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Free Tuition for Math, Science, and Engineering?

Posted by Zonk on from the sign-me-up dept.

Gibbs-Duhem writes "Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus wants free college tuition for US math, science, and engineering majors conditional upon working or teaching in the field for at least four years. From the article: 'The goal, he said in an interview last week, is to better prepare children for school and get more of them into college to make the United States more globally competitive, particularly with countries like China and India. "I think the challenge is fierce, and I think we have a real obligation to go the extra mile and redo things a bit differently, so we leave this place in better shape than we found it," Baucus said.' Do you think this would help with the US's lackluster performance in these fields?"

3 of 766 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I think it's good by FooAtWFU · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It allows poor people to get a university degree, which is really expensive in America Well, you could say the same of the first federal financial aid packages: they helped poor people get a university degree. But then, universities raised their prices, and now it's in a bit of a vicious cycle: universities get more federal aid, universities raise prices, universities build expensive projects generally of marginal use to attract more students (things like sports complexes and other facilities mostly incidental to actual education)...

    As such, I'm a little skeptical of the scheme, but without knowing more of the implementation details I'm afraid I can't critique it in depth...

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  2. Re:I think it's good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A bunch of science majors flipping burgers doesn't lead to any advances in science and engineering. No kidding. Can you imagine how useless a person would be to science who decided to get a Ph.D. and then went on to work as a patent clerk?
  3. Re:I think it's good by loserMcloser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    part of me wonders how effective a PhD would be at teaching high school students. Honestly, if you have a degree in Physics and can't find a job, I'm not sure I want you in front of students as you must be a horribly weird person.

    What a small-minded comment. Not everyone is just after the money, you know. Most people who go to the trouble of getting a PhD have a passion for the subject, and often that is accompanied by a passion for sharing the subject through teaching. Have you ever considered that the person wanted to teach high school students, rather than viewing it as some sort of fallback job?