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The Center for American Progress reports
Prospective students in the United States who can't afford to pay for college or don't want to rack up tens of thousands in student debt should try their luck in Germany. Higher education is now free throughout the country, even for international students. Yesterday, Lower Saxony became the last of seven German states to abolish tuition fees, which were already extremely low compared to those paid in the United States.
German universities only began charging for tuition in 2006, when the German Constitutional Court ruled that limited fees, combined with loans, were not in conflict the country's commitment to universal education. The measure proved unpopular, however, and German states that had instituted fees began dropping them one by one.
"We got rid of tuition fees because we do not want higher education which depends on the wealth of the parents," Gabrielle Heinen-Kjajic, the minister for science and culture in Lower Saxony, said in a statement. Her words were echoed by many in the German government. "Tuition fees are unjust," said Hamburg's senator for science Dorothee Stapelfeldt. "They discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high quality standard free of charge in Germany."
[...]Free education is a concept that is embraced in most of Europe with notable exceptions like the U.K., where the government voted to lift the cap on university fees in 2010. The measure has reportedly cost more money than it brought in. The Guardian reported in March that students are failing to pay back student loans at such a rate that "the government will lose more money than it would have saved from keeping the old £3,000 ($4,865) tuition fee system."
[...]learning German might be the best financial choice an American high school student can make.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 20 2014, @02:13PM
It hasn't happened yet, but you yourself claimed that it IS happening and I agree. You don't get to do an about face when your argument works against you.
My view is that it is possible to disincentivize most human behavior. That is perhaps the only point of agreement that you refer to above. There's no reason to disincentivize the employing of people in useful work. Rather than blather on about the inevitability of automation, how about just getting out of the way and letting us decide when automation is better than human labor rather than making it better via substantial disincentives to use human labor?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 20 2014, @04:14PM
Because you want to pay them a starvation wage and replace them when the succumb and I find that deeply distasteful to say the least.
The funny part is you think you can continue charging 1st world prices when everyone is paid 3rd world wages.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 21 2014, @02:02AM
Because you want to pay them a starvation wage and replace them when the succumb and I find that deeply distasteful to say the least.
The funny part is you think you can continue charging 1st world prices when everyone is paid 3rd world wages.
Then prices will go down. It's not magic. A vast amount of industry and commerce has fled to the developing world and so many clueless people just complain about the rich/lucky - not the fact that the developed world is no longer competitive in so many areas and chooses to make itself even more uncompetitive. Similarly, they complain about automation while simultaneously making that particular situation worse.
Now, they want to preserve current standards of living without providing a means by which it can occur? Too bad. I see that demand failing just as hard as all the others.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 21 2014, @02:32AM
Sounds like you want it to fail rather than fixing the situation. Your the guy who when the situation is tense and there's a call for solutions you just keep repeating "we're doomed, we're doomed". That won't help, you know.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 22 2014, @03:30PM
Your the guy who when the situation is tense and there's a call for solutions
Fuck "calls for solutions". None of these "solvers" have truthfully answered the basic question, "is it better to do my solution or to do nothing at all?" The thing that got missed here is that developed world wages would have declined whether or not we did anything about it. That's basic supply and demand in action. But by aggressively punishing local employers (by adding to the bureaucracy and costs that the employer has to endure), the developed world has collectively made their side worse off. That's the sort of anti-solutions that are being "called for" here. The real "solution" as I see it is to rub their noses in it each time they do that.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 22 2014, @05:02PM
We're doomed, we're all doomed! That's it, Game Over man. Now go do yopur duty and live in 3rd world poverty in a 1st world nation because that's the only solution. Now if you'll excuse me, it's money counting day./..