...especially since there are many that won't benefit from any more "learning" anyway. To me, college is for those that want to actually take on an occupation that needs/requires the additional education. We don't need to be sending kids to college just to get a degree in something that isn't marketable. We have too many philosophy, general studies, art history, etc. students out there already that can't use their degree to get a paying job...
At the risk of sounding almost "1984ish", why not make only the "useful" education tracks free - and have the students need to maintain a certain level of competence to avoid having to repay their tuition costs (whether in $ or in time spent in service)... No more degrees that are only useful to propagating that particular subject... For example - I know someone who received a doctorate in Medieval English. They are now a tenured professor teaching Medieval English. I wouldn't go so far as to state that that particular subject is totally useless, but the argument could be made that it really doesn't benefit society at large very much... And there are a whole whack of subjects to which the exact same paradigm could be applied.
I do like the "if you drop out, just add those years to your other service" part of that. Just make that after 13 years (K-12).
I like this idea, but would add "higher education" (i.e. university, college or trade school) with the caveat that the education would have to be deemed beneficial by some more measurable process...
I turned down a music scholarship, not because I didn't like the subject... I just couldn't see how I'd be able to support myself (and a family) with that as a career... Obviously any successful rock star would disagree...
And while we're fixing the world
, make receiving welfare (and I don't mean to make that sound uniformly derogatory - some people
have actually earned it...) a little less acceptable. In the neighbourhood I grew up in, there were many 3rd or 4th generation "welfare families" that had absolutely no real incentive to get out of the program. My family worked hard to not be 'on the dole', and sometimes made do with less than the families on the program were receiving. It's hard to make someone want to work when it's given to them for free.
Way back when.., I was a full-time student with a full-time night job - worked 8hrs, went to school for 6hrs, and slept and did homework the other 10hrs. My marks might have been better if I didn't have to work, but that's how I afforded tuition.
It really ticked me off when I followed somebody that I knew had never held a job, or gone to school, through the supermarket with pasta and bread and other minimum staples in my cart, while they had cheese, steak and snack food in theirs... All the foods I only saw on trips home for holiday dinners...
Sigh, and now my kids
ask for Kraft dinner (that's boxed mac and cheese for my American friends.)...
+1
Jamie