Quote:College is not supposed to be required to be successful in life, it's an optional pursuit for those who so choose to invest their time and money in higher education. And we give plenty of public money for kids to go to school. Every kid who enters college applies for (and usually gets) some type of financial aid. The only thing making college "free" does (besides another huge increase in the national debt) is flood the market with degrees that, in turn, devalue them in the marketplace. Kids should get all the education they need in high school to make a living; that they don't is the fault of the system, the parents, and the kid.


Want more people to go to college? Take government financing out it and return the college loan system to the private market. Route kids to the Community College system. Increase the number of vocational and trade schools and make tracks through them available for high school Juniors and Seniors. Presto Chango!

I'm not sure government financing is the problem. I think 'private' college needs to be redefined. Students who do not belong at, say, Syracuse or Notre Dame, are not going to get accepted, meaning they won't be taking school loans. Private 'colleges' like Everest University, University of Phoenix, who accept anyone under a veil of helping people who 'traditional universities' aren't willing to work with (though they are seemingly more driven by the student loan money they can get) take advantage of the student loan system. Trust me, there are schools that send representatives to underprivileged schools and hand out 'scholarships' based solely on your presence in an attempt to get students (and their student loan money) to attend their schools. Most of these kids should never be accepted to a university, but take out the loans. A year or two later, they are out of college, in debt, without the jobs to pay it back and the 'private university' is sitting on a big pile of government cash.

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