Everyone has to be rich now??

[nutdog]

So I actually went to Ga Tech for 2 years, then finished my BA at UGA. At the time, Hope covered my tuition. I was happy for it. I think that should be the norm for more people.

It is for those who keep up the grades. The grade minimum has increased over the years because the system was running out of money. 1/3 goes to winners, 1/3 goes to the operators and 1/3 goes to college and prek.

I'm glad the local tech school where you are is free for students...I'm not sure if that's true for Chattahoochee Tech where I grew up. Hopefully it is.

North GA Technical College. Go Wolf. I don't think it's free for everyone. It's tuition based like most colleges. There are is a foundation and a plethora of scholarships available for various amounts and conditions so I'm sure a significant portion are attending at no or reduced cost. If you are paying for it it's got great ROI prospects.

I think if you're paying big bucks for college, or especially if someone else is picking up the tab, maybe keeping a B average is not to much to ask. If you can't, maybe it's not your bag and you should seek other opportunities.

 

[RavenousPoe]

Here in Lex, ky, we're having a battle with the school board raising taxes almost yearly. They are at odds with our state AG who says the latest raise was illegally done. We have no kids and have paid our fair share for others kids to get an education. Enough is enough imo.... Tax those who's kids use public education more than those who don't, pretty simple

I think that the biggest issue with this take is that you can't just try to claim exemption from a tax because you feel it isn't applicable to you. I'm glad to pay taxes towards the education of other humans just so that we are better off as a functioning society. I won't be making a case to my local Fire Department that I no longer want my tax dollars going to them because my house hasn't caught on fire.

 

[definenredefine]

I think if you're paying big bucks for college, or especially if someone else is picking up the tab, maybe keeping a B average is not to much to ask. If you can't, maybe it's not your bag and you should seek other opportunities.

Sure, I mean this can be true even if all public college is fully free at the point of service. I'm certainly not advocating for removing minimum standards to maintain enrollment. People can (and should) still be put on academic probation or just straight up kicked out if they can't make the grade.

 

[definenredefine]

I think that the biggest issue with this take is that you can't just try to claim exemption from a tax because you feel it isn't applicable to you. I'm glad to pay taxes towards the education of other humans just so that we are better off as a functioning society. I won't be making a case to my local Fire Department that I no longer want my tax dollars going to them because my house hasn't caught on fire.

I'd personally like to stop sending my tax dollars to Raytheon.

 

[MuseChaser]

Thoughts interspersed below...

But how then does one account for the fact that the bare-bones 'minimum requirements' are exponentially more expensive than they used to be as well?

They aren't in my experience, if we're talking about the same bare-bones minimum requirements. Read on..

There are also modern 'minimum requirements' expected for a lot of jobs which dovetail into daily living needs - cell phone,

Let's take the cell phone. When I started teaching back in 1984, my yearly salary was $12,027 dollars. Not a typo. Our monthly landline phone bill was somewhere around $30/month, and long distance calls were ALWAYS billed on top of that, by the minute. Now, I use Mint Mobile ($15/month, 5 gigs of 5G data, unlimited slower, unlimited calls/texts, and no long distance charges) on a $140 Moto G phone. Total cost, assuming a new phone every year (which I definitely do NOT do, but what the heck, we're crunching numbers here), $180 for more service than I ever got from a landline plus $140 for the phone = $320 a year. Even without ANY long distance calls to family, friends, and business, just our landline was $360/yr... in 1984 dollars. Now... if a new iPhone and major label carrier is considered a "minimum requirement" these days, of course the costs are higher. However, a 1984 dollar is about $3.08 today depending upon your favorite inflation-calculation website. That would put my 1984 costs at (let's add in another $15/month for long distance back then, which is about what we spent) ... lessee... ($30 + $15) x 12 x 3.08 = $1663.20 correct to today's dollar. For basic service, no fancy cell phone, data, whatever.. just voice on a line.

computer capable of doing remote work (or job hunting),

See above paragraph regarding cell phones, which are more than capable of most of things the populace uses computers for. Want to type faster? Pick up a $15 bluetooth keyboard. If one's job requires remote work crunching spreadsheets or running proprietary software, most companies furnish the computer. One of my son works from home for a very large, well-known insurance company. They won't ALLOW him to use his own computers. Job hunting on a cell phone is more than possible. Need a bigger screen? Pick up a cheap tablet. Go to ANY library.

broadband internet access, etc.

Most cell plans are 5G, more than fast enough for pretty much anything. OR... library. OR... we have a broadband plan through T-Mobile that's $50/month, fees included, forever. About what cable was, back in 1984... which we decided to do without so we could save money. We read a logt of books and played a lot of board games. Again.. it comes back to what is a "minimum requirement."

My apologies.. the quote tags got messed up while I was typing and editing, and I inadvertently erased the quote tag from the following, also written by JazznFunk -

"You'd have to get into specifics, but I'd argue that demonizing people for having different 'minimum requirements' as part of their budget now,"

Back to me writing - I never demonized anybody, nor do I put anyone down for the life choices they make. I just said that what many (and in my experience, most) people today have much higher minimum standards for what they view as necessities than people forty years ago. If that, somehow, feels demonizing to you, I'm at a loss to explain that. Back to quoting your post....

"..versus what was considered 'minimum' even 25 or 30 years ago is an attempt to scapegoat those who *can't* afford those things as being a cause of a larger systemic societal shift in technology requirements for basic connectivity and productivity."

Back to me writing - I just can't agree with that. While it may hold some, or even a great deal of, truth in some fields of employment, there are many, MANY other opportunities that don't require anything other than the ability to communicate, via text, email, or voice. If one chooses to work in a field where a given employer's requirements for personal technology can't be met on one's current budget, then other choices have to be made, other employers, fields, or jobs need to explored, until such time as the desired technology can be acquired and one's desired path re-entered. No scapegoating... just the choices all adults have to make at times in their lives. Back to you...


"I'd agree on some level that plenty of people are too obsessed with having to have the newest/best model of iPhone or whatever gadget it is in question when they should concentrate on other things, or be content with a years old phone (like I am). It's also worth noting how much things like cell phones are now. The days of free phones when you renew a contract are GONE. Just food for thought."

Back to me - thanks for seeing at least some of my point; appreciated. Not to belabor the point, but a "free phone with a contract" is anything but. Stay away from contracts... check out some MVNOs in your area on the carrier of your choice, Mint being only one of many options. I'm still using my first and only smart phone, a Moto G, without any complaints, and I've already stated the budget above. The idea that one needs a new phone every year or two is .. well... just another one of those differences in priorities and how we view necessities.

You were kind enough to grant me some points regarding plenty of people obsessed with having the newest/best model, etc., and I appreciate that. I will grant you that housing and vehicles, viewed as a percentage of starting salaries, have increased significantly, but the houses and apartments I see for rent and purchase are almost unequivocally MUCH nicer than the apartments and houses my wife and I rented (when starting out) and eventually purchased. The first house we rented was $250/month, but it was basically a cabin; the only heat was a converted oil drum woodstove in the basement of a two-story shack, and the heat only got upstairs through single vent through the kitchen. This was in Saranac Lake, NY.. where it got to -20F routinely in the winter. Our pipes froze constantly even if we left the water running, and there were times I couldn't get the house much above 40 degrees. BUT... it was cheap, we were out of the rain/snow, and we saved up our money to buy our first place... for $12,500, which was just a tad more than my yearly salary that first year. Now, a starting teacher's salary, at least in NYS, is somewhere just above $50K, and yes, $50K doesn't buy much of a house these days. Then again, $12K didn't buy much of a house back then, either...but we made do until we could afford something better. ALL of my kids (we have three, two are married, and one of them has gifted us with two grandkids!) have ALWAYS lived in nicer places than we did at their various stations of life, including college apartments/rooms, apartments after college (yes, they put themselves through with very little assistance), their first house purchases (two are on their second home, while the third is still in his first purchase) were all MUCH nicer than all but the current house my wife and I own (we're on our fourth house over the years, and it'll probably be our last one).

Vehicles sure seem to be insanely priced these days, too... but when you start crunching it as a portion of salary... the first new car (one of the last new cars I've ever bought... until very recently, used cars were a MUCH better financial decision. That line's gotten kind of blurry with the used market going nuts) we ever bought was a Ford E150 cargo van for my working band, and the passenger seat for my wife was an option; $9600, or a bit more than 3/4 of my first year's salary. Now.... lessee.... 3/4 of $50K... $37,500. About the same, really. Plenty of serviceable new cars at that price. Not what a lot of folks would chose as a "fun" car, but plenty out there.

It's not that I don't have sympathy for those are struggling to get to where they want to be, and frustrated by the obstacles they have to surmount. I do. The thing is, the empathy comes from having experienced those same struggles. Sure, times have changed, but it still the same struggle... want vs. need, income vs. bills. We are all responsible for our own lives, and can choose whether to be mired in frustration and fault-finding with situations, or to focus on pathways to get to what we truly wish for, and stick to that plan even when things get less than enjoyable.

 

[hbarcat]

But how then does one account for the fact that the bare-bones 'minimum requirements' are exponentially more expensive than they used to be as well?

They aren't. It's just one of those things that's assumed as "common knowledge", but it simply isn't true. The cost of essentials has actually decreased, compared to income, over the past few generations.

What's changed is the expectation of what the "minimum requirements" are for such "essentials".

In the 70's a starter house was 1,600 ft², and a younger family had one newer car plus one old beater, a TV and a radio, a phone on the wall, and some possessions for practicality as well as pleasure.

In this century, starter homes are almost twice the size, families very often have three cars, big screen video monitors in multiple rooms of the house, with laptop computers, tablets, smartphones, and other computerized devices for every member of the family.

Those are just the necessities. Many people have so many extra possessions that they have to rent a storage locker to keep all of it because it doesn't fit in their oversized house.

 

[turf3]

None of them.

Some people simply want zero property tax going to public education, they have an issue with being part of a society.

Well, my property taxes go 47% to the local ISD and community college district. I expect there are some locations near me with smaller tax bases and more expensive public schools where education is more than 50%.

 

[MuseChaser]

They aren't. It's just one of those things that's assumed as "common knowledge", but it simply isn't true. The cost of essentials has actually decreased, compared to income, over the past few generations.

What's changed is the expectation of what the "minimum requirements" are for such "essentials".

In the 70's a starter house was 1,600 ft², and a younger family had one newer car plus one old beater, a TV and a radio, a phone on the wall, and some possessions for practicality as well as pleasure.

In this century, starter homes are almost twice the size, families very often have three cars, big screen video monitors in multiple rooms of the house, with laptop computers, tablets, smartphones, and other computerized devices for every member of the family.

Those are just the necessities. Many people have so many extra possessions that they have to rent a storage locker to keep all of it because it doesn't fit in their oversized house.

I'm just going to let you write my replies from now on. I type too fast and forget to proofread....

 

[hrodbert696]

Do you think someone could get the equivalent of an English lit degree with a good reading list, some commentaries, the internet and a library these days? Would it require a multi thousand dollar degree program?

Yes, and no. They could get aspects of it.

A person with such a plan could become widely read and well-informed about the literature they study, yes. But there are important aspects of higher education they would miss.

For one thing, there's an "invisible" aspect to the proposition; who selects the reading list? Who selects the commentaries? What's the basis for selection? I often notice this about non-traditional students, who are self-educated and then arrived in a college class later in life. They often have quite a lot of existing knowledge, and also a lot of motivation and enthusiasm, all of which are very positive and admirable things. But there's also a complete black hole about some basic thing that just wasn't on their radar, or they might have a rather bizarre attachment to some fringe notion they ran across that distorts their ability to follow more fundamental aspects of the field (history, in my case).

Another thing is that people who set out to do this kind of thing often don't follow through, and there's a reason why not. On any topic of any complexity, there is already likely to be an ongoing conversation among experts in the field - often a debate - about it. Because that conversation has been ongoing for some time at a high level of sophistication, it can be very difficult for a newcomer to follow what's going on (like two die-hard American football fans arguing who the greatest quarterback was, in the presence of a foreigner who has never even seen an American football game). In the absence of a guide to orient you, getting up to speed with the conversation so that you can say you're actually informed about the state of the field takes a LOT more time and effort, and is often frustrating.

A third thing is that a traditional college education creates (or should) a learning community and cross-pollination. A broad and varied curriculum means your English major isn't only taking English classes, but also psychology or astronomy or whatever. Something they learned in astronomy class can prompt insights when reading Shakespeare that they would never have thought of otherwise. Not only that, but hopefully they have other students as friends and there's a certain amount of dining-hall conversation. I'm not going to be naive and assume students are all talking about their classes over lunch, but I will say an AWFUL lot of what I learned in college was not in the classroom but at a dining hall table with philosophy or physics or engineering majors, who were coming to the conversation with ideas and methods they had picked up in THEIR array of classes. Someone studying solo with a stack of books and the internet won't get that.

The fourth thing is something I tell my students all the time, particularly in general education classes where some are tempted to think it's "irrelevant." There are always two things you're learning in any class; the content of the class, AND the skills you need in order to master that content. It's often the skills that are more valuable in life, in a direct sense. For instance, at my institution, we build general education around four "habits of mind." These are qualities that any higher educational experience ought to cultivate, but we built the program to be more explicit about it. The Habits are Purposeful Communication, Problem Solving, Integrated Perspective and Self-Directed Learning. So, your prospective self-educating person with the stack of books is likely to develop very strong Self-Directed Learning habits, since the whole program is self-directed. But they may have little opportunity to translate the information they're taking in into communication skills, written or oral, from needing how to communicate with others about that content in a disciplined and sophisticated way. They may, as I suggested above, have less exposure to the Integrated Perspective habit. And so on.

Don't get me wrong; personal initiative to learn and educate oneself is an amazing and wonderful thing. I wish more of my students had it, and more people in society at large. People SHOULD be always seeking to learn and develop their understanding more. But for most people, it's somewhere in the difficult-to-impossible range for that kind of undertaking to accomplish what a university experience does.

Perhaps government funded is more accurate. Or making college part of public education.

In my state the large majority of my property tax goes to k-12. Also regular and special sales taxes. Public colleges are also funded with tax and lottery scholarships. Here’s my Alma mater for 2 semesters. It’s one of the premier universities in the country. I’m not smart enough to get in there now:



View attachment 7243617

I’m thinking that $20k difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition is coming from the state government, which means it’s already almost 2/3 public funded. if the student has good enough grades the in-state tuition can be completely funded by lottery scholarship. My daughter did this, the living cost were on us.

My son is living at home and going to the local for half that. He also had dual enrollment opportunities in high school to get college credits for high school class. In his case it backfired because he wasn’t ready for it and now the low grades are on his college transcript, keeping him from getting the lottery scholarships. But now he’s ready, knows the value and the cost of education, he’s interning and already has an offer for when he graduates.

My other son (he has special circumstances that I won’t get into) went to the local technical college, got his GED and took classes in a welding program that were all fully funded by the state, including living expenses stipend. Like the old bass player joke about learning G on the first lesson, see on the second and not showing up for the third because he had a gig, my son didn’t finish because he had enough skills to get hired before he did.The technical college is an awesome thing with campuses in various location statewide spearhead by local community, industrial and educational leaders because they weren’t getting high school graduate with the skills to go to work.

My point is, a lot of college and other education is already publicly funded and in many cases, “free”.


Sounds terrible. Which reminds me of another proverb which applies in all discussion economics or otherwise,

“He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.”

I don’t know the specifics of this case and don’t feel like looking it up but off the top of my head I’d have to know what’s meant by kids and working at night. I’d also say that my own work environment from age 11 until 18 and beyond would be considered hazardous by any objective standard. One of my earliest work memories is going out to fuel a plane and the old pilot didn’t think I was old enough to do it so I handed him the hose and he started fueling it with one hand and lighting a cigarette with the other. The whole meat packing plant might be a good thing. Should kids not be exposed to it for some reason? Seems tame in comparison to other parts of the curriculums. Or, like you say it could be terrible.

A couple of other quotes, I forgot to put on my earlier list. The first is more of an attitude about economics:

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances”. Paul again. Not to say ambition and the desire to improve your and/or other’s circumstances is wrong, but counting your blessings, or privileges, as the kids like to say, can help you achieve those goals.

And I’m embarrassed to have previously omitted the Golden Rule, which explains a lot of economics:

“He who hath the gold maketh the rule”. My father.

As far as the funding issue goes, this is not mysterious hidden information. The BIG report on it all (on a state-by-state basis) is here. If you look at p. 43 of the report linked, Georgia is somewhat above average in its appropriations for public higher ed: 14th out of the 50 states + DC. Looks to be about $12k or $13k per FTE (Full-Time Equivalent student). By the way, that chart shows you what I'm talking about for my own state, NH: dead last, at $4629/FTE.

As far as Georgia Tech goes, its financials are [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. For 2022, state appropriations were 16% of their revenue (compare that to the 9% I mentioned for my own school, Plymouth State. My colleagues would give a kidney for our state to support 16% of our budget). There's also a big category (38%) of "sponsored operations," which mostly means grants, and the grant revenue will include federal and state grants as well as private foundations and donors. The difference is that appropriations are just funds the state sends to operate the school; grants are awarded for specific periods of time, to achieve specific tasks (things like research, etc.), so while they do keep the school solvent, they're more tied to specific activities or outcomes. (By the way, before I noticed you were talking about GA Tech, I looked at U of Georgia, which is strikingly different in its revenue structure; 28% from the state and only 20% in grants, unless I'm misreading their statement. For whatever that's worth).

One thing that I would hypothesize about all this is a certain cultural component - specifically, athletics. I'm not sure that GA and NH are actually all that different in their political mix (which I won't go into, obviously), though they're very different in size and history and demographics and all. But Georgia schools have powerhouse athletic programs that rev up enormous enthusiasm and loyalty. NH schools just can't compete on that level (who knows or cares whom UNH has a sports rivalry with?). I suspect that doesn't just translate into direct revenue to the school (I think I've heard those championship programs run at a net financial loss). It probably also means that there's a lot more willingness to support those schools publicly, or conversely a lot more hesitation to be the one to propose cutting their support.

 

[JazznFunk]

Thoughts interspersed below...


It's not that I don't have sympathy for those are struggling to get to where they want to be, and frustrated by the obstacles they have to surmount. I do. The thing is, the empathy comes from having experienced those same struggles. Sure, times have changed, but it still the same struggle... want vs. need, income vs. bills. We are all responsible for our own lives, and can choose whether to be mired in frustration and fault-finding with situations, or to focus on pathways to get to what we truly wish for, and stick to that plan even when things get less than enjoyable.

It's not always a battle of wants vs needs. Sometimes it's needs and bills vs income, and that's it. I get tired of the scapegoating that people are spending irresponsibly left and right and always choosing only the most expensive options in a sea of options and that is the cause of all their woes. I'd be careful about venturing into hypocritical territory - that goes for a lot of posts on this monster thread - chiding people about just needing to be more focused on needs vs wants and all their problems will be solved. The amount of GAS posts on TB and people sneaking around their spouses to buy gear tells me there's a lot more 'wants vs needs' spending happening than many are willing to admit to - perhaps even by some chiming in on these threads. I've been guilty of it before in my life. We've all gone through lean and flush periods. I tend to adhere to a 'scarcity' mindset and choose very carefully before I spend money on pretty much anything - even gear. My parents both grew up poor but did well in their careers - but they always spent very carefully and instilled that in me. That said, they also taught me that when you do decide to spend your hard earned/saved money on something, buy the best you can afford (or end up buying it twice).

As they instilled in me, I think that it's important to allow people a bit of grace and remember that we are here to live our lives and - at some point - enjoy ourselves a bit. Responsibly.

 

[hrodbert696]

Followup to the question behind the financials; no, your taxes are not accounting for a 2/3 lower tuition for in-state students. To a great extent, it's actually the out-of-state students' tuition that subsidizes the in-state students. This is one of the reason why admitting foreign students is a hot-button financial issue for colleges, especially public colleges; they often come from well-to-do families in their home countries and pay full tuition, which lets states give the schools less support.

 

[RavenousPoe]

They aren't. It's just one of those things that's assumed as "common knowledge", but it simply isn't true. The cost of essentials has actually decreased, compared to income, over the past few generations.

What's changed is the expectation of what the "minimum requirements" are for such "essentials".

In the 70's a starter house was 1,600 ft², and a younger family had one newer car plus one old beater, a TV and a radio, a phone on the wall, and some possessions for practicality as well as pleasure.

In this century, starter homes are almost twice the size, families very often have three cars, big screen video monitors in multiple rooms of the house, with laptop computers, tablets, smartphones, and other computerized devices for every member of the family.

Those are just the necessities. Many people have so many extra possessions that they have to rent a storage locker to keep all of it because it doesn't fit in their oversized house.

I am asking this question to educate myself and not from a position of argument, as I am not well versed in this subject:

If today's starter homes are significantly larger and therefore expensive, and obviously people who got their existing smaller homes for better prices are holding onto theirs, where does that leave room for first time homeowners looking to purchase something reasonable, or at least reasonably priced?

From what I've noticed in my area, smaller homes are just not popping up on the market, anything new is huge and way beyond anything that my wife and I could financially dream of. Anything smaller and more reasonable that does pop up from time to time is only slightly cheaper than the large homes, I would imagine due to their scarcity and demand.

If we are putting blame onto people being too greedy and wanting too much as their bare minimum, does any blame also fall on the companies not building homes adequately sized (and priced) for those ready and willing to adhere to your logic?

 

[WG Plum]

I'd personally like to stop sending my tax dollars to Raytheon.

And Elon Musk and a whole host of other people/entities.

 

[Parzival]

It is for those who keep up the grades. The grade minimum has increased over the years because the system was running out of money. 1/3 goes to winners, 1/3 goes to the operators and 1/3 goes to college and prek.


North GA Technical College. Go Wolf. I don't think it's free for everyone. It's tuition based like most colleges. There are is a foundation and a plethora of scholarships available for various amounts and conditions so I'm sure a significant portion are attending at no or reduced cost. If you are paying for it it's got great ROI prospects.

I think if you're paying big bucks for college, or especially if someone else is picking up the tab, maybe keeping a B average is not to much to ask. If you can't, maybe it's not your bag and you should seek other opportunities.

I am jealous of Georgia and HOPE. My state is backwards in many ways. We are one of 2 states that does not have a state lottery. 2! And the only one east of the Mississippi. It is ridiculous. State politicians are on the take to keep it from ever happening. A lottery is a tax on the willing and that is the best kind of tax there can ever be. Using these dollars to help take care of college costs is a benefit to everyone. If there really is always someone else to blame, I am blaming the government of my state for being backwards and holding us back.

 

[hrodbert696]

I am asking this question to educate myself and not from a position of argument, as I am not well versed in this subject:

If today's starter homes are significantly larger and therefore expensive, and obviously people who got their existing smaller homes for better prices are holding onto theirs, where does that leave room for first time homeowners looking to purchase something reasonable, or at least reasonably priced?

From what I've noticed in my area, smaller homes are just not popping up on the market, anything new is huge and way beyond anything that my wife and I could financially dream of. Anything smaller and more reasonable that does pop up from time to time is only slightly cheaper than the large homes, I would imagine due to their scarcity and demand.

If we are putting blame onto people being too greedy and wanting too much as their bare minimum, does any blame also fall on the companies not building homes adequately sized (and priced) for those ready and willing to adhere to your logic?

STARTER homes are not necessarily twice they size they once were; NEW home construction is. I think often when young people set out to buy their first home, a 2400-square-foot mcmansion is not an option. They're buying old homes, maybe fixer-uppers. The problem is that, with everyone hunkered down and the new homes being built being oversized, there aren't enough small old construction homes available for the market, so even those that exist get inflated in price. Yes, that's partly that the builders are to blame, but that in turn is because the way we've set up the building trade, there's no incentive, maybe not even the option, for many to sell small cheap homes.

I would take this occasion to address the "people too greedy" thing, and mindful that I was accused of "blaming the victim" some pages back. It is that, and it isn't. It IS, in the sense that we have these inflated cultural expectations like @hbarcat is talking about, and those expectations shape market conditions. But it's ALSO the case that, even when an individual recognizes the dysfunction in those expectations and seeks to push back against them, the structure of the market itself makes it difficult or impossible for most to do so. I posted about compact, walkable communities a while ago. There's simultaneously resistance to building them, because people assume "space between houses" is the ideal; but then there are so few built, that there's not enough of them for the demand that DOES exist, and so unit prices in them are very high and they become unaffordable to most. So I don't think it's exactly "blaming the victim" here, or not in the individual sense; the "greed" is collective and creates conditions that shape your consumption whether you want it to or not.

 

[sleddogn]

I think that the biggest issue with this take is that you can't just try to claim exemption from a tax because you feel it isn't applicable to you. I'm glad to pay taxes towards the education of other humans just so that we are better off as a functioning society. I won't be making a case to my local Fire Department that I no longer want my tax dollars going to them because my house hasn't caught on fire.

There is a nuance here that seems to be missed. I'm not against ANY tax for schools, but am against a runaway school board that can impose a NEW tax yearly without any checks or balances.... You all seem to be hung up on my rant of no kids....I pay crazy high property tax here in Fayette county. There are thousands just like me who don't like having new or increased taxes for schools without any accountability....thousands... all over our news... Kinda a lame comparison to the fire dept, i'm done arguing.

 

[MuseChaser]

..I'd be careful about venturing into hypocritical territory -...

One would hope that there's been enough personal history information in my posts to allay any fears you may have of any possible hypocrisy on my part.

As they instilled in me, I think that it's important to allow people a bit of grace and remember that we are here to live our lives and - at some point - enjoy ourselves a bit. Responsibly.

Of course... a very kind, human approach that we should all take. The only nit I may pick is that there will be times, for most of us, when the "enjoy ourselves a bit" can't come from anything that costs money.

 

[RavenousPoe]

There is a nuance here that seems to be missed. I'm not against ANY tax for schools, but am against a runaway school board that can impose a NEW tax yearly without any checks or balances.... You all seem to be hung up on my rant of no kids....I pay crazy high property tax here in Fayette county. There are thousands just like me who don't like having new or increased taxes for schools without any accountability....thousands... all over our news... Kinda a lame comparison to the fire dept, i'm done arguing.

I am only "hung up" on that rant because I took you at your word about the school taxes unjustifiably rising every year, and can't comment on that because I personally have no evidence for or against the situation, so I chose to leave it alone. What I did address was your last statement which I viewed independently from the rest of the post given that it was visually separated from the rest of your post:

Enough is enough imo.... Tax those who's kids use public education more than those who don't, pretty simple

Although you said that you would no longer participate in the discussion, I am happy to hear a further description as to why my comparison was lame to you.

 

[JazznFunk]

One would hope that there's been enough personal history information in my posts to allay any fears you may have of any possible hypocrisy on my part.


Of course... a very kind, human approach that we should all take. The only nit I may pick is that there will be times, for most of us, when the "enjoy ourselves a bit" can't come from anything that costs money.

One would hope the same on my part as well, based on my past posts. My empathy for others who haven't enjoyed the same privileges or flat-out luck in life as I have - on many levels - doesn't come with qualifications or baggage.... especially after having lived through a natural disaster and still living in/rebuilding the community in its wake where I call home.

 

[fdeck]

Ah yes, rule ONE of textbook selection: Thou shalt select a new textbook for thy classes every year. In all things, a textbook written by thyself or one of thy tenured colleagues shall be given preference. If no new textbook is available, a new edition will suffice.

It always seemed to us impecunious undergraduates that there was a cabal dedicated to making our used books worthless, and to making next year's students buy new ones instead of used ones.

That said, the university bookstore DID carry a lot of non-textbook titles that were not likely to be found at the local ordinary bookstore.

I know a lot of college professors, and I've taken more than my fair share of classes.

The majority of professors are aware of the textbook issues, and are as aghast about it as anybody. Even when I was in school 40 years ago, people used terms such as "cartel." At the K-12 level, it's worse: A handful of companies own the production of textbooks, online learning systems, testing, and student surveillance. My concern is not just the economic nature of a cartel, but also their control over information, and collaboration with agencies that govern textbook selection in entire states.

Professors have always fought back when they could. For English, paperback copies of the classics could be had for pennies. One of my college professors required no textbook, but gave away copies of his textbook-quality lecture notes. The only thing was, the equations weren't typeset, but written by hand. Big deal. Today, there's an "open source" textbook movement. Two of my friends publish a free computer science textbook online, and it's quite well regarded. When I decided I needed a refresher on statistical mechanics after 30+ years, I found a free textbook, that is of the highest quality.