[throwaway98237]

University is the new H.S. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. We have publicly funded high schools. It's time we have publicly funded universities. If the U.S. wishes to be competitive globally we need a well trained, educated workforce unencumbered by mountains of debt at the very time their supposed to be making their first "adult decisions" (buying a home, having kids, choosing which city to live in). Lump this in with climate change and universal health care, as far as I'm concerned. This is 2016, not 1850. It's not every person for themselves on the frontier. Almost everything we consume is touched by folks far away, requires IP to be built, and public infrastructure to get to you. This "there are no externalities that we need to worry about", "I can take care of myself mythology is so blatantly false at this point", it's b.s. and I just consider someone that starts with that as a set of axioms for their world view as ignorant or delusional.

[nradov]

University is not the new high school. Community college and trade school is the new high school. Not everyone is suited to a university education, or wants one.

[throwaway98237]

I oversimplified. I would say that all three of those should be an option, that one should not consider their education complete till they'd gotten through either university, college, or a trade school. I'm even a huge advocate of apprenticeships. I suppose those could be rolled up into the trade school category. But I believe that leaving university out of that group (only counting college and trade school) ignores a large and important portion of the economy. Also, the liberal arts portion of schooling is important for a citizen.