[JupiterJazz]

Why would it be in the interest of private schools to hoard their products from me? I only make $18000 (about half the median wage) and food companies don't price me out of the market. Car companies don't either. Given that nearly every human being is in demand of an affordable education it makes no sense for companies to not accept low income students. The only reason private schools are expensive now is because the government monopoly makes it imposible for them to compete on the low income section of the market.

[toyg]

your analogy is apt: in your opinion, a poor person will never be able to afford a Ferrari or a Porsche, so they shouldn't be able to afford top-class education either. Ferrari will never be interested in "competing for the low income section of the market"; they'll happily keep making exclusive and expensive cars, reserved to top dogs, popes and the like.

The "voucher" sort of scheme will inevitably result in the State giving everyone enough money to buy a Nissan Micra, with rich parents "topping-up" to get a Mercedes, Porsche or Ferrari. Which is not much different from what you get now, just a bit worse.

[lurker19]

One major problem with vouchers is that they are susceptible to fraud. Current voucher and charter schools are not posting greater successes than public schools. Government services are at risk for innefficiency due to non-incentives, but government-funded private services are at similar risk due to perverse incentives.

For example, higher education IS currently on a loan-integrated voucher system, and it is common knowledge that private colleges are a money pit these days.

[dredmorbius]

Because for at least some, a large part of what they sell is social exclusivity. Those dirty little brown (or Jewish, or Irish, or Catholic, or Italian, or German, or in Fremont, CA, white trash ...) children will be kept away from your precious little gems.

Since school, education, economic potential, etc., are so tightly tied to social status, this is hardly surprising. It's also present in other goods: I'm sure you can think of luxury cars, foods, clothes, clubs, etc., whose appeal and cache is largely their exclusivity and the fact that the great unwashed masses can't access them. No, this doesn't apply to all goods, but for a class of them, yes. (That this is also tied to price discrimination behavior on the part of producers also has something to do with this).

What is the term used for the highest ranked colleges in the US? Oh yeah: "highly selective".

[theoj]

>> Food companies don't price me out of the market. Car companies don't either.

Do you think that you get good nutritious food by paying bottom dollar? You think those nitrates and high fructose sugar and other junk are really good for your health? You think that a low cost diet that lacks "expensive" fruits and vegetables has no impact on your health?

The problem with a cheaper second tier education is that it perpetuates the affordability problem from generation to generation. The poor parents who could not afford to send their kid to the rich school will have a son or daughter with a second tier education who will only be qualified for low paying second tier jobs. This system creates a stratified society with low mobility and represents a waste of human potential -- the brilliant kid whose parents couldn't give him a first rate education cannot reach his full potential, while the lazy dumb kid with rich parents takes up a spot in a class in which he simply does not deserve to be (from an academic perspective).

Thinking that the market is a solution to everything is a popular fallacy nowadays. There are places where the market does not produce good outcomes -- education is one of them. You cannot trade human intelligence and aptitude. You cannot have different high standards for different prices -- there are no low tier high standards and top tier high standards. People who are motivated by greed do not make good educators.

[JupiterJazz]

There is only so high in quality a product can get. How much better is a $1,000,000 car vs a $1,000 car? They both get you from A to B. Sure one might be a little faster but in terms of function they both perform at roughly the same base. One is for smart consumers and one is for rich people to show off.

Keeping the government monopoly in place only serves the interests of the employees and unions of the public schools and no one else. Certainly not the students.

"Thinking that the market is a solution to everything is a popular fallacy nowadays."

Yeah because it works.

[theoj]

Wow, the discussion here is really going down the tubes into the land of nonsense.

>> How much better is a $1,000,000 car vs a $1,000 car? They both get you from A to B. in terms of function they both perform at roughly the same base

$1,000 gets me a beat up car from the 1980s that barely works, breaks down all the time and surrounds me in noxious fumes. $2,250,000 gets me a Bugatti Veyron that has a top speed of 250 mph and does 0-60 in under 3 seconds. No difference there at all -- they're quite comparable!