[drieddust]

> I also don't know that the government should be in the business of incentivising people to study in these fields

That's interesting. So do you want government to only fund the vocational courses and allow the rich class to be the torch bearer in research, art, and culture because only they can afford it?

[kartickv]

I'd think taxpayer money should be spent in ways that create measurable benefit to both the individual and the economy as a whole.

I'm not seeing the downside of only the rich being able to understand how Post-Impressionists like Suerat were different from Impressionists like Renoir.

[drieddust]

> I'm not seeing the downside of only the rich being able to understand how Post-Impressionists like Suerat were different from Impressionists like Renoir.

You are picking the edge case here. Art and culture are much more then just rich class's pretense.

As far as wasting money is concerned, spending it just to create more replaceable cogs for capitalistic profit seeker is also a wasteful exercise. Why not ask the Industry to invest in producing those cogs and let government think the long term by focusing on things which cannot be measured in next quarter.

Why Government should subsidize the Industry?

[_qjt0]

> things which cannot be measured in next quarter.

I'm all for long-term investments, but can these ever be measured? If not, it will take more than your claims to convince me that it's worth investing in.

There are other ways to appreciate art and culture, such as visiting museums, reading books, watching documentaries or other youtube videos on these topics, etc. These are all free or much cheaper than a course in a college. You haven't demonstrated how an academic setting is better and worth the cost.

Govt doesn't need to subsidise industry. I'd be fine if these loans are issued by private investors, as with Lambda school.

> capitalistic profit seeker is also a wasteful exercise

No, their benefit can be measured in GDP. Imperfect, sure, but 100x better than your hand-waving claims. No personal offence intended.

[azemda]

>There are other ways to appreciate art and culture, such as visiting museums, reading books, watching documentaries or other youtube videos on these topics, etc. These are all free or much cheaper than a course in a college. You haven't demonstrated how an academic setting is better and worth the cost.

Academics is necessary to teach people how to create, understand and appreciate Art and Culture. People writing books (not necessarily, but most probably) have a degree in Language and Literature, people creating documentaries have a degree in Film-making etc. If you think these skills can be obtained from reading books, watching videos on YouTube etc, then the same thing can be said about STEM fields as well.

[kartickv]

> Academics is necessary to teach people how to [...] understand and appreciate Art and Culture.

Any evidence in favor of that claim?

> If you think these skills can be obtained from reading books

I didn't say that nobody should study these fields; just that they needn't do so on taxpayer money.

[azemda]

Here is the OECD report http://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/arts.htm which stresses the importance of Arts in education and benefits of arts to students (even students of non-arts subjects). They also conclude that "The arts have been in existence since the earliest humans, are parts of all cultures, and are a major domain of human experience, just like science, technology, mathematics, and humanities. In that respect, they are important in their own rights for education."

Some Universities have Arts appreciation course for non-arts students who are interested in knowing, understanding and appreciating Art.

>just that they needn't do so on taxpayer money

May I know the rationale behind this? If I understand correctly, what you're trying to say is that letting people study these subjects on taxpayers money is a waste of public money, which I think is not true. There are people with Academic arts background who have contributed to the society. Even (for the sake of argument) if these are not economically rewarding areas of study, is it justified that the whole field of arts which has been there almost since the beginning of mankind to be not funded by the government just because the system under which we currently live doesn't find it profitable? Is it justified to deny access to an entire group of people who are interested to study Arts but they can't because they don't have the money to pursue it?.

[drieddust]

> There are other ways to appreciate art and culture, such as visiting museums, reading books, watching documentaries or other youtube videos on these topics, et

And who becomes incharge of those museums? Who makes those documentaries and those books?

[kartickv]

Someone not studying with taxpayer money.

[drieddust]

So rich pretencious snob becomes incharge of the culture?

[SamReidHughes]

You do realize all the art and culture that matters is not government funded, right? It doesn't come out of universities.

[drieddust]

Probably a lot of culture that gets attention is counter culture but that's does not happen in vaccum. In order to create the counter culture, one needs to learn the culture first. It can happen outside universities as well but that does not discount the importance of art and culture education.