Here is some history excerpted from a University of Minnesota publication:
"By the mid-1800s, a call for free, compulsory education had begun, and compulsory education became widespread by the end of the century. This was an important development, as children from all social classes could now receive a free, formal education. Compulsory education was intended to further national unity and to teach immigrants “American” values. It also arose because of industrialization, as an industrial economy demanded reading, writing, and math skills much more than an agricultural economy had.
"Free, compulsory education, of course, applied only to primary and secondary schools. Until the mid-1900s, very few people went to college, and those who did typically came from fairly wealthy families. After World War II, however, college enrollments soared . . ."
Allow me to take over from there.
One reason college enrollments soared after WW II was the GI Bill of rights, which allowed men (because veterans were largely men) to gain free or nearly free education through college. This development was providential, fortunate, or well planned, because the concurrent baby boom required a legion of teachers and, later, professors including many of those at my college, San Diego State, where I attended in part because it was essentially free. If I had needed to pay very much to attend college, I'm not sure I would have. In any case, since I hadn't incurred any dept, I was able to afford a graduate program at the University of Iowa that prepared me to teach at the college level, which I have done for most of my life.
After I started college, I was often shocked or puzzled to hear or read about the cost of higher education in other states, because I only paid $25 a semester, which would equate to about 200 of today's dollars (Now undergraduate tuition at the same school is just under $3000 per semester, still a comparative bargain, but hardly free).
At the time, though I had vague ideas about writing for a living, I was realistic enough to know that I had better prepare a backup. And since my mom, a teacher of eighth grade English, History, and Government, had always provided for most of our living expenses, I chose teaching as the backup plan.
Though I often worked part-time during college, I didn't need to, as long as I lived frugally, because I was assisted by Social Security, a benefit the benevolent Congress had extended from age 18 to age 22 to those of us who had deceased, old, or disabled parents, as long as we remained in college. My dad had died during my high school freshman year, so the monthly Social Security check on my behalf was around $250, (around 1500 of today's dollars).
Okay, for anyone who believes we, as a nation, are financially better off than we used to be, allow me to compare.
The other day, an email from a friend mentioned that her daughter needed to get a second job because her two daughters turned 18 and so they no longer received the monthly Social Security that would have helped them through college until age 22 had they grown up in my day. Which reminded me of why I spend a lot of time and calculation wondering if I can afford to keep my home. Because Social Security helped my Zoe and me keep ahead of expenses until she turned 18, because of my status as an old guy, (for more about that circumstance go to this link) then stopped just as she started college.
Hooray for Zoë, for earning such a whopping scholarship, meaning I still haven't needed to sell our home. But very few people are blessed with such gifted children as I am.
What I am getting at here is a question that perplexes me: Why on earth does the United States not offer free public higher education? I mean, don't we need a more educated populace?
To avoid generalizing, I will offer an example (A tactic I learned from SDSU Professor Dan McLeod, who told our class he never could have afforded college except for the GI bill).
Here's one of many examples I could give: my dear friend Gus and I met during junior high and stayed friends thereafter. Like me, Gus mostly got raised by a single mom. He was, like me, a not particularly motivated student until later, and like me, he graduated from SDSU with a B average, which was high enough for me to gain admission into a teaching program but probably not good enough to earn him the scholarship he would have needed to even think about medical school, which had become his goal. So, after college he worked at some lowly jobs until he saved enough to make a trip to Europe. While on the trip, he visited Belgium and in Brussels met a girl he favored so much he wondered if he could find a way to stay there a while.
An acquaintance told him that med school in Belgium was almost free if you got admitted, which he did. Actually, it cost him $6 a year. The programs were either in Flemish or French. He knew a little French but the program that accepted him was in Flemish, so he started studying. The first year, he failed, but from the second year on, he did quite well.
After he earned their degree, he returned to the U.S. and took some tests and internships and residencies then moved back to San Diego and soon was working for Sharp Health Care, where he became the top head and neck surgeon while raising three fine children, two of whom have since become doctors. The third is now in medical school.
See what free education can do for a guy?
And think what it could do for our nation's struggling health care system if anyone who could qualify were able to become doctors and nurses without spending a lifetime paying off debt.
Sorry it's been so long since the last issue of Rats.
If you start to miss me, you could subscribe to the Outsiders’ Church, to less is MORE, a monthly newsletter, find all my books at my web site, or consider studying in a class I teach at Perelandra College.
Onward,
Ken