Free Tuition for Math, Science, and Engineering? 766
Gibbs-Duhem writes "Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus wants free college tuition for US math, science, and engineering majors conditional upon working or teaching in the field for at least four years. From the article: 'The goal, he said in an interview last week, is to better prepare children for school and get more of them into college to make the United States more globally competitive, particularly with countries like China and India. "I think the challenge is fierce, and I think we have a real obligation to go the extra mile and redo things a bit differently, so we leave this place in better shape than we found it," Baucus said.' Do you think this would help with the US's lackluster performance in these fields?"
I think it's good (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, it should be good for the country as a whole, having more scientists and engineers. Those extra beakers and hammers are really valuable!
Great Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I think it's good (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I think it's good (Score:3, Interesting)
But then again, I also believe the plan to make people pay per kilometer of car use is a scam at best (some IT company pushing a ridiculously expensive project that will keep them busy for years), an Orwellian system at worst (it involves tracking every car on the road). It can be, and is in fact being, done much simpler by having a tax on gasoline. That automatically punishes the gas guzzlers more than the fuel-efficient cars, as well. I can't understand how the politicians who are pushing this project haven't thought of that as well. I can't remember any of them arguing why more fuel taxes aren't a much cheaper way of metering car use.
Another economic fallacy. (Score:1, Interesting)
You have countries like Canada and Egypt where the government spends a lot of money on education but have a higher unemployment rate than the U.S.
The notion that pumping more money into a system ( especially when the government is involved) will fix any problem is just bad economics
Here is a paper that argues that what we need is to let the free market work, to get the government out of the education biz and NOT subsidize more college graduates.
The paper is called "The overselling of higher education"
http://www.johnlocke.org/acrobat/pope_articles/th
I suggest all
Re:But have they considered (Score:5, Interesting)
I truly applaud this senator for the initiative and believe that that ALL states should follow suit and offer a similar program, to help keep the sciences strong in the US.
Re:More selective != better (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Is the plan short-sighted? (Score:2, Interesting)
My only issue is that this is nearly 10 years too late for me. Of my Engineering graduating class I know less than 5 people who stayed in the state.
$1000 for Graduating HS on Time (Score:5, Interesting)
It costs the government something like $30K a year to keep a person in jail. Not to mention how much it costs to run the rest of the judicial system, to build the jails, the damage caused by their crimes, or the taxes they could have paid if they were free to work. By the time we're done with the difference between a free person and a jailed person, it's probably over $50K a year. The average Federal jailtime is over 5 years [usdoj.gov] per sentence, or well over $250K per prisoner (many get multiple sentences per lifetime).
People graduating HS on time are less likely to commit crimes and go to jail. So every person who the bonus spares from jail is worth over 250 people who get it, but still go to jail. In other words, if the increased on-time graduations reduce the crime rate even as little as 0.25%, they're worth it. It's probably closer to needing only 0.1% or less to "break even". And that's not counting other benefits, like increased productivity, reduced teen pregnancy, and all the other benefits of on-time graduation.
We can afford a lot more investment in Americans' education. Some targeting high performers who need more money for even higher performance. Some targeting low performers at risk of creating more damage than it costs to prevent. Education is always the investment with the best return. Investing more will pay off quickly, creating more money to invest, and improving the country across the board as a "byproduct".
Re:I think it's good (Score:5, Interesting)
Students saddled with debt The recent student loan scandals have shown us that most student "aid" in America is in the form of loans, and the whole industry is one big racket engineered to rob the unprepared (students) and the taxpayer (govt subsidy on interest). Recent college graduates, not to mention dropouts, are saddled with insane amounts of debt.
Government money better spent this way
Finally, my personal hypothesis is that was placement in college affordable for a demanding major, the more incentive for children from poorer sections of society to avidly pursue it. "Free" is a very powerful word. As long as it's reasonably strenuous to get in (i.e. quality and selectivity are not being sacrificed for price or subsidy), I think the demand could be great enough to drive reform in individual high schools. Inspiring such bottom-up reform in the bloated bureaucracy that is our public school system is far more worth it than any "top-down", watered down establishment approach.Re:Yes, it would work. (Score:3, Interesting)
~Rebecca
Re:Yes, it would work. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, he/she will send money to their home country and will at the same time spend money in rent, services, not to mention that he/she will eventually start a family and pay for school for his/her American children. Finally most of the people in the most sophisticated fields of knowledge will choose to stay in the US, as his/her colleagues, conferences and job opportunities are all here. The money sent to the home country is most likely a small fraction of the wealth created by the worker.
Re:I think it's good (Score:2, Interesting)
So educating the kids and encouraging them to become responsible adults, despite their bad upbringing, might be the best they can do.
Consequences for the research/credential question (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, there are some students who straddle the fence — in a way, I was one myself — but for the most part the undergraduate student population is rather sharply divided between the research-directed and the credential-directed. The fact that programs have to accomodate both lead to conflicts — the research-directed students complain bitterly about dumbing-down of material and excessive commercial influence on the curriculum, while the credential-directed complain about having to learn a ton of useless theory which will be irrelevant to their future.
I mention this because I speculate that Max Baucus' proposal would certainly change the current equilibrium between these two camps, particularly if free tuition is only for science/engineering students. True, there would be a lot more research-directed types who can't get into university now for lack of funds, but I imagine most of the people who'd come who aren't there now would be credential-directed.
There's also another reason they'd be credential-directed, which is the tone set by the policy itself. There's something a little disturbingly utilitarian about the proposal of granting free tuition only to those people. This sort of philosophy makes me wonder whether the line would be drawn around science/engineering as a whole, or around only those science/engineering programs that have a utilitarian (read: "commercial") appeal. I would think it would be hard for the government to argue that engineering and category theory are "useful" but that philosophy and rhetoric are not.
If, however, research-directed programs are ruled out, the result would likely be a forcible segragation of research-directed and credential-directed students, even more than there is now. Maybe this is where we're headed anyway, but it would be regrettable as the forced mingling of the two has been hugely productive for both in the past.
Re:This is already going on.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, it would work. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, um... these Americans who are qualified for the job but losing them to Indian or Chinese candidates... Could you send them my way? It is damned near impossible for the company I work for (a semiconductor manufacturer) to get Americans just to apply. I don't like hiring foreign talent over native talent (actually I only give a recommendation), but when we have an open job requisition and I'm looking at 10 resumes (7 from India, 1 from China, 1 from Bangladesh and one native) and the only American candidate is laughably unqualified, WHO ARE THESE GUYS STEALING A JOB FROM?!
I used to be seriously critical of outsourcing and the H1-B program . I was fairly certain that my current employer wouldn't even consider me. I went from phone interview, to face-2-face interview to job offer in a couple days. I almost had heart failure when I told them to bump their already generous offer by 10% and they had the increase approved the next morning.
I have taken ongoing education courses at the local university trying to get some locals just to $*&%ing apply - AND THEY WON'T DO IT. It is 10x easier to hire US Citizens than to get an H1-B Visa sponsored. I hate recommending someone who has only a tenuous grasp of the English language. We need more STEM majors in this country so that I don't have to go through this shit.
Re:I think it's good (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't need more engineers (Score:4, Interesting)
The US doesn't need more engineers. If it did, salaries would be higher. In 1970, engineering and law salaries were about equal, or so says the IEEE. That's certainly changed.
The US doesn't need more engineers because high-tech manufacturing has gone offshore. Where the manufacturing goes, the production engineering must go, and the design engineering follows. Then the brands go. Then top management. Then the financing.
Read the Lenovo story. [lenovo.com] They're not a spinoff of IBM. They're a successful Chinese PC company that bought IBM's PC business to expand. IBM is just the company to which Lenovo outsources US warranty service.
Re:I think it's good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I think it's good (Score:3, Interesting)
Cuba.
Granted their situation is a bit unique because of the USSR's involvement there.
Re:Consequences for the research/credential questi (Score:3, Interesting)
The main draw of the credential directed outlook is financial, and I don't think it's schooling expenses, but rather long-term earning potential, and thus a sense of security, which is the main incentives. More research money makes a career in the field more appealing. No one wants to spend their entire life squabbling over a handful of $10k grants, but if you know your field is going to be well-funded, even if your salary is less, you gain a much greater sense of stability. (I think more people who have the inclination to do research would choose to be 'poor' and stably funded than either slightly wealthier and poorly funded or 'poor' and poorly funded.)
Thus, if one really wants to increase US science and engineering power, the first thing that needs to be done is to provide more federal funding of research. The private sector isn't going to fund pure research because of the long timescales on which it pays off. Long term investments are ideal roles for the government. Educational incentives are great, but it doesn't do any good if they're not given the resources to make use of their education.
Re:I think it's good (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Sri Lanka. 91% literacy rate. Abysmally high poverty and an economy that's in the shitter thanks to the little Sinhala-Tamil "race war" of theirs
2. Palestine. Most Palestinians are actually very well educated, but, well, you read the papers, right?
Not my intent to disparage any country or culture, mind you. My point is that education is certainly necessary to remove poverty, but it is far from sufficient.
Re:I think it's good (Score:2, Interesting)
Honestly, if you have a degree in Physics and can't find a job, I'm not sure I want you in front of students as you must be a horribly weird person.
Re:I think it's good (Score:1, Interesting)
My parents are quite wealthy. Both of them were college educated, and coming from poor families, both of them paid for college themselves and believed that their children should do the same. I immediately filed for my FAFSA for student loans after being accepted into a UC school for an electrical engineering degree, only to discover that even though my parents were giving me nothing, their "expected parental contribution" was in the several 10's of thousands of dollars range (seriously, wtf?). In fact, their incomes disqualified me from receiving subsidized stafford loans and required I get PLUS loans (which I, not my parents, currently make the payments for...).
Of course, if I had been a minority or had my parents made much less money, I'd have had an easier time receiving financial aid. There's also a boat load of scholarships available if you are, surprise, a female/minority/poor person going into engineering. Not so much if you're a white guy who's parents are wealthy.
Back on topic, I've made the point for a while that the nation should be subsidizing the education of Science & Engineering, since the initial investment now will generate a boat load of revenue in the form of taxes (both income and corporate!) over the next decade. We REALLY need to encourage people to go into S&E as they enter college - the mistake being made is that we push it in the middle school/high school level, and students drop the ball when entering University so that they can "enjoy the college experience," which is funny since I quite enjoyed my engineering education. I make enough now to be able to pay off my student loans over the next couple years and smirk as my roommate goes back to being a barista at Starbucks with his communication degree (ironically the same job he worked when we started college).
Re:I think it's good (Score:2, Interesting)
In some of our special ed classes, there were what were called "co-teachers". In our specific implementation, there was essentially one teacher and one behavior specialist, who were also both trained in the other's discipline.
I've never seen this approach used in classes like biology, chemistry, or physics, classes that are hands on, lab oriented, and require special attention from the teacher.
Why not use two "teachers", one specialist in the subject, who also has teaching credentials, and one teacher who also has science credentials.
Re:Any companies driven by passion? (Score:2, Interesting)
Most companies are started by passionate people. Because of that, companies are almost universally driven by passion in the early stages of most companies. Look at Google (started by a couple of Stanford grad students), or YouTube, or Gateway (a couple of guys building computers in a barn). These companies all started as small projects driven by passion, but we all can agree that at times, their actions are driven by profits and little else.
It is true, and unfortunate, that most companies cease to be driven by passion, and are soon driven by profits when they decide to go public, or are sold to a publically traded company. Then the passion of the founder(s) is passed off to some board whose only passion comes in the form of the huge bonuses they get at the end of the year for exceeding forecasters's predictions.
Re:I think it's good (Score:1, Interesting)
Teaching Math Through The Decades
Teaching Math in 1950:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?
Teaching Math in 1960:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
Teaching Math in 1970:
A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a set "M" of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M." The set "C", the cost of production contains 20 fewer points than set "M." Represent the set "C" as a subset of set "M" and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set "P" of profits?
Teaching Math in 1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
Teaching Math in 1990:
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees? There are no wrong answers.
Teaching Math in 2000:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120. How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60?
Teaching Math in 2010:
El hachero vende un camion carga por $100. La cuesta de production es.............
Re:I think it's good (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I think it's good (Score:2, Interesting)
Physician salaries plummet. Medical costs go down. Every OTHER industry in America begins to prosper again, because they can now afford to provide health care for their employees again - and we won't need to Nationalize or Socialize anything. All we need to do is break the AMA's Monopoly on Physician Schooling.
(yeah, there's still the drug-company problem. . . one thing at a time).