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I was pretty poor. My mom worked part-time and call centers and did medical studies to earn extra money while my dad worked full-time. I made some bad choices, but then got a 2-year degree at a community college and yes, I did use some grants which I'm very thankful for.

Not to be pedantic but there's really no such thing as free is there? Someone is paying for that college. Personally I don't want to subsidize these quote unquote elite universities but if people choose to use their money to go there that's great.

To your final point, no that is emphatically not what freedom is. I once heard that freedom is the ability to choose wrongly but at the core it's really freedom to choose. If everything is the same then there's really no choice.

>>Not to be pedantic but there's really no such thing as free is there? Someone is paying for that college.

That is pedantic - literally no one with an ounce of intelligence would think that money for those services comes from the moon. Of course it comes from out taxes. I'm happy to pay my taxes to make sure everyone has the same opportunities.

>>Personally I don't want to subsidize these quote unquote elite universities but if people choose to use their money to go there that's great.

That's an incredibly individualistic approach that I don't agree with.

>>I once heard that freedom is the ability to choose wrongly but at the core it's really freedom to choose. If everything is the same then there's really no choice.

But that's exactly what other countries do! I said this in another comment - want to be a doctor? Go ahead, no debt. Want to be a lawyer? No debt. But also want to be a map historian? No debt. Art PhD? No debt. Marketing and Business studies? No debt.

That's exactly what freedom is. You are free to chose what you want to learn. If you choose poorly and there is no job waiting for you on the other end, well you just wasted 3 years of your life. But we as a society made it possible for you to take that leap and have a choice.

How is that "everything is the same"???

How about free online programs like Stanford and MIT Open courseware? Or public libraries? The education is waiting there to be had even without a college tuition or degree.

What about them?

I'm not denying there is free education out there. My point is in other countries you have freedom to chose and don't incur debt for your choices. Want to be an IT professional with a 4 year collage degree? No debt. Want to be a doctor with 8 years of education? No debt. Want to be a stylist? No debt. Study ancient history? No debt.

Yes, there is free education available in the US - but it's what other people have decided is "worth it", not what you want. That's where I see freedom.

You have to pass difficult standardized tests to qualify for these spots though. It's not like 50,000 people can just decide they want to be doctors. It depends on ability as measured by testing ability which generally still relates to economic ability in aggregate.

> For a simple reason - because we know, empirically, through decades of studies(some of which were done by the very US of A!), that it produces better results for the entire society

Is that why America's per capita GDP is higher than that of the EU? Why the US, not the EU, is the world's center of innovation and the strongest magnet for talent?

I don't think that trying to make everyone the same is good for society or conducive to high levels of human accomplishment. Striving for excellence will inevitably produce winners and losers, but if you don't do it, you just end up with mediocrity stew. I'm not going to cut off the right side of the distribution of human accomplishment on the say-so of people who have some weird ideological commitment to human sameness.

>>Is that why America's per capita GDP is higher than that of the EU?

No, but it's exactly why US is far behind EU in healthcare, education, equality, social mobility and a number of other social metrics that matter to you know - normal people on the street, not traders on wall street. GDP doesn't tell the whole story.

>>Why the US, not the EU, is the world's center of innovation and the strongest magnet for talent

Because US is home to companies that pay ridiculous salaries which make it worth moving to the US for, despite all the other downsides. You're going to get just as good education at many world class universities around the world, but if your goal is extreme salary then US education system gives you a leg up at the start - that's why. Not because there's anything unique or super special about US.

>>I don't think that trying to make everyone the same is good for society or conducive to high levels of human accomplishment.

That's absolutely not the idea, I think you misunderstood me. The point is to give everyone the same chances. In many other countries it doesn't matter if you're from a rich family or a poor one - it doesn't give you any extra leverage when applying to universities. There is no educational debt to deal with. A medical condition will not put you in any debt whatsoever.

Look at it as a gift to the society, to every child and every adult in the country - if they do nothing with it, that is their choice. But if they take these opportunities they can achieve incredible things, exactly that pinnacle of human accomplishment that you're talking about. That's freedom, not the American freedom that's tied to worship of money.

In America, everyone has the same chance already, at least to a close approximation. It's just not logically valid to look at unequal outcomes and conclude that not everyone had the same chance, but that's what half this thread is doing. Whatever the US is doing, it works for producing prosperity and innovation. Whatever the EU is doing doesn't work to produce that. Sure, people there are comfortable, but should comfort alone be the goal of human society? I don't think so.

>> Whatever the US is doing, it works for producing prosperity and innovation.

For some, at the expense of others.

That is simply not true. One person's success does not take away opportunity from others.

No one is attacking personal success here - it's important and should be celebrated. But the opportunities in the US are absolutely not equal, far from it.

Any person in the US can improve their lot in life. Nobody said it is easy. Success is hard work with a measure of luck. But, it is absolutely possible to go from living on the streets to living in a mansion in a lifetime. How is that not equal opportunity?

I cannot stop myself but flip this around - how can you possibly call this an equal opportunity?

It's like having a race where some people start 100m behind others and saying "well if they try hard enough, they can still win! The race itself is fair after all!"

>>Success is hard work with a measure of luck.

Of course ,but the American system is 1) ignoring that some people started at a much worse position in life and expecting them to "just work harder" 2) assuming that any problem you might encounter in your life is of your own doing, after all if you get into an accident and end up in lifetime medical debt.....well you shouldn't have gotten into an accident, right? Or again - just work hard to pay it back and you're fine?

After all it is possible. Yes, and winning lottery is technically possible but I don't think buying Lotto tickets is a valid way of living your life either.

Yes, everybody has a different starting point. That is life. Some families have the benefit of their ancestors working their asses off to pass something on to their heirs. That doesn't mean you cry foul and try to destroy the track or rig the race in your favor. You do the same as those people's ancestors. You work your ass off to pass something on to your heirs.

Everybody can do this. That is equal opportunity.

There is no promise in the rights granted to you that you will have 18 houses, a private jet, a yacht, and maybe an island or two. You are promised the ability to do as you wish to try to achieve your goals in life.

Yes, we should fix economic issues so people do not get destroyed by an accident. That is a separate issue and has no bearing on equality of opportunity.

It strikes me as similar to the approach displayed by American conservatives - the belief that there is a natural order to the society, and that's just how life is. Some people inherit insane amount of wealth, and that's fine, their ancestors worked really hard so they clearly deserve it. Poor people are poor because they don't work hard enough, or simply because they don't deserve anything else.

But hey. As long as we tell each other that with enough willpower they could just work extra hard and achieve all of those things that some other people get for free? It's all good.

And I'm not even against personal wealth. I'm not even against inheritance. I'm advocating for making sure everyone has equal opportunity through education, through safety in healthcare, through social policies that don't put you in crippling poverty if you fall on bad times. I don't believe in this whole "just work harder" adage, because I know sometimes working hard is not enough, especially not when facing institutionalised discrimination and lack of opportunities through no fault of your own.

>>Yes, we should fix economic issues so people do not get destroyed by an accident. That is a separate issue and has no bearing on equality of opportunity.

That's a social policy, not economic issue. And of course it affects your opportunities, if you get into medical debt due to an accident you don't have a whole bunch of opportunities that people without debt have, at no fault of your own. That is not a problem of economics to fix, it's a problem of the society to decide that maybe medical debt just shouldn't be a thing at all, which will put all citizens on an equal footing straight away. Or we can pretend everyone is 100% responsible for what happens to them and carry on as normal.

It is not a belief that there is a natural order in society. It is a belief that even if you are starting at 0 you can still reap the rewards of your own hard work. Starting from 0 does mean you are less likely to end up a billionaire. But, you can build your personal wealth and pass it on to make your "familial starting point" higher the next generation.

You are arguing that all these things are in the way of equal opportunity. I am arguing that they are issues on their own. Equal opportunity already exists.

High medical cost is an economic issue that is exacerbated by social policy. Insurance requirements and hidden medical care price both played into climbing medical care cost. Insurance companies and medical providers do not care about the high cost as both benefit from higher cost. There is no market feedback from the actual receivers of services.

> In America, everyone has the same chance already, at least to a close approximation.

Really? When your mother has to hold down two jobs to pay the rent and put food on the table? Or when your mother doesn't need to work because she inherited millions from her parents? Which mother will have a child who goes on to a good university?

The income share of the poorest ten percent of the population is 1.8% in the US, in Norway it is almost 3.5%. In Norway university education is also free. In which one do you think a child from a low income household would have the best chance of having a better income than their parents?

See https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$bubble$encod...

Some people do badly in life. That's not an indictment of the system!

They specifically gave an example of someone being born in a family where the parent has to work 2 jobs to make ends meet. How is that "doing badly in life"??? I swear we're like 2 comments away from someone seriously saying "just get richer parents, duh".

And yes, not making sure that everyone has equal opportunities(not equal outcomes!!!!) is a failing of the system.