I agree about the wastefulness of the European model (and that it is better than getting people in debt).
Ultimately, the effect of the system is that it separates the educated class from the non-educated class, which correlates a lot with social class. Because even if the school is for free, you still pay the opportunity cost of the income you could have had instead. You still need someone to feed you. If the university is not in your town, it costs you money for travel and accommodation. And the schools are of various quality, and some of them accept almost literally anyone, so you could probably be literally retarded and still get a university diploma, as long as you choose the right university. So at the end, the difference between people who have the diploma and the people who don’t, is mostly the difference between people whose parents had enough money to feed them until they were 24, and those who didn’t. Except we pretend that it is actually about being smart and diligent, so the poor people who had to start making money as soon as they turned 18 deserve to remain at the bottom, because they are stupid and lazy.
I would prefer to see a system where all education is provided for free to anyone, in the form of high-quality online videos and interactive tests. With separation of teaching and testing: the school would be optional, you could either attend it or learn from home (and then, I wouldn’t mind if the school was paid), but the final exams and diplomas would be given by an independent institution which would verify your knowledge regardless of whether you attended school or were homeschooled. Yeah, one can dream...
I agree about the wastefulness of the European model (and that it is better than getting people in debt).
Ultimately, the effect of the system is that it separates the educated class from the non-educated class, which correlates a lot with social class. Because even if the school is for free, you still pay the opportunity cost of the income you could have had instead. You still need someone to feed you. If the university is not in your town, it costs you money for travel and accommodation. And the schools are of various quality, and some of them accept almost literally anyone, so you could probably be literally retarded and still get a university diploma, as long as you choose the right university. So at the end, the difference between people who have the diploma and the people who don’t, is mostly the difference between people whose parents had enough money to feed them until they were 24, and those who didn’t. Except we pretend that it is actually about being smart and diligent, so the poor people who had to start making money as soon as they turned 18 deserve to remain at the bottom, because they are stupid and lazy.
I would prefer to see a system where all education is provided for free to anyone, in the form of high-quality online videos and interactive tests. With separation of teaching and testing: the school would be optional, you could either attend it or learn from home (and then, I wouldn’t mind if the school was paid), but the final exams and diplomas would be given by an independent institution which would verify your knowledge regardless of whether you attended school or were homeschooled. Yeah, one can dream...