Originally posted by Duckboy
What i would be concerned about with FREE education is that proportion of uni students with the drive and motivation to learn would be lower. Uni would become far too "easy". This is already a problem, i feel, with the upper socio-economic denomination, where students finish school and "go to uni", simply becasue it is the done thing. they don't know what they want to do. they just exist there for a few years.
^I'm also
concerned with the effects a '
free' university education would have on the education system as a whole.
We go to
primary school, and most of us go to
secondary school because we have to. Because our parents take us there. It's the done thing.
It's
expected at least up until the age of around 16 years, when in most states [I don't have the exact figures] it becomes
legal to leave.
I didn't love school all the
time I was there. I didn't mind it, though.
I went because I had to, and towards the end, because I was
hungry for direction and knowledge.
Having a
free university learning system makes me suspect students would be thinking of their
secondary schooling as extended - - - just whack on the next two to three years [more for medical degrees, etc.] in which to
specialise in the field you're interested in.
I suspect some students would treat it similarly as
VCE [Victoria Certificate Of Education] and those final years of secondary school, where one is meant to have rooted out your
calling and be picking subjects which will enable you to
progress into your chosen career path - - - so many of my friends picked a
career at random to be seen to focus on, just to get their parents off their backs.
What would be the consequence of a
generation of university graduates with degrees they didn't really want in the first place?
* * *
In theory, I do believe a
free education system is fair and something we should as a society, strive for.
In practice however, I can't help but
cringe at all of the mistakes that could be made, and all of the
negative effects it could impart on our society and culture.