Bernie Sanders's Charming, Perfectly Awful Plan to Save Higher Education

[Nice Squirrel]

Bernie Sanders's Charming, Perfectly Awful Plan to Save Higher Education

Chronicle link: http://chronicle.com/article/Bernie-Sanderss-Charming/231387/?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
ShareThis link: https://shar.es/1q98SD

His ideas are most important for how they might end up moving the boundaries of mainstream political culture.

States would have to promise that, within five years, "not less than 75 percent of instruction at public institutions of higher education in the State is provided by tenured or tenure-track faculty." In addition, any funds left over after eliminating tuition could be used only for purposes such as "expanding academic course offerings to students," "increasing the number and percentage of full-time instructional faculty," providing faculty members with "supports" such as "professional development opportunities, office space, and shared governance in the institution." States would be prohibited from using the money for merit-based financial aid, "nonacademic facilities, such as student centers or stadiums," or "the salaries or benefits of school administrators."

In other words, states would be required to embrace and the federal government would be obligated to enforce a professor-centered vision of how to operate a university: tenure for everyone, nice offices all around, and the administrators and coaches can go pound sand. It’s as if Bernie Sanders looked in the mirror, regarded his rumpled, redistributionist self, and said, "What legislation would most please the people who look and think the most like me?"

I agree, as written the plan is too dependent on tenured track faculty and destroys student support services.

 

[untermensche]

This is a national debate we should have had a long time ago.

The cost of a college education is ruinous.

I guarantee there is no Republican plan to help.

Millions of people trying to start their lives under huge debt is just fine with them.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I guarantee there is no Republican plan to help.

Oh yes there is! The private for-profit education lobby plans to education all the people for profit. Ain't that right Scott Walker and Jeb Bush?

And an outdated plan for MOOC-based education.

 

[untermensche]

Republicans like to talk about the Constitution a lot, that document that begins "We the People", but they have no concept of society or what is good or bad for a society as a whole. All they know is what is profitable for the individuals supporting them.

Providing people with a college education is an investment and a benefit to society. We should be trying to make it as easy as possible to afford one.

Civilized nations like Germany understand this.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I agree, as written the plan is too dependent on tenured track faculty and destroys student support services.

Only for universities that think "student support services" is a marketing term.

 

[dismal]

The cost of a college education is ruinous.

I looked it up and it turns out going to college is still entirely voluntary.

 

[fromderinside]

The cost of a college education is ruinous.

I looked it up and it turns out going to college is still entirely voluntary.

Really? Do you have a degree? When you parents looked at the numbers and the possibilities of you still being at home if you didn't get a degree and they said they would kick you out and disinherit you out unless you went to college and got a degree? How did you react? I thought so.

 

[dismal]

I looked it up and it turns out going to college is still entirely voluntary.

Really? Do you have a degree? When you parents looked at the numbers and the possibilities of you still being at home if you didn't get a degree and they said they would kick you out and disinherit you out unless you went to college and got a degree? How did you react? I thought so.

I bet in college they teach people the meaning of the word "voluntary".

 

[untermensche]

The cost of a college education is ruinous.

I looked it up and it turns out going to college is still entirely voluntary.

Here is the perfect example of childish self-interested thinking.

Having as many people as educated as possible is a public good, something good for society as a whole.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The cost of a college education is ruinous.

I looked it up and it turns out going to college is still entirely voluntary.

Technically so is eating. Starvation and slow agonizing death is always a valid option, yes?

 

[dismal]

I looked it up and it turns out going to college is still entirely voluntary.

Technically so is eating. Starvation and slow agonizing death is always a valid option, yes?

If someone someday argues "eating is ruinous" you may wish to spring this on them.

 

[untermensche]

Technically so is eating. Starvation and slow agonizing death is always a valid option, yes?

If someone someday argues "eating is ruinous" you may wish to spring this on them.

What if the cost of food was ruinous and hard to obtain?

Would this not represent a problem?

 

[dismal]

If someone someday argues "eating is ruinous" you may wish to spring this on them.

What if the cost of food was ruinous and hard to obtain?

Would this not represent a problem?

Yes. Yes, it would.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Technically so is eating. Starvation and slow agonizing death is always a valid option, yes?

If someone someday argues "eating is ruinous" you may wish to spring this on them.

No, that would be idiotic. Almost as idiotic as somebody who conflates "college education" with "the cost of college" as if they are the same thing.

Now, if somebody said something equivalent to "the COST of eating is economically ruinous," THEN I expect to hear you (and not ME) reply that eating is still entirely voluntary.

But, oops, looks like you didn't do that this time. So it seems you're perfectly capable of grasping the point when you aren't too busy being an ass.

 

[untermensche]

What if the cost of food was ruinous and hard to obtain?

Would this not represent a problem?

Yes. Yes, it would.

This you can see.

But making a college education harder to obtain is not a problem?

Why is that?

What good is served by making college unaffordable to many?

 

[dismal]

Yes. Yes, it would.

This you can see.

But making a college education harder to obtain is not a problem?

Why is that?

What good is served by making college unaffordable to many?

I commented on your comment that the cost of a college education was "ruinous". Yet more people then ever are going to college, in spite of the fact it is still (unlike health insurance) voluntary.

Do you detect any disconnect there?

 

[ZiprHead]

And an outdated plan for MOOC-based education.

What is MOOC-based education? Is that education by Momma and the Mooks?

 

[untermensche]

This you can see.

But making a college education harder to obtain is not a problem?

Why is that?

What good is served by making college unaffordable to many?

I commented on your comment that the cost of a college education was "ruinous". Yet more people then ever are going to college, in spite of the fact it is still (unlike health insurance) voluntary.

Do you detect any disconnect there?

We are living in a rotting capitalist economy after all.

People are desperate.

They have fewer and fewer options.

I'll try again.

What good is served by making college unaffordable to many and ruinous to many?

 

[fromderinside]

Really? Do you have a degree? When you parents looked at the numbers and the possibilities of you still being at home if you didn't get a degree and they said they would kick you out and disinherit you out unless you went to college and got a degree? How did you react? I thought so.

I bet in college they teach people the meaning of the word "voluntary".

Teaching something is one thing and very smart people are taught, er schooled, every day. Doing something is very hard to prove especially when free will is party to the doing.

But, sir, the question is did you 'choose' to go before or after your parents encouraged you to go. Of course.

 

[dismal]

I commented on your comment that the cost of a college education was "ruinous". Yet more people then ever are going to college, in spite of the fact it is still (unlike health insurance) voluntary.

Do you detect any disconnect there?

We are living in a rotting capitalist economy after all.

People are desperate.

They have fewer and fewer options.

I'll try again.

What good is served by making college unaffordable to many and ruinous to many?

I don't think anyone should be forced to pay anything to go to college. It should be a strictly voluntary transaction between a willing buyer and a willing provider of a college education.