(In this post I am just going to talk in generalities and address more specific issues later. I will also added in my sources as I get more ambitious or am procrastinating doing other work)
When it comes to education, I am unabashedly liberal. That fact that EVERY state spends more on their prison systems than education is a disgusting and horrifying sign of the times. Instead of investing in our future, we are blowing money on drug dealers, rapists and murders.
Instead most communities being forced to pass levies to help cover costs, we simply need to make it priority #1 in our state budgets, especially higher education. Those with a college education pay much more in taxes over their lives and are much less likely to engage in crime.
Low interest student loans should be made more easily available and at earlier years in college (though still requiring C average or higher to qualify). Student loan debt can not be dodged, even via bankruptcy so the money will get repaid, with interest, and you get a higher-paid (and therefore taxed) workforce. Its win win.
The money is there too. Think about how many stupid things you've read about the govt spending billions of dollars on. 1 billion dollars could give 100,000 students a 10,000 college grant. For the price of some of the stupid programs we have, we could be educating (for free) the next generation of doctors, scientists, etc. who will keep America strong and prosperous.
Ok, here are a few other opinions/ideas that are more controvesial:
* No tax-payer money going toward scholarships for non-US citizens. Fuck diversity. We have lots of it already and while our public education system is in shambles, America has over half of the top 50 universities in the world. People will come here because its the best - we don't need to be paying to education our competition in the global economy. They should pay for the privilege to study here.
* No tax-pay money going toward college sports programs. If the sports programs can't be supported by ticket/merchandise sales, boosters, donations etc then we won't have it. Universities across the country routinely are dropping entire departments while spending millions on sports programs. College isn't about sports - its about learning and I can say this with some authority as I was a college athlete.
* Teachers union's need to be busted up. The rise of teachers' unions ties directly to the plummeting performance of our children. Seriously? They feel they should there should be no measuring their job performance? What dream world do they live in? I want to see bad teachers canned and the good ones making TONS of money. I have no problem seeing a teacher make 100K a year if they are getting concrete results year after year. That is a smart investment that will pay huge dividends down the road.
