President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

My state has a pretty good program now where we cover tuition to send kids to one of the state's two-year community colleges or technical schools. The students have to do eight hours of community service each semester. It's a win-win all around.

It is a lot of smoke and mirrors to make the former governor look good. "WE are SENDING YOU to COLLEGE FOR FREEEEE." Well, not really. It's a last ditch scholarship, essentially. The tuition to these places is about $1,500. The students do Pell Grants, financial aid, etc., and maybe what they'd have to pay out of pocket is $500. The state picks that up and tells the people the state sent them to school free of charge.

It's still a good deal for everyone. People get a little additional education and/or technical training.

 

Hearings will be interesting. Does that mean the republican questions will actually be hostile? That would be a show! And unfreakingbelievable. I would hope people would be upset by it.

 

If Mitch wants this nomination dead, he'll give it the Merrick Garland treatment. No hearings, no votes, no nothing.

 

I'm not sure they do.

We also keep talking about college as if its only function is career training.

 

You had mentioned a better-educated electorate.

One of College’s primary functions now is to ask for money, hire administrators and build posh dorms and new academic buildings. The University of Michigan has an endowment of 12 billion, for example.

One of the top pitches for any university in selling itself is to, within minutes, talk about what college degrees earn in terms of median salaries vs. those without them. The *primary benefit* is earning power. Not enlightenment. Not becoming a better citizen, which I’m not sure college teaches you or even knows how to teach you. Earning power.

Teaching skill is not respected in a university setting compared to research skill. I’ve seen great teachers - real credits to their institutions- miss tenure precisely because they focused too much on it.

One would hope that the Singer scandal helped touch off a new round of deep investigations into just how much of a racket higher education is. This far, not so much.

And this we can say with great confidence: it’s a problem Trump did not create or make worse.

 

You mean rotary scholarships and whatnot?

 

Probably why they started offering free tuition.

Michigan joins ranks of schools with free tuition

 

(They always could have.)

 

My state capital’s condom. Raincoat comes in handy when you want to fuck over the citizens.

 

"Put Barr on it. He's a sleazy little tyrant. Just like you, right?"

 

Seems pretty successful.

Free tuition brings more low-income students to the University of Michigan

Michigan State offers a similar program under the name "Spartan Advantage."