Free Tuition for Math, Science, and Engineering?

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?"

Comments

Of course it will help

[jcorno]

Cutting tuition will always improve the talent pool, because it removes an arbitrary obstacle. That's why the University of Georgia System has improved so dramatically in the last 10 years. The HOPE Scholarship made college so cheap that anybody can go, so the schools can all be a lot more selective.

But have they considered

[wamerocity]

the benefit to society if that extended that to people get business degrees and law degrees? I don't think our country has a large enough per-capita rate of lawyers or salesman, so we could really benefit by offering them free tuition too. Oh and also history majors, because that is a useful major too. :D

Re:But have they considered

[wamerocity]

Me again. In all seriousness, a great book i would recommend to everyone to read is Thomas L. Friedman's "The World is Flat." I thought it was very even-handed, straightforward view at globalization, outsourcing, and how it effects the American and worldwide marketplace. However, during his closing talks at the end of the book, he makes a very well-worded warning/prediction about the future of this country- that America needs to place more value on it's scientists and engineers or else it will lose them. In a country where MARKETING and SALES offer some of the best paid salaries, brilliant minds will not spend the money, time, and incredible effort it takes to get an engineering degree. We will continue outsourcing our engineers from India and China, and the time will come when China and India will outsource marketing and sales to the US, because it will be what we do best.

I truly applaud this senator for the initiative and believe that that ALL states should follow suit and offer a similar program, to help keep the sciences strong in the US.

Re:I think it's good

[FooAtWFU]

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...

Re:I think it's good

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

$1000 for Graduating HS on Time

[Doc Ruby]

How about the government just gives everyone who graduates highschool on time $1000 cash, no questions asked? To use for college tuition, buying a car, a year of free cheeseburgers, or anything else they want, no strings attached.

It costs the government something like $30K a year to keep a person in jail. Not to mention how much it costs to run the rest of the judicial system, to build the jails, the damage caused by their crimes, or the taxes they could have paid if they were free to work. By the time we're done with the difference between a free person and a jailed person, it's probably over $50K a year. The average Federal jailtime is over 5 years per sentence, or well over $250K per prisoner (many get multiple sentences per lifetime).

People graduating HS on time are less likely to commit crimes and go to jail. So every person who the bonus spares from jail is worth over 250 people who get it, but still go to jail. In other words, if the increased on-time graduations reduce the crime rate even as little as 0.25%, they're worth it. It's probably closer to needing only 0.1% or less to "break even". And that's not counting other benefits, like increased productivity, reduced teen pregnancy, and all the other benefits of on-time graduation.

We can afford a lot more investment in Americans' education. Some targeting high performers who need more money for even higher performance. Some targeting low performers at risk of creating more damage than it costs to prevent. Education is always the investment with the best return. Investing more will pay off quickly, creating more money to invest, and improving the country across the board as a "byproduct".

Re:I think it's good

[megaditto]

The degree of uselessness of a degree is relative.

Re:I think it's good

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally, or is this case special?

Re:Yes, it would work.

[megaditto]

I know millions of Americans who are currently employed because of the good old job-stealers like Tesla, von Braun, Bohr, Bell, Guglielmo Marconi, Einstein, John von Neumann, Sergey Brin.

Since I like helping bigots, here's my link for you: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,276508,00.html

[...]Among the technology companies founded by foreign entrepreneurs are Sun Microsystems Inc., Intel Corp and Google Inc.

The study pointed out the contributions foreign entrepreneurs make to the American economy. It found that 25 percent of the companies founded in those 10 years had at least one senior executive a founder, chief executive, president or chief technology officer who was born outside the United States. The study was based on telephone surveys of 2,054 companies. In 2005 immigrant entrepreneurs companies generated $52 billion in sales.

Re:I think it's good

[loserMcloser]

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?