With all the educated and cheap labor from abroad who needs educated Americans ?

One executive of a large US Corporation (I think was from Intel) said that for the price of each American Engineer he could hire 2 Indians, 3 Chinese, or 4 Russians.

Keep voting for the current crop of politicians and that is what you will get.

There is plenty of money to educate every kid in America; but it is used for worthless toys, just check these news:

Weapons spending tops $1 trillion
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4617721.stm
The US alone accounted for 47% of the global total

Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone. How else will we fill the ranks of the US Army? Don't you know that most join for the training and educational opportunities or the health care? If you "give" educational opportunities like that and universal health care actually arrives on our shores, then just who will join the US Army and Marines to spread democracy and fight "them" there so we don't have to fight "them" here?

All college needs to be free in this country, not just "community colleges" which can't provide an intellectual education for those who want one.

http://www.dreamingearth.net

Of course we are doing our very best to limit access to a college education! There is nothing as empowering as an education and empowerment is the one thing we do not want for the vast majority of our citizenry. Education, especially at the university level, played a significant role in the withdrawal from Vietnam and had aims extending much deeper into the roots of US society. The university education, combined with the war in Vietnam, drove our students to examine more than the justice of the war, but the whole system that would drive us to war in the first place. We were not that far removed from Eisenhower's famous warning against the power of the Military-Industrial complex and were on the verge of rolling back that power. Don't think that our ruling classes didn't see the threat that higher education presented to their interests. As Marsha Vilt notes in her post, college is clearly not the best recruiting ground for soldiers because these students have HOPE for a FUTURE. They have no interest in laying down their lives without questioning why, and no means of coercing them into doing so that will not lead the military-industrial complex, once again, to the brink of elimination.

The rising expense of secondary education, combined with the destructive impact of "No Child Left Behind" are providing a barrier of safety for Corporate America. Education is not, at any level, in the interests of Corporate Power. It is, however, the most vital element to democratic power. I applaud the efforts in Massachusetts and would assert that we need to go further in offering the best educational opportunites to all our citizens if we are to have any hope of restoring dignity and power to the people.

having a college education doesn't mean what it used to nowadays. making college "free" (taxpayer funded) will just dumb them down even more to give students "opportunity". highschool used to prepare kids for life. not any more. by trying not to bruise their frail egos kids today are spared the realities of competition.

if colleges are to be taxpayer funded (aka "free") then lets have an admission exam specific to each college. wanna go study, you gotta compete for a spot with other candidates. otherwise we're just throwing taxpayer money out the window.

No, chameleon6, there are plenty of countries with free college, and it didn't end up dumbing down anything; it erased barriers and made for a truly educated population. I see you are also one of those people who think the "past" was so great. They used to beat students regularly in high schools across the US twenty years ago; they were not therefore "good" institutions that involved any actual learning, just rote memorization fueled by fear and violence; they were scum.

http://www.dreamingearth.net

well iolellity,

i am from a country where state run college is free and i took full advantage of that fact so i am not against "free" education. when i went to college i had to pass an admission test and competed against others to be admitted.

the way you'll have it set up in the United States of America will be the same touchy feely way everything is done around there so college will be dumbed down as not to hurt one's feelings.

i am not that old, so i cannot say too much about the past, especially not that it was great. I am still at that age where I thing the past sucked big time and it needs improvement.

Yeah, I had to pass through admissions criteria to go to college in the US as well; there really isn't anything "touchy feely" about the american empire, or it's high schools in my own experience. I currently have 50,000 dollars in student loan debt, and I think if you already got free college somewhere else, you probably shouldn't complain about us getting it on the basis of an abstract assumption about whether the admissions standards would change.

But yes, there should be enough state-run schools to admit all qualified high school graduates, just like there are always enough schools around to accommodate the number of elementary school children; if education is a public right and so important to citizenship and economy, it shouldn't leave out huge amounts of qualified people. As others have said, monetary exclusion was always the tool in british/american society to keep a small ruling class from being mixed in with the poor regardless of actual intelligence. From what I've learned in studying German language/culture, they go out of their way to make sure that a lot of young people don't end up in their free universities, and I think that is somewhat wrong if the goal was to broaden access to higher education, though you clearly disagree. I think American professors (and there is currently more distinguished phd's wanting that position than there are positions available here) are capable of making a balance and ensuring standards no matter what happens.

http://www.dreamingearth.net

I attended Foothill Junior College in California from 1964 to 1966 for the cost of books and a $32 fee each semester.
Entrance requirements may not have been high, but standards were. A large percentage of students did not receive a high enough grade point average to return for a second semester. I graduated from Stanford in 1968 and later received a master's degree from the University of Connecticut. Many students who graduated from high school in the same area of California followed a similar path.

There is no reason why the United States cannot continue to provide free higher education and expand it. Consider it part of the basic infrastructure.

Somebody is worried about throwing away taxpayer money on education? It can't be done. Education dollars pay the greatest dividend of any investment for individuals and societies. for a trillion dollars every person in the US could be sent through a doctoral program. Defense pays the poorest dividends.

I am a proud graduate of Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York, Class of 1973. Do you know what I, as a NYC resident paid for my four and a half year college education? $55 registration fee + books per semester. A year after I graduated CUNY started to collect tuition, it had to, and a era of education faded.

My point though is this: From it's inception through the 1970's CUNY provided higher education to all qualified candidates at a cost that allowed my generation, my parents and my grandparents generation to produce some of the best scholars, teachers, leaders, politicians, and in post graduate (where there was no free tution, but was affordable because of "free" undergrad studies), doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists.

Can the 20th century model of the CUNY be used in the 21st Century? I would hope so. I graduated without a mountain of debt, as did all the CUNY graduates before me. I received an excellent education, and in return, people like me, who could not afford a "private" college, got to give back to this society the largess received from it.

[Political note: just think of the money the US has spent every day in this illness called the war in Iraq. Just think if that money given to city and state colleges it should be enough to pay for a undergraduate college degree for every person qualified to get accepted and make the grades to stay in college, wow!]

Ask yourself: how many teachers could a "free" college education produce, teachers free to teach, and not to pay back $100K in student loans, impossible on a US teachers salary. Where is the logic of creating a system where only those of privilege can go to college? How many doctors, engineers, statesmen (stateswomen?) and scientists will the United States not develop because they couldn't afford it?

Are we, in the 21st century oligarchical state, ready to have only a rich well educated class, and permanent poor uneducated underclass. Sounds like an Orwellian tragedy to me. If 1% of the population will control the education, as they do the wealth, what are we going to do with the other 99% of Americans? Doesn't it cost more to give a man a fish every day, than to teach him to fish for himself?

Thank you City University of New York and the City of New York, I am one of the lucky ones!

Nietschze: right on!

We in the Commonwealth know education transforms lives," said Patrick in a press release. "It can lift the spirit of one student and raise the hopes of an entire generation. It can lead them to their dreams, teach them to work harder, reach further, and do better for themselves, their families, and their community."

Great and lofty goals to be sure but if those "lives" graduate still dragging the flag-draped baggage of America's Manifest Destiny by whatever means necessary, then those "lives" were cheated out of a true education whether free or tuition-based.

I notice you put " themselves " before families and community. I'm not surprised . Humility and altruism trumps all of the above lofty goals and are the sine non quo of a true education and egalitarian society. If you don't believe me check out the humanitarian results of the Cuban health-care-workers-training system.

Like Roald Amundsen , if you want to be the first to go to the South Pole then check it out with Greenland Inuit first.

chameleon6-What would we then do with those "dumb" people who couldn't pass the test? I guess they deserve to be under someone's bootheel.

There's not good reason why college can't be free in this country. A person shouldn't have to bury themselves in debt just to learn something.

But it's set up that way. God forbid the next president Forbes comes from Harlem or the Appalachias.

Higher-educated people tend to vote Democrat.

Just give everyone a baccalaureate when they reach the age of 21, an MA at age 23 and and a Ph.D. at age 25. The money saved could be given over to the military for the protection of the president and his cronies in industry.

iwarrior, "we" (who is we by the way?) do not have to do anything with the people who don't pass the tests. maybe they're not cut out for college.
there's other things you can do in life. i know quite few people who didn't go to college and have successful contractor businesses (building, landscaping etc). working for themselves. try and have some more faith in the indvidual, the "I".

Also, I don't see any problems with presidents from Harlem or the Appalachians. Don't get your hopes too high though. They are gonna be just like any other politician.