Robert Reich: Bernie Sanders Is Right—We Need Free College for All

[Katashi_itto]

ECONOMY
Robert Reich: Bernie Sanders Is Right—We Need Free College for All
Higher education isn’t just a personal investment. It’s a public good that pays off in a more competitive workforce and better-informed and engaged citizens.
By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org May 22, 2015

Senator Bernie Sanders is making waves with a big idea to reinvent education: Making public colleges and universities tuition-free.

I couldn’t agree more. Higher education isn’t just a personal investment. It’s a public good that pays off in a more competitive workforce and better-informed and engaged citizens. Every year, we spend nearly $100 billion on corporate welfare, and more than $500 billion on defense spending. Surely ensuring the next generation can compete in the global economy is at least as important as subsidies for big business and military adventures around the globe.

In fact, I think we can and must go further — not just making public higher education tuition-free, but reinventing education in America as we know it. (That’s the subject of this latest video in my partnership with MoveOn, “The Big Picture: Ten Ideas to Save the Economy.” Please take a moment to watch now.)

In the big picture, much of our education system — from the bells that ring to separate classes to memorization drills — was built to mirror the assembly lines that powered the American economy for the last century. As educators know, what we need today is a system of education that cultivates the critical thinking skills necessary for the economy of tomorrow.

We have to reinvent education because it’s not working for too many of our kids – who are either dropping out of high school because they aren’t engaged, or not getting the skills they need, or paying a fortune for college and ending up with crushing student debt.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/ten-ideas-save-economy-5-free-higher-education-all

[woo me with science]

1. K&R

[jwirr]

2. And there is the argument for free education and improving our schools and it does not lay the

blame on teachers. Finally.

[daleanime]

4. Because when you make plans to actually improve and build things.....

you don'the need a scrap goat.

[rock]

3. Although that's all true

Remember the politicians, the rich, company managers, the laws enforcement, the appointed incompetent, and many others, like the ignorance of the masses, which they have all strived to achieve with lots of effort and money. These people do not want change, they like things just as they are, and they are the ones that are in control.

[jwirr]

5. So what are your solutions to this - just let them do what they want?

[rock]

7. Glad you asked

This is a Democracy. But that implies the people actually have to participate! First and foremost, we need a leader, else we're just a rabble. Are the protesters in Ferguson achieving anything? No, because they are not unified, going to polls and voting in unison for a mayor and a sheriff that will give them what they want. Now at the national level, Bernie could be one. Possibly, Hillary could. We'll have to see what they offer in the primary debates. My slogan is "Leader and Unity". Thanks for asking.

[jwirr]

13. In that I agree but it still does not answer what we are going to do about getting our youth

educated when it is so expensive. I have to tell you I do not want to have only the rich educated and taking over every thing because we are not educated.

[rock]

14. I have provided the general answer

Now for the specific problem of an affordable education we need a leader (as I've mentioned in the general solution) that has those values you're talking about. I personally endorse a free education for all. Well, as long as they show academic leanings. We can really get many problems (not just education) solved by drastically reducing the money we spend on MIC. All of this depends on where the leader takes us and where we want the leader to take us.

[Sancho]

6. Most repubs want to privatize education for a profit off it: charter schools & vouchers!

Free or affordable college is a wonderful goal. Don't forget the public schools too. State legislatures are trying to undermine an excellent and free public education by making school at all levels a "for profit" business. They do this with charter schools and vouchers to attend private schools.

They also try to starve public colleges and universities by reducing state support while allowing "for profit" colleges to rip off students. Also, they let the "for profits" benefit from student loans where students are hit again when banks make big profits with crazy interest rates.

It's time to have free or affordable public education from preschool through college!

[salib]

8. I would agree that most Repub leaders want to do all that

Most Repubs are just responding to their visceral fears about society in general and are dimy absorbing the constant barrage of the "crisis" in education.

More disaster capitism.

[oberliner]

9. Not sure college will be necessary in the future

All of the information can be made available online. A lot of students don't even attend many of the lectures (and why should they). It seems like a more valuable expenditure of resources to improve K-12 education. College has always seemed like something of a racket.

[L0oniX]

10. Iraq had free higher education ...and we bombed the shit out of them.

We can't be like Iraq was ...can we.

[oberliner]

11. Not sure those two things are related

Are you suggesting that they are?

[hunter]

12. Absolutely, positively.

Dealing with the rapidly changing world of the 21st century is not a job for incurious uneducated people.

More intense weather, rising oceans, increasing automation, overpopulation... these are not problems that can be solved by simple hard work and ignorant "common" sense.

Our schools from kindergarten through graduate and trade schools all require serious upgrading, and a good education for all ought to be paid for by the people, for the people.

Private "run like a business" charter schools, colleges, and trade schools funded by "student loans" have been a catastrophe.

[liberal_at_heart]

15. Education used to be the great equalizer. Now it is only for the rich elites.

We must have free education if we are to have any chance of socioeconomic mobility.

[hifiguy]

16. TPTB are going to fight like hell to prevent this ever coming to pass.

Educated people who have critical thinking skills have a nasty habit of asking questions and questioning authority.

Ill-educated sheeple who have been trained to shut up, obey unquestioningly and live in fear are perfect subjects for propagandizing and are easily controlled. Which is just what the tenth-percenters want.