• grue@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I’m not confusing anything. You are advocating that people be given “the chance to better themselves,” but apparently failing to understand that a free college system with admissions limited by merit accomplishes exactly that: to give everyone a chance to show sufficient merit to get in!

    By rejecting a merit-based system, you’re actually advocating that everybody be able to go to college even despite failing their “chance,” which sure sounds like a guarantee to me!

    • Neuromancer
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      11 months ago

      I have never advocated for free college. I am not sure why you keep saying that. I said college should be affordable. I’ve clearly stated I do not think it should be free.

      Once again I never said guaranteed but available. That’s how I system works now. We have community colleges, colleges and universities.

      People can go through the system based on their ability.

      In many countries If they miss a window, that’s it. We don’t have that here and it’s a good thing.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I have never advocated for free college. I am not sure why you keep saying that.

        I’m not saying that. You’re the one trying to put words in my mouth, not the other way around. If you think that’s incorrect, prove it by quoting me.

        Once again I never said guaranteed but available. That’s how I system works now. We have community colleges, colleges and universities.

        Fine; we’ll pretend for a moment that non-merit-based “availability” is somehow different from a “guarantee” of admission. Either way, it’s way more misguided and harmful to society than free college with limited admissions based solely on merit!

        Again, having everybody get a college degree just for the sake of inflating expectations such that even shitty sales-clerk-type jobs require them as a baseline for consideration does nobody any fucking good! Neither society, nor the degree-holding sales clerks themselves. So what do you hope to accomplish by it?

        The people who can’t get in to college in a limited-admission merit-based system are precisely the ones who are better off not going. This ridiculous “everybody needs to go to college” expectation has created an entire generation of people who are screwed because they wasted half a decade getting useless degrees only to end up with barely mediocre jobs anyway, when they would have been BOTH HAPPIER AND MORE SUCCESSFUL doing the “blue collar” work the dipshit high school guidance counselors warned them away from!

        A lot of the borderline-suicidal sales clerks in this thread should’ve become welders etc., but didn’t because of attitudes like yours.

        P.S.: The notion that people learning a blue-collar skilled trade is somehow incompatible with them “hav[ing] the chance to better themselves” is ridiculously classist. You should be ashamed of yourself for that.

        • Neuromancer
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          11 months ago

          You keep stating things I never said.

          I said college should be available and you switch to merit. I’ve never said merit shouldn’t be favored in.

          Since I never advocated for everyone to having a degree. I’m not sure why you’re asking me. Sounds like if you’d actually read what I said, you’d realize you’re repeating what I said.

          What I said is we need to have more trade schools to allow people to become carpenters and plumbers.