At the time that we made high school free the idea was that it was cheaper to make people job ready than to deal with a bunch of people who couldn’t do much of anything. They were able to participate in and produce only a very low standard of living and the country was stuck at that level. At that time, high school was considered a good education. That is now the situation with a college education.The average college graduate pays about $5800 more a year in federal taxes than the average high school graduate. Over 30 years, that totals about $172,000. If that’s divided by the 4 years it takes to get a college education, the government would break even if it paid every student $42,000 a year to attend school.
This doesn’t even consider that with the degree, the person is less likely to ever need unemployment or welfare, that more students would complete high school if they could see a clear way to a really good job, and that they would be enriching the Social Security and Medicare funds. They would also be paying a larger amount in all other types of taxes. And, the person who takes the job he would have been doing without the education is contributing to society instead of being unemployed.
The best investment we could make to keep America strong is to not just forgive all student loans but to make all higher education, including trade schools, etc totally free, as long as the student is making decent grades, and increase the number of schools and teachers to make room for all who can profit from the education. We don’t, even at a time of high unemployment, have so much a lack of jobs as we have a lack of people who have the skills to perform the jobs that are available- in other words, a lack of education
Diane Lee Premium Member about 5 years ago
This doesn’t even consider that with the degree, the person is less likely to ever need unemployment or welfare, that more students would complete high school if they could see a clear way to a really good job, and that they would be enriching the Social Security and Medicare funds. They would also be paying a larger amount in all other types of taxes. And, the person who takes the job he would have been doing without the education is contributing to society instead of being unemployed.
The best investment we could make to keep America strong is to not just forgive all student loans but to make all higher education, including trade schools, etc totally free, as long as the student is making decent grades, and increase the number of schools and teachers to make room for all who can profit from the education. We don’t, even at a time of high unemployment, have so much a lack of jobs as we have a lack of people who have the skills to perform the jobs that are available- in other words, a lack of education