I'd honestly rather pay 50% income tax for Free Education, Healthcare, Roads and all the normal shit governments do than pay 25% income tax and go into debt for 20+ years for education or healthcare let alone both.

The government can and does make things cheaper because of their monopsony power in teh economy.

For example we have hospital A and Hospital B.

The government says "hey I only want to pay x$ for this service" hospital A says OK, and hospital B says no way..

Hospital B closes because nobody can go there unless they pay out of pocket.

Healthcare has now been made cheaper. The same scenario could be played out in any other environment where the government so chooses to interact with society.

I understand a fair bit about the nature of US debt, but I guess my kneejerk reaction was to think of a "cost" of providing free tuition. The other stuff goes beyond what I know about. Good insight in your other posts, thanks brother.

I agree with you (in more ways than several) but am I interested to hear a rebuttal to the classic counter-argument so I'll play devil's advocate: if the system runs like that where is the incentive to actually provide a good service? As you said they don't need to worry about being profitable, doesn't that also mean they don't need to worry about being the best they can be, or improving the services offered in a timely manner?

This is exactly the criticism that would be leveled by classical economics. However, that would be ignoring the fact that there's essentially no such thing as a free market when it comes to producing *most* goods - especially goods whose demand is inelastic - so the goods we already consume are already of an inferior quality relative to the goods sprinkled with magical pixie dust which the free market could ostensibly provide. However, widespread discontent with government run services either because of their inferiority or delays in receipt, could cause social discontent, which in a democracy would mean loss of power for the people generally in-charge of the government, and potentially privatization efforts (loss of employment, potentially for the bureaucrats who run the entity) for the state apparatus. It could likewise make the populace more willing to contribute additional funds or cut other programs to finance well-liked programs.

Your last question on timely manner is another question that deals primarily with the question of "equilibrium" economics. That is to say that in a standard supply and demand model there's a point at which the lines cross and create "equilibrium" that means you're providing and producing goods at the optimal level for revenue. If you were to impose some other sort of regulation (monopoly, trust, price floors, monopsony or price ceilings) the argument can then be made that you bring the market out of equilibrium and force a glut or shortage, with additional modifiers from the relative elasticity of demand. In educational matters this particular factor is really played up in the media, for example how prized test scores are in Vietnam and China, because their free in-country tuition forces students to seek out the very best grades and test scores or they won't be given the opportunity to attend the more desirable universities - intrinsically this is meant to say there's a shortage of universities with desirable qualities. You also see it in healthcare with ridiculous anecdotes about waiting for healthcare in Canada, etc.

I'll even draw a shitty graph:

http://i61.tinypic.com/2076l48.jpg

(I should note that you could also tell how much the program would cost by taking the area of the triangle formed by ceiling-supply, ceiling demand, and post-ceiling desired-supply, and doing a little calculus - so if you wanted to fund the program in advance (as most governments do) you could also find what your actual supply would be in the event that you had no intention of providing the post-ceiling desired supply)

The state has three options in the case of a shortage: raise prices, expand the supply, or let the shortage continue (planned privation/rationing etc). In the case of university being provided free to the user, you'd have only the latter two options.

In short, ideally a highly elastic good in a free market will see users switch to a different supplier if they don't like the commodity they receive. However, in a state context, instead of just switching suppliers (which may yet be possible in the form of competing private institutions or leaving the country) one could also exert pressure on the state itself through the vote, or civil disobedience. Either would work.

if you go to college and don't get something useful out of it, just means you didn't hustle hard enough.

college is an investment, if you don't treat it that way, you can't be surprised when you eventually get to the real world and fail (with no return on your initial investment, AKA STUDENT LOAN DEBT)

but if you aren't dumb, and you work hard, you will (barring crazy bad luck) see a return on your investment in the form of higher wages.

also, if you fall for scammy colleges, thats your own damn fault. "waah i invested in cutco knives, now im not making any money on them!!!"

Good joke. This is true in theory, but "social discontent" stirred up by policies enacted by the current and previous administrations has yet to have any net effect on the status quo in the U.S. and to be honest, I doubt it will. Then again, the U.S. isn't a democracy.

You would be correct in that case ;) The social discontent also hasn't been of a character to actually affect any meaningful change in any case.

Free is stupid. Go get a job and scholarship or whatever make it happen. For all the problems with the government there are just as many or more problems with people's ability to manage money.

So fuck all the poor people eh, they deserve it because 'they are bad at managing money'.

Maybe when every job done is fairly reimbursed then you can make that argument, but for the moment all you're doing is buying into the usual crap that unpaid labor (like all the housework my and likely your parents did while bringing us up) is worthless. Sorry but um no. Likewise none of this accounts for an uneven distribution of opportunity or any prejudices that come into play even when you are being paid (eg women getting paid something like 78% of what men are in the American workforce).

For example my mother's actually damn good at managing money, she does all the finances and juggles all the balance transfers etc etc, and yet because she stayed home to look after her kids her superannuation is nonexistant while my dad has a few hundred grand. Is that fair? Does she now deserve to have to work past retirement age because, well, because she was good at managing money?

It's pretty obvious by now that this capitalist system is inequitable, so rather than blame the victims perhaps you could consider what you could do to change it. The future Albert Einsteins and Isaac Newtons from the gutter and the Third World will thank you.

no wonder the education system is broken

http://i.imgur.com/wWSY2KC.jpg

Government does have the power and influence to make things cheaper/less costly. But even then I fail to see how socializing costs is bad?

Better to have a strong safety net than no net at all. Germany is pretty good at that.

The point I was trying to make is that the government is not the source of all problems and people do need to take care of themselves. I'm not buying into any of the crap you are talking about I am speaking from personal experience where guys are getting payed $100 000 a year and still can barely get by. It makes no sense to me at all. Your personal experience with your mother is not anymore or less than important than my own. I can't speak in about the American system because I don't know it at all... However you are in control of your own destiny and you can make it happen. It's awesome that your mother can do that and it is unfair. If it really is that bad in America move to Canada.

I just want to throw two more arguments in here:
Regarding the article #30 linked: Of course higher education isn't free. Nothing is free. But this:

just doesn't feel right.
I know it's a bit different in the US but I'll try to explain why things are the way they are over here.
During an apprenticeship to become a skilled worker (had to paraphrase it, didn't find a single word for it), you don't pay for your "education", you get payed. Why? At first other workers will have to put time into teaching you, therefore losing the company money. Of course it'll get better, you'll soon make the company more money than it loses because of the worker teaching you not being able to work during that time, but still getting paid. But just hiring would still be cheaper. Why do companies bother with training someone young and unskilled, maybe even straight out of school with no previous experience?
Because they have to. If those who need those workers don't train them, no one will. And you can't just hire someone if there is no one left who can do that job, no matter what you are willing to pay (welcome to supply and demand). The profit you can't make if you don't have workers outweighs the profit you lose by training those workers.

The point is, the worth of the work you did and what you got paid are pretty much equal. So essentially you got trained for free (the company paid for it). Why should higher education be any different?

Now the obvious difference to higher education is:
Companies are neither directly involved in the process of higher education nor do they know who of those studying right now is actually going to for them in the future.

The idea is that since those with higher education in the end will benefit companies in a way that will generate them monetary profit. Other companies will in turn benefit from those companies investing their now higher profit in goods and services that should enable them to further increase their profit. In the end the whole economy will benefit solely because a number of individuals received higher education. However if those individuals do not have the means to acquire higher education it must be the goal of every entity in that economy, persons and companies alike, to help them in order to maximize their own profit. So it is perfectly legitimate that everyone pays for the education of more or less "a select few". In one of the implentations of this system the state sees to that everyone pays their part in form of taxes and the universities see to that those who are best suited (aka those who don't fail the tests) receive that higher education that will later benefit the economy.

In Germany the selection of those best suited is softened up quite a bit because we care not only about the economy but about people aswell. It's fairly easy to change that by cutting budgets (politicians love to cut budgets) so the universities are forced to either lower their quality standards or to accept less students (done by grades so less students -> better average).

Another thing:
Socializing costs can in fact reduce them. You don't pay only your student loans, you pay interest aswell. Assuming the interest rate is greater than the inflation that means you actually pay more than what you need. There is no interest rate on taxes. If the state pays for your education you'll later only have to pay back what you actually needed through taxes. Even if the state is in debt (which is a bad thing and a whole different issue) it'll still get a lower interest rate than your student loans. The cost is probably still spread across the populace to a higher degree, depending on which implementations you compare (student loan payments tax deductable etc.).

Same for retirement pensions, if you have to save up for yourself you have to work against inflation and won't benefit from increasing actual wages in the future. Depending on the ratio of working to non-working population a state-run solution can reduce the costs for the individual significantly.

But not everyone can win, right? So who loses? Simple: The banks. If your states goal is to maximize the banks' profit (wether or not the crippling debt for everyone who persues higher education is a bonus) then sure, go ahead.
But if your state cares more about banks than about you, I'd consider moving.

The thing is that the people with salaries of $100,000 will still have access to things if they aren't free (generally people who really 'can't manage money' spend it too much, so they're quite capable of spending a bit more for an education). It seems a bit weird to talk about salaried workers in a discussion about tuition fees though, they're not normally the ones who need tertiary education because they've already had it... I do see where you're coming from a bit more now but in reality, I think, a salaried worker who just for example pisses it all away (alcohol) will still be able to have access to something as important to them as education, whereas it's just not an option for people from a financially disadvantaged background.

I'm not actually American, I'm Australian, but there are plenty of similarities in the systems. For example:

This is why our tertiary fees are growing :| it's going to cost me in the tens to hundreds of thousands over 3-5 years to go to uni and our government wants to increase it. They're also talking about forcing those with 'outstanding' student loans to 'repay' the debt even though if they haven't already then that means they've never earned enough for it to start being taken out of their salary on top of their tax (it's a bit complicated but basically they're targeting stay at home parents and the poor and disabled) so apologies if this is a bit of a raw subject for me lol

On the other hand free tuition might be one of the reasons my German penfriend didn't get offered a place at a uni this year or last year :S At least one of the advantages of our system is that basically everyone gets offered a place somewhere, it just might be at a shitty uni. If only because of the fees they can squeeze out of us.

Apologies for the ramble

coming from a guy who lives in a country with over 50% taxes, trust me when I say you don't. We've had really socialist governments (and when I say socialist I don't mean stuff like obamacare, I mean things close to soviet rules) that make us pay for insane amounts of taxes (and taxes on taxes..) for these things, and that doesn't guarantee that they are better than the private sector at this. Because of the government becoming so big (1/3rd of employees works for the state), it's also extremely inefficient and most of the income gets lost before it's used for its actual purpose. The services are actually underfunded and they're pretty shit, even though we pay insane amounts of taxes for them. The national railroad went on strike 33% of all working days last year and they've never been less punctual in 50 years, just to give an example. And no, they don't provide minimal service.

A lot of people here would rather pay a bit more for services they want, hoping it would improve them, and be taxed less. I'm not saying it should be like america and be forced into insane amounts of debt just to study, though. That's probably the extreme opposite of our current situation.

Well the reason the national rail system is state-owned is because it'd simply be too expensive for a private company to build and operate, so you really have no choice there. It's why the good ol' US of A doesn't have a national rail transport system for passengers. I mean I'm sure you could *find* trains if you lived in the right cities, but it's nowhere near anything in Europe and it's definitely not high speed, and it wouldn't take you coast to coast in any timely manner.

It's honestly quite shocking to most Europeans who come here and see how very backwards many parts of the US are. Virtually every person I've known who has gone outside of the US to live in Europe almost immediately participates in that country's healthcare system to get a full check-up something that would cost over 1,000$ (a full course of blood work, cancer checks, x-rays, DNA screen, etc). Not to mention the often state-backed telecommunication companies. When my x spent a year in France, in order for me to call her it was ~15$/hr just to talk to her, however she only paid something like 50$/month and could call me whenever she wanted, and had internet service that I could only dream of lol. Not to mention the transportation options - basically if you don't own a car here, and don't live in a major city, you're fucked and can't go anywhere lol.

But indeed, governments do mismanage funds from time to time, particularly if the bureaucracy that operates the systems is allowed to start doing wacky things simply for the sake of demanding additional funding.

My point remains that the government doesn't owe you anything, and is often wrongly blamed for personal failures and that it is certainly possible to overcome those obstacles provided you want it bad enough and you are willing to put in the effort. Though I admit the American system is fucked... They still use imperial measurement system... Pathetic!!!

In the case I described the salaried workers have not had any post secondary education at all. I didn't start financially advantaged at all either and it bothers me that you think that I had.

I just gave the railway as an example, it's not the only problem. Privatized railway does exist though. The nationalized company NMBS that manages it makes 330,7 million euro loss/ year, and they've been voted most hated company every time for the last few years btw. Where did she live in Europe? That's pretty important. Public transport is a strike and delay infested nightmare here. It's wrong to generalize but I'm assuming it's no dream in most parts of Europe either.

We generally speaking have 2 big telecom companies (Telenet and Belgacom) and Belgacom is largely backed by the state. 6% more loss per quarter and ironically some of the highest telecom prices in all of Europe. It's not even fast or good either.

To pay for that healthcare you mention keep in mind that every employer here pays 3 times the amount you earn to the state just to keep you, and employees pay extra fees + highest taxes in the world (last time I checked; individual alone is 55%). If you make 2700/month, then you cost way over 7000/month to your employer for things like the RSZ (social security). They're also notoriously bad at distributing it and most gets lost in the process, as I've mentioned. 1/3rd of multinationals has left our country because of these rules in the past couple of years and unemployment is going through the roofs.

I understand that you can think that increasing taxes and reducing services prices works, but in the case of my country it hasn't in the slightest. I don't see this working in the US either, considering how many trillions of debt they already have.

also quick note our debt as % of GDP is 107.65%, by comparison the us had 113% after world war 2 :L