This diary is an extended comment on "Think big: Make public higher education accessible to everyone". The truth is that instead of making higher education "free" to all, we need to extend lower education in ways that serve the individual members of the society. If that means adding years to the current K12 system to include what is called "higher education" then so be it. I would ask that the "professional left" actually think about the symbolism and discrimination inherent in a 4 year degree from an "elite" university and consider the ramifications thereof.
The "business community" along with the wealthy and the powerful members of the society will have (and have) invaded the universities and funded the tenured positions selecting those individuals who will look with favor upon "American Capitalism" (an actual "rent seeking culture"). It does not seem to phase the "professional left" as they notice that the business community wants to hire people from these incubators of "rentier" respect. The "professional left" is hard at work attempting to tax the actual producers of the society (workers and entrepreneurs alike), in order to subsidize this "school of indoctrination into pseudo capitalistic group think".
The conservatives hit on education as the key to maintaining the status they desire long ago. At least as far back as the 1970's they began a long and steady march to destroy the "free" education system with regard to real history education concerning the founding of the nation and the rationale behind the structure of our government. They also promoted "home economics" and other curricula that teach conservative economics to the uninitiated. And they made dead certain that real fundamental economics would NEVER be taught in the free educational system.
Whereas the majority of the voters do not attend a university, then the university system should not be the primary object of educational reform. The people graduating from the current "higher education" system are not made aware of economic reality anyway. They are instead, indoctrinated into "finance" and told that this is "economics". Given that the "higher education" system can be and has been purchased by the well to do then it is not surprising that the field of economics is populated, not by economists, but by financiers and financier wannabes. Meanwhile, "lower education" does not provide any "free" schooling in real economics as it also does not provide education suited to electrician, plumber, heavy equipment operation, and the like. In a real system of hybrid capitalism the entrepreneurs would be hiring people directly from the free system. There is NO reason why accounting and business management should not be taught in the free system right alongside the trades and the economics and history/government subjects.
From this system of free education then those who have the ability and the desire to become true engineers, statesmen, and educators as well as "professionals" such as physicians can emerge and be selected to go forward into "higher education" which again could be more specialized. To attack the "higher education" system from the left, insisting on "free" education for all is insane. The society does not need, and the individuals do not want, a system of education that essentially forces people into a class structure whether it is "free" or not. While all individuals should be free to chose and earn what level of education and what field of endeavor they wish to pursue, this does not imply a state socialism package to education at the college level. The rich should be free to create their incubators of butt sucking lackeys just as the rest of us are free to treat them with the disdain they so richly deserve. As to "grants" based on scholastic achievement there is much merit. No self respecting American could possible object to "free" higher education for those who have EARNED it. (an encapsulated lesson in real economics if there ever was one).