11 Comments

  1. Thanks so much for the shout out Aldo! That college compact sounds interesting. That’s pretty much how I got through undergrad without loans. I always had at least two jobs, sometimes three or four.

    • You’re welcome. I really enjoyed your post.

      It seems that you were a lot smarter than I was. I just took student loans and hung out and worked a little part time so I can buy beer. Oh well, live and learn.

  2. Although colleges are free in Scandinavian countries, people there also have a lot higher taxes than US/Canada. It’s an interesting concept though, really hope the college tuition will get subsidized somehow in the future.

    • You’re right, the tax rate is higher but they do provide a free education and free health care. I’m not sure if that’s better than our system, but at least you won’t get charged $8,000 for a band-aid in the emergency room… like it happens here in the U.S.

      Maybe a solution would be a combination of the two systems.

  3. Thank you so much for including me, Aldo! I think that college proposal sounds great. Offering students an incentive to work and do good in school is the way to go.

    • You are welcome, Lauren. I think the proposal sounds pretty interesting as well. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it is definitely better than what we have now.

  4. I think at some point the whole higher education system is going to need a major overhaul. Everyone is focused on healthcare right now, and rightfully so, but higher education costs have been steadily climbing over the past few years and it’s got to blow up at some point.

    I worked through college, but still had to take out loans and was always in the position to have to choose between work and school. I know now that there were a lot of things I should have done differently, but it’s much easier to see that looking back at 30 then it was to understand at 18. I think the compact is certainly a good start to making college more affordable.

    • Yes, it is easy to look back at it and think how we could’ve done things differently. But the fact remains that we didn’t. My mom always says “‘Should have’ never happened.” I should have done such and such… yes, but you didn’t, so it never happened.

  5. Thanks for the link Aldo! I think this proposal is definitely a start. We are thinking about starting a family in the next few years and we’re already wondering how on earth we’ll be able to help our future kids pay for college.

  6. Good stuff. It looks like we read some of the same sources; I also read the Demos report. I also recently read an article on the same topic – I can’t remember the source – that discussed the Germany history of post-secondary education. I don’t know if free will ever happen. Scratch that, I know free will never happen again (apparently some states offered a free, or nearly free college education, 40 or so years ago?) here in the U.S. However, we need to move that way as the current system cannot be sustained.

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