on blue collar work that has dried up in recent decades, etc… On the flip side where the hell is this $70B gonna come from? Where does this lead us? A “free” undergraduate degree 15-20 years down the road? In a generation or two you’ll need a Ph.D. to be competitive, undergrad degrees are already a dime a dozen.

[/quote]

There’s no chance in hell that 70 billion is actually what this will cost. None. ACA anyone?

Also, at least in my field and all science fields, you not only need a Ph.D. to be competitive you also need at LEAST 1 post-doctoral “residency”. This has been the case for 25-35 years already.

51

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Thoughts ?[/quote]

Three thoughts

One, that a dumbed-down associate’s degree from a taxpayer-subsidised community college probably isn’t going to make the recipients of the dumbed-down high school diploma any more ready to start attending the dumbed-down freshman year at their overpriced, grade-inflated university, or any more ready to enter the dumbed-down workforce. Just as taxpayer-subsidised public schools do not, generally speaking, attract the best teachers, I can’t imagine that a taxpayer-funded community college would be featuring the cream of the professorial crop.

Two, that in this life, you not only get what you pay for, you also VALUE what you pay for. Conversely, you don’t value what you don’t pay for. The state of subsidised housing projects should give us some idea of this.

Finally three, that if the President wants to throw a few trillion dollars at a program which will do nothing more than raise the general level of American mediocrity a few degrees, why not use it to give scholarships to the really exceptional students who might not be able to attend first-class universities?
[/quote]

Damn. Everything I meant to say only compressed much more and in much more direct language lol. Great post, totally agree.

52

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I am not trying to imply that learning medicine is not difficult but rather that there are artificial barriers into entry into the profession. These barriers also prevent alternative ideas from making it to the mainstream.

I believe medicine could be learned like any other high skilled profession through apprenticeship.[/quote]

It used to be done like that as was the profession of law.[/quote]

Thank God we’ve advanced, amirite? I mean, just think how difficult it would be for an idiot to become a doctor or lawyer if he had to first be accepted as an apprentice. Luckily, now you know that your doctor has had to sit through endless classroom hours of poetry, music, and other arts that he will never have to use. He has also demonstrated his proficiency in passing tests in other areas that are not applicable to his profession. Of course, that also means that people who may have been better suited to perform the job your doctor is about to are now doing something else because they did not take to the mandatory school. Mmmm…the sweet smell of democracy.

53

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I am not trying to imply that learning medicine is not difficult but rather that there are artificial barriers into entry into the profession. These barriers also prevent alternative ideas from making it to the mainstream.

I believe medicine could be learned like any other high skilled profession through apprenticeship.[/quote]

It used to be done like that as was the profession of law.[/quote]

Thank God we’ve advanced, amirite? I mean, just think how difficult it would be for an idiot to become a doctor or lawyer if he had to first be accepted as an apprentice. Luckily, now you know that your doctor has had to sit through endless classroom hours of poetry, music, and other arts that he will never have to use. He has also demonstrated his proficiency in passing tests in other areas that are not applicable to his profession. Of course, that also means that people who may have been better suited to perform the job your doctor is about to are now doing something else because they did not take to the mandatory school. Mmmm…the sweet smell of democracy.[/quote]

And consider also, there is a de facto apprenticeship with newb medical doctors, anyway. No MD fresh out of school is given free reign. They have to be vetted by other doctors they work with.

54

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
We need more doctors and less schooling for them. It shouldn’t take that long to educate people how to remove sickness.[/quote]

The problem is that actually finding out what’s wrong and treating them is very difficult.

I think an easier method is to train more general practitioners and make the standards a bit lax. AFAIK most people go to the doctor for rather mundane things and you shouldn’t need an actual doctor who has trained for decades to look at you.

But obviously there’s a perception issue. Would you rather have a guy who trained for a decade to look at you, or a guy who trained for 4 or so years after UG?[/quote]

Medical school is a racket designed to protect high pay for doctors. I am not trying to imply that learning medicine is not difficult but rather that there are artificial barriers into entry into the profession. These barriers also prevent alternative ideas from making it to the mainstream.

I believe medicine could be learned like any other high skilled profession through apprenticeship. I also believe the first statement you make about the difficulty of figuring out what is wrong is exactly what is wrong with the profession. The fact we call it medicine is a clue. Imagine if instead it was just called nutrition, for example (I am biased though; I don’t see any issue with disease that could not be cured or prevented through proper nutrition).[/quote]

There are two separate issues here—

  1. The time it takes to learn medicine well to practice and

  2. The amount of money you pay to learn medicine now.

magick—#1 is certainly beyond a two year program, even if you are general practice. I don’t blame you for not seeing that, but as a guy who works in science, you can’t even lay the groundwork for basic engineering in two years let alone medical practice. Big Hell no on that no matter how trivial the patient’s appointment.

The flip side to this is what Germany does–talking with some german osteopaths (similar to our chiropractors except they are in with all other doctors at the same medical college and simply focus on that path), who are BOTH 24 AND PRACTICING this is what happens:

After high school you take your board exams. If you pass you can choose to go to medical school DIRECTLY from high school instead of a regular college. This is because medical school does not teach any english, foreign language, general history, or other “general ed” requirements. They go straight to science and it is ALL science, chemistry, biology, medicine, labs, and practicums. They cut out all the filler. You still go for 5 years I believe, but you get done with a degree and can practice privately under a senior doctor. This is roughly the equivalent of your residency in your chosen area and you make money while doing it, then later you can practice on your own. They were absolutely shocked when I told them how long a doctor here had to be in school.

That will not work here in the USA because of our standards and approach to education. Once again, a systemic overhaul would be needed to even start approaching it that way.

#2 is something I agree with–it is outrageously expensive. Part of those costs are legitimate–instrumentation to train on, equipped labs and operating rooms, all of these things are expensive and more expensive than a regular college environment by virtue of the instrumentation and detailed knowledge needed. On the other hand, there are a lot of inflated costs as well and they drive the cost way above what it needs to be.

55

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]NickViar wrote:
Thank God we’ve advanced, amirite? I mean, just think how difficult it would be for an idiot to become a doctor or lawyer if he had to first be accepted as an apprentice. Luckily, now you know that your doctor has had to sit through endless classroom hours of poetry, music, and other arts that he will never have to use. He has also demonstrated his proficiency in passing tests in other areas that are not applicable to his profession. Of course, that also means that people who may have been better suited to perform the job your doctor is about to are now doing something else because they did not take to the mandatory school. Mmmm…the sweet smell of democracy.[/quote]

And consider also, there is a de facto apprenticeship with newb medical doctors, anyway. No MD fresh out of school is given free reign. They have to be vetted by other doctors they work with.
[/quote]

Of course. At least you know that the senior doctors, who are just employees, have nothing but the patients’ best interests in mind, certainly not their own jobs and the threat posed by bright, new doctors.

56

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

Bottom line, I doubt this works–although this is prior to looking at the “plan” in any details so I dunno, maybe I’m surprised…but given politicians’ “plans” are usually really “half baked ideas that sound good” I am skeptical.[/quote]

There used to be time before college was promoted to be necessary for every breathing human being that it was affordable. Employers would also contribute to an employees further education if it was deemed beneficial to the business. Since the advent of government intervention in college tuition this phenomenon has all but vanished. Intervention also correlates to the rapid increase in college expense.

57

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]NickViar wrote:
Thank God we’ve advanced, amirite? I mean, just think how difficult it would be for an idiot to become a doctor or lawyer if he had to first be accepted as an apprentice. Luckily, now you know that your doctor has had to sit through endless classroom hours of poetry, music, and other arts that he will never have to use. He has also demonstrated his proficiency in passing tests in other areas that are not applicable to his profession. Of course, that also means that people who may have been better suited to perform the job your doctor is about to are now doing something else because they did not take to the mandatory school. Mmmm…the sweet smell of democracy.[/quote]

And consider also, there is a de facto apprenticeship with newb medical doctors, anyway. No MD fresh out of school is given free reign. They have to be vetted by other doctors they work with.
[/quote]

Of course. At least you know that the senior doctors, who are just employees, have nothing but the patients’ best interests in mind, certainly not their own jobs and the threat posed by bright, new doctors.[/quote]

Often their career success is tied to the young doctors in their charge.

58

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
I’m pretty sure most post-secondary education is subsidized. If that is the case, then people should have to compete for seats in fields where there is expected growth. I know this might lead to delays in qualified people being available, but to me, it’s better than graduating a bunch of shitheads without any useful skills.[/quote]

I’m not sure what you mean by your first sentence, but I do agree with your second sentence–I’d rather have qualified people than a glut of idiots.[/quote]

For reference I’m in Canada. Basically students don’t pay the true value of their tuition as the university gets subsidized by the province of federally. I’m not sure if that’s the same in the US, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

59

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

Bottom line, I doubt this works–although this is prior to looking at the “plan” in any details so I dunno, maybe I’m surprised…but given politicians’ “plans” are usually really “half baked ideas that sound good” I am skeptical.[/quote]

There used to be time before college was promoted to be necessary for every breathing human being that it was affordable. Employers would also contribute to an employees further education if it was deemed beneficial to the business. Since the advent of government intervention in college tuition this phenomenon has all but vanished. Intervention also correlates to the rapid increase in college expense.[/quote]

Thank God that those days are long gone. Government intervention increased demand, and anyone with any knowledge of economics knows that increased demand=decreased cost, right?

60

Didn’t read through the last three pages, but my thoughts are:

This will put (majority, I don’t necessarily think all) the already struggling private universities out of business. If the first two years are paid for, no one will pay 20K+ a year to attend a private university.

If I’m allowed to jump on the conspiracy theory wagon, briefly, the government will have complete control of higher education.

Additionally:

  1. We can’t afford it.
  2. We don’t have the infrastructure to support it.
  3. There aren’t enough jobs for 4 year degree holders, increasing the supply of skilled labor doesn’t directly correlate to an increase in quality jobs.
  4. Saying that owning a house is an American right got us into trouble; saying having health care is an American right IS getting us into trouble; I do not believe this is the appropriate route for having an educated society and a skilled labor force.

If you want free education, join the military, get yourself a scholarship or work. I have a difficult time believing that attaining a degree/certificate is infeasible.