From: "Bob W"
Someone sent me this link - some very powerful pics...
>
> <http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/london_tuition_fee_protest.ht
> ml>
>
good stuff. Nice to see students getting worked up about something for a
change, even if it is a bit selfish. The police seem to have got it wrong
though.
One of those situations where there aren't many "good guys" on either
side of the line.
Good cops caught up in a bad situation. When every possible response is
wrong, the only thing you can do is try to find the least worst
response. I don't know if they were successful.
I think the government's policy regarding education costs are short
sighted, and will cost Britain a lot more more in the years ahead than
they're ever going to "save" with their cuts and tuition increases.
This applies to U.S. education policies as well.
Education should be as close to free as it's possible to make it, so
that as many can take advantage of it as want to.
Education is an investment in the future of the nation. Over the long
term everyone benefits from low cost education, whether you are paying
tuition yourself or have kids you're going to have to pay tuition for in
the future. Investing in creating an educated population has a very high
Return on Investment.
But it has to be an investment at the level of the society. It's not
something an individual, even the wealthiest individual can afford.
Works the other way as well. Disinvestment in education will bring very
steep increases in future costs.
Turning education into a profit center the way it's being done in
Britain and the U.S. is self defeating.
The pool of educated workers will shrink and there won't be enough of
them to grow the economy. The cost of finding educated workers is going
to go up sharply, unless you bring low-wage workers trained in third
world countries where they understand the difference between the VALUE
of education and the COST of education. Those third world, low wage
workers are going to bring third world, low wage values along with them.
They won't share the cultural values of our societies.
And bringing in those low-wage workers creates another problem of how
are you going to deal with your own native population you've displaced
from the job market. You force the middle class down into the working
class, and displace the working class on to the dole.
It's been done before and it's always had disastrous results.
Bread and circuses will mollify the displaced worker for only so long.
Especially since sooner or later some "taxpayer" is going to revolt
against the cost of providing bread and circuses.
Meanwhile, the mob grows and grows down in the belly of the beast.
Read Gibbon; read Marx (and what Lenin & Stalin made of his writings);
read Mein Kampf ... the French tried it in the 18th century, and you can
see where that got them.
"Après Moi" anyone?
Every farmer knows you don't eat your seed. And that's exactly what our
current governments are proposing to do.
So there's your choice, invest in education, keeping the cost to the
student low, which offers very high future profit ... or don't invest in
education, letting the cost rise prohibitively, generating very high
future costs.
OTOH, the student's behavior won't garner them much sympathy.
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