In unrelated news, all Utah state employee bank statements, credit reports, penis and breast enlargement related health records, online dating history and other interesting materials were found posted on 325 websites around the country, along with compromising photos of those concerned presumed to come from their personal email and facebook accounts....
When I was in college I took an Analysis of Algorithms course as part of my CS degree. The textbook was $100-something and it was on it's 16th edition or so. Several weeks into the semester, my copy of the book was accidentally destroyed. Searching for a used copy online, I found one of the first several editions for about $10. I took a chance that no that much changed. Aside from the pages yellowing with age, I never found any differences to the current edition. The current edition actually had a few minor typos that the earlier edition that I had didn't have.
Not to be cynical or anything but the typos were probably the changes that 'justified' the new editions...
I never said corporate income tax was not meant to be collected, nor did I say it wasn't collected. I said corporations didn't "pay much" in income tax. I grant that is rather subjective, but it is still non-zero.
You said that it was by design. I'm saying otherwise:-)
I challenge you to find a corporation that is paying ZERO in taxes, which is the phrase the article used.
In 2011, another Ireland-based Apple unit, Apple Sales International, which sells iPhones, iPads MacBooks and other products to overseas distributors, recorded $22 billion in pretax earnings but paid just $10 million in taxes, investigators found. That works out to a rate of about.05%. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324787004578495250424727708.html
Regardless of localized sweetheart deals or incentive abatements or whatever, they are still paying fees, sales or VAT tax, and many more. Hence my retort that claiming a corporation pays "zero in taxes" is a gross distortion. Whether or not they should be paying more, or be allowed to structure in such a way to avoid paying certain taxes, is a different discussion.
Shrug. So close to zero as to be zero for all intents and purposes.
Individuals pay 'fees, sales or VAT tax and many more' as well and so what? This is not a valid reason to not pay income taxes.
With regard to these...companies don't pay VAT - they collect it from their customers and for what they do pay they have the right to claim it back from the government. Sales tax in the US on what they buy for themselves, yes. Not sure what fees you're talking about.
End result is that individuals are carrying the tax burden at all levels, not corporations.
The article doesn't say, but it appears that when it says "tax" it is referring to *income* tax. For some reason, a lot of people forget that corporations, unlike people, pay income tax on NET rather than gross. In other words, the corporation pays all of its expenses, then pays income tax on what is left over. Those expenses include your salary, your benefits, new capital projects, and so on. Meanwhile, the real tax burden of the organization is much higher when you add in all the other taxes they are paying: sales tax, property tax, tariffs, and so on. The story that these corporations aren't paying very much in "taxes" is a gross distortion. They just aren't paying very much in income taxes, which is by design.
Nonsense. The concept of corporate income tax exists and therefore is meant to be collected.
Corporations are using a loophole that allows them to declare their revenue offshore to avoid paying taxes. If an individual did the same thing, they would be guilty of tax evasion but it's legal for corporations because, unlike individuals, they aren't required to declare their global revenue / profits regardless of where they are resident (as individual US citizens are).
Individuals pay sales tax, property tax, tariffs and so on as well. In fact, these large companies negotiate with states and cities to not have to pay such taxes in exchange for locating there and bringing jobs. Not a bad trade, as such things go, but it goes against your assumption that they pay such taxes.
That they force mandatory backdooring every software will mean that even you in europe will have your computer backdoored too, by US law. And of course, all the services that you use that are hosted or goes thru US will have all communications monitored, even yours. And if you do something they don't like, they are a lot of precedents that they could get you in a way or another. They are spreading their version of "freedom" all around the world by now.
Sounds like they eat mostly bugs, grains, and small animals.
For natural pest control may I suggest house centipedes? Those fast, long-legged, grey-brown guys with the racing stripes. They are non-aggressive and typically incapable of stinging humans until they get quite large (they can live for almost a decade), they carry no known human diseases or parasites, and are voracious hunters whose favorite prey include termites, silverfish, bedbugs, and young cockroachs. And unlike ants they're completely uninterested in your food.
The rich enjoy having power over the rest of us. The people who started and ran slashdot are not representative of the human race and even if they were, they would not represent the rich and powerful.
In your post you use the word 'cheaper' and 'pay'. Where do the people get money from when they cannot work because there are no jobs left?
At the very least there will be a time period in between now and the time that you are envisioning where money will still be used. Just because things could be free does not mean that they will be.
Just because the robots took the productive jobs doesn't mean people won't have jobs. There will still be actors, writers, artisans, chefs, athletes, etc. There will be plenty of jobs. They just won't produce so many critical things.
Your argument is nothing but a rehash of Luddism. Industrialization destroyed vast swaths of unskilled labor, but it also allowed increased specialization that lead to an explosion in the number of people not directly involved in farming.
Increased production has never once in history lead to a war. Never.
As much as I like your image of the future (I'm a huge Culture fan), I have to ask...how many actors, writers, artisans, chefs, athletes, etc do you think the world can support while still using money?
On top of that, how much do you think these people will be making when the labor market is flooded with supply for whatever jobs can't be done by robots or AI?
This is for increasing the level of fear in citizens in order to make privacy invasion more acceptable.
And since it will be the police getting the reports, how do you figure it will increase the level of fear in citizens?
The first time local law enforcement says, "Reports of terrorism are up 900% this year; we need an increased budget to deal with the increased threat."
Well, one such example would be the oil-for-food program. Russia was by far the greatest abuser, but not the only one by any means. France is on that list as expected:
The government finally decided to care and used the one achilles heel of BitCoin...conversion to and from dollars. If BitCoin had some innate value, it wouldn't be a problem, but since it's primary use is as an exchange currency for dodging taxes and selling goods on the black market, this change is going to seriously impact the value of the currency.The government can't control BitCoin, but it can control US financial institutions and other companies that need to interact with those financial institutions.
We'll now see how well the BitCoin market can operate as a completely stand-alone entity.
Or we'll see bitcoin operators caving in to (assumed) US Govt demands for information (similar to the ongoing offshore banking battles)
You quote him in full and then ignore what he wrote. Amazing! He wrote "the Pope" which can only mean the current pope, and then wrote "any of the last few". You cite the Crusades, which is hardy recent.
Actually 'The Pope' is a job, not a single person, but whatever.
Using your logic I can choose one current peaceful leader of Islam to be compared to the current Pope. It is non-representative in both cases.
Islam has always been a violent religion, and most of the Crusades were a Christian response to Muslim aggression.
Islam itself is no more violent than Catholicism is - and Christianity as been, historically, every bit as violent as Islam. In both cases, as with all major religions, the leaders of the religions have used the relative ignorance of their followers to achieve what they wanted.
In the case of the first Crusades, and the Muslim conquests leading up to them, and the Roman Catholic conquests before them, and the Jewish conquests before them...none of the wars was any more or less justifiable than any other war over land and power.
No religion is free of violence to the point where they can throw stones while living in their own glass houses. Christianity is not free of violence even today.
I don't mind working shitty jobs to accomplish my goals - my points were rather that the salary one gets for working such isn't enough to pay for school + living and that the more time you have to spend working the less time you can spend learning.
After five years of working and going to school I ended up working so much that I wasn't able to keep my grades up. I do not actually have a degree but I still had to pay off a large amount of student debt. The system is broken.
I don't think that the school should decide if it's going to be free. That's something that the society should decide, as an investment in the society for the long term.
As a point of comparison, I now live in France, make six figures and pay French taxes. While I complain just as everyone else does about paying taxes, at the end of the day my family has free medical coverage and free education through university level (assuming the passing of the competitive exams which decide who gets into which school, or if they get into school at all).
End result is that the society stays strong because the best and brightest do indeed go to school for free - based on merit.
Do you consider the pope to be a religious fanatic?
Does the Pope advocate for the destruction of the evidence of other people's religion and history, or call for people's death?
The Pope is the head of a church, but I'm not certain any of the last few have done anything I'd think is reason to call 'religious fanatic'. The Westboro folks maybe.
The Taliban, who think everybody who doesn't agree with them deserves death, well, now those guys I'll call fanatics.
fanatic/fnatik/ Noun A person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, esp. for an extreme religious or political cause. (source: google.com)
It's a subjective qualifier. Arguably anyone who dedicates their life to a religion is 'excessive and single-minded' and the leaders of any religion are going to qualify at some point or another.
With regard to your specific question...yes, popes have many times "advocate(d) for the destruction of the evidence of other people's religion and history, or call for people's death(s)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
So I disagree with your statement. People should be judged on their actions and not grouped together under a religious (or other) context and denied respect on that basis alone.
I'm not ashamed of my sexuality. I don't pirate porn, largely because the majority of it is fake and really poor quality (I'm not in the target audience), but let them tell my neighbours. They'll get hit with a defamation lawsuit pretty quickly.
And my neighbours have been able to wrap their heads around the fact that I'm a tree-hugging dirt-worshipping lesbian hippie who goes to festivals where witchcraft is practiced from time to time, I think they won't have any problem understanding that I may look at porn occasionally too.
Here in France, university costs relatively nothing
- right, when you say 'nothing' you mean nothing to you, conveniently forgetting that somebody is paying for everything. France is bankrupt, by the way, it can't pay its debts either so all this socialism will end on the streets, similar to Greece or so.
It costs me money in that I pay taxes in France but at least I get something for it - excellent free medical coverage and education (and a whole bunch more). What are you getting for your tax money?
With regard to France being bankrupt...according to the IMF even with all 'this socialism' France (89.97% debt to GDP ratio) is in better financial shape than the US (107.1% debt to GDP ratio) and can't be at all compared to Greece (170.73% debt to GDP ratio): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
You should check your assumptions before posting them.
Most in-state tuitions for community colleges are at this level. Have you actually looked?
Worst case, move to Va. This is how state competition works. If your state sucks, leave it.
You haven't answered my question about the 10k including housing, food and transportation; nor have you addressed my point about being able to find work or have parents to pay the costs for you (or to put you up for free in their home while you're at school).
I had five years of College / University and ran up huge amounts of student loan and credit card debt even though I was working one or two part time jobs making as much as I could in such jobs. No parents to pay for anything so I was covering it all myself.
When you're covering it all yourself and you're working shitty part time jobs to earn whatever you can while not failing out of school due to lack of time to go to classes and study, 10k is a lot of money. Assuming your 10k doesn't include food, housing and transportation, it's that much more painful.
As for not liking it...no, I don't like it. I think it's a formula for failure for the society over time.
Going back to the original point of the article - merit based scholarships should be based on grades and not based on the family's ability to pay. If they were - if school were free for the students who work hard enough to deserve it - then you have a system that wins for the society in the long term.
There are a limited number of places available in any given school, as well as total in the country, and competitive exams to eliminate those who do not merit continuing.
I am in college now, and familiar with tuition costs. Right now, a Va resident can attend basically any college in Va for ~ 10k / year. Thats tuition, books MIGHT add another 1-2k, but you can generally rent books for $50/class x 4 classes x 2 semesters.
Yes, if you cant cover that, you dont have the gumption. Sorry.
And I love how the headline demonizes merit based aid. Oh the horrors.
Indeed you are lucky to be a resident of a state with relatively low costs.
Does that 10k include housing, food and transportation costs?
Not everyone can find non-school hours work that is going to pay enough to cover most or all the costs after taxes and not everyone has parents to pay it for them.
I see no point in discussing this further with someone who believes that no matter how bad things were handled it wasn't Bush's fault and no matter how well they were handled it wasn't to the credit of Obama.
This is delicious. In other words, you say you see no point to discussion with someone who disagrees with you.
Not at all. I have long discussions with many people who disagree with me on a regular basis. I find such discussions to be interesting and stimulating.
I'll try and clarify for you: I see no point in discussion with someone who will ignore any information that goes against what they want to be true, which appears to be the case with you.
Slashdot Mirror
In unrelated news, all Utah state employee bank statements, credit reports, penis and breast enlargement related health records, online dating history and other interesting materials were found posted on 325 websites around the country, along with compromising photos of those concerned presumed to come from their personal email and facebook accounts....
When I was in college I took an Analysis of Algorithms course as part of my CS degree. The textbook was $100-something and it was on it's 16th edition or so. Several weeks into the semester, my copy of the book was accidentally destroyed. Searching for a used copy online, I found one of the first several editions for about $10. I took a chance that no that much changed. Aside from the pages yellowing with age, I never found any differences to the current edition. The current edition actually had a few minor typos that the earlier edition that I had didn't have.
Not to be cynical or anything but the typos were probably the changes that 'justified' the new editions...
I never said corporate income tax was not meant to be collected, nor did I say it wasn't collected. I said corporations didn't "pay much" in income tax. I grant that is rather subjective, but it is still non-zero.
You said that it was by design. I'm saying otherwise :-)
I challenge you to find a corporation that is paying ZERO in taxes, which is the phrase the article used.
"Despite reporting net income of $30 billion over the four-year period 2009 to 2012, Apple Operations International paid no corporate income taxes to any national government during that period,"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324787004578495250424727708.html
In 2011, another Ireland-based Apple unit, Apple Sales International, which sells iPhones, iPads MacBooks and other products to overseas distributors, recorded $22 billion in pretax earnings but paid just $10 million in taxes, investigators found. That works out to a rate of about .05%.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324787004578495250424727708.html
"In April, Amazon was revealed to be routing its UK sales through its European headquarters in low-tax Luxembourg, meaning that last year its UK corporation tax bill was nil, despite revenue of £3bn from the sale of books, DVDs and other goods."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/good-bean-counters-starbucks-has-paid-no-tax-in-uk-since-2009-8212579.html
"Most of Google’s revenues in Europe are booked in Dublin, then shifted via royalty payments to a Dutch subsidiary, before whatever is left is recognised as profits by a subsidiary in Bermuda, which levies no income tax."
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21568432-starbuckss-tax-troubles-are-sign-things-come-multinationals-wake-up-and-smell
Regardless of localized sweetheart deals or incentive abatements or whatever, they are still paying fees, sales or VAT tax, and many more. Hence my retort that claiming a corporation pays "zero in taxes" is a gross distortion. Whether or not they should be paying more, or be allowed to structure in such a way to avoid paying certain taxes, is a different discussion.
Shrug. So close to zero as to be zero for all intents and purposes.
Individuals pay 'fees, sales or VAT tax and many more' as well and so what? This is not a valid reason to not pay income taxes.
With regard to these...companies don't pay VAT - they collect it from their customers and for what they do pay they have the right to claim it back from the government. Sales tax in the US on what they buy for themselves, yes. Not sure what fees you're talking about.
End result is that individuals are carrying the tax burden at all levels, not corporations.
The article doesn't say, but it appears that when it says "tax" it is referring to *income* tax. For some reason, a lot of people forget that corporations, unlike people, pay income tax on NET rather than gross. In other words, the corporation pays all of its expenses, then pays income tax on what is left over. Those expenses include your salary, your benefits, new capital projects, and so on. Meanwhile, the real tax burden of the organization is much higher when you add in all the other taxes they are paying: sales tax, property tax, tariffs, and so on. The story that these corporations aren't paying very much in "taxes" is a gross distortion. They just aren't paying very much in income taxes, which is by design.
Nonsense. The concept of corporate income tax exists and therefore is meant to be collected.
Corporations are using a loophole that allows them to declare their revenue offshore to avoid paying taxes. If an individual did the same thing, they would be guilty of tax evasion but it's legal for corporations because, unlike individuals, they aren't required to declare their global revenue / profits regardless of where they are resident (as individual US citizens are).
Individuals pay sales tax, property tax, tariffs and so on as well. In fact, these large companies negotiate with states and cities to not have to pay such taxes in exchange for locating there and bringing jobs. Not a bad trade, as such things go, but it goes against your assumption that they pay such taxes.
Who you callin' a MOOC?
So what - anything can be used to trigger malware.
That they force mandatory backdooring every software will mean that even you in europe will have your computer backdoored too, by US law. And of course, all the services that you use that are hosted or goes thru US will have all communications monitored, even yours. And if you do something they don't like, they are a lot of precedents that they could get you in a way or another. They are spreading their version of "freedom" all around the world by now.
The irony being that backdooring was illegal until recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States
Sounds like they eat mostly bugs, grains, and small animals.
For natural pest control may I suggest house centipedes? Those fast, long-legged, grey-brown guys with the racing stripes. They are non-aggressive and typically incapable of stinging humans until they get quite large (they can live for almost a decade), they carry no known human diseases or parasites, and are voracious hunters whose favorite prey include termites, silverfish, bedbugs, and young cockroachs. And unlike ants they're completely uninterested in your food.
Do they win versus tough ants?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LLEpKi3wcA
As I said before, I like your vision.
The rich enjoy having power over the rest of us. The people who started and ran slashdot are not representative of the human race and even if they were, they would not represent the rich and powerful.
In your post you use the word 'cheaper' and 'pay'. Where do the people get money from when they cannot work because there are no jobs left?
At the very least there will be a time period in between now and the time that you are envisioning where money will still be used. Just because things could be free does not mean that they will be.
Just because the robots took the productive jobs doesn't mean people won't have jobs. There will still be actors, writers, artisans, chefs, athletes, etc. There will be plenty of jobs. They just won't produce so many critical things.
Your argument is nothing but a rehash of Luddism. Industrialization destroyed vast swaths of unskilled labor, but it also allowed increased specialization that lead to an explosion in the number of people not directly involved in farming.
Increased production has never once in history lead to a war. Never.
As much as I like your image of the future (I'm a huge Culture fan), I have to ask...how many actors, writers, artisans, chefs, athletes, etc do you think the world can support while still using money?
On top of that, how much do you think these people will be making when the labor market is flooded with supply for whatever jobs can't be done by robots or AI?
This is for increasing the level of fear in citizens in order to make privacy invasion more acceptable.
And since it will be the police getting the reports, how do you figure it will increase the level of fear in citizens?
The first time local law enforcement says, "Reports of terrorism are up 900% this year; we need an increased budget to deal with the increased threat."
And drones don't forget the drones!!
Terrorists, the new communists
Just to say that's the funniest post I've ever seen on /. - well done
Well, one such example would be the oil-for-food program. Russia was by far the greatest abuser, but not the only one by any means. France is on that list as expected:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme#Beneficiaries
As are the US and UK
The government finally decided to care and used the one achilles heel of BitCoin...conversion to and from dollars. If BitCoin had some innate value, it wouldn't be a problem, but since it's primary use is as an exchange currency for dodging taxes and selling goods on the black market, this change is going to seriously impact the value of the currency.The government can't control BitCoin, but it can control US financial institutions and other companies that need to interact with those financial institutions.
We'll now see how well the BitCoin market can operate as a completely stand-alone entity.
Or we'll see bitcoin operators caving in to (assumed) US Govt demands for information (similar to the ongoing offshore banking battles)
You quote him in full and then ignore what he wrote. Amazing! He wrote "the Pope" which can only mean the current pope, and then wrote "any of the last few". You cite the Crusades, which is hardy recent.
Actually 'The Pope' is a job, not a single person, but whatever.
Using your logic I can choose one current peaceful leader of Islam to be compared to the current Pope. It is non-representative in both cases.
Islam has always been a violent religion, and most of the Crusades were a Christian response to Muslim aggression.
Islam itself is no more violent than Catholicism is - and Christianity as been, historically, every bit as violent as Islam. In both cases, as with all major religions, the leaders of the religions have used the relative ignorance of their followers to achieve what they wanted.
In the case of the first Crusades, and the Muslim conquests leading up to them, and the Roman Catholic conquests before them, and the Jewish conquests before them...none of the wars was any more or less justifiable than any other war over land and power.
Later Crusades had nothing to do with Muslims and were political in nature, again nothing more than fighting for territory and power for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragonese_Crusade. Then we have all the wars of Christians against Christians, against Catholics, against Protestants, etc, etc, ad nauseum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion
No religion is free of violence to the point where they can throw stones while living in their own glass houses. Christianity is not free of violence even today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_God_(USA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_Republican_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Front_of_Tripura
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_rebellion_and_Bucharest_pogrom#The_Bucharest_pogrom
I could continue but I think that's enough to make the point.
Hi -
I don't mind working shitty jobs to accomplish my goals - my points were rather that the salary one gets for working such isn't enough to pay for school + living and that the more time you have to spend working the less time you can spend learning.
After five years of working and going to school I ended up working so much that I wasn't able to keep my grades up. I do not actually have a degree but I still had to pay off a large amount of student debt. The system is broken.
I don't think that the school should decide if it's going to be free. That's something that the society should decide, as an investment in the society for the long term.
As a point of comparison, I now live in France, make six figures and pay French taxes. While I complain just as everyone else does about paying taxes, at the end of the day my family has free medical coverage and free education through university level (assuming the passing of the competitive exams which decide who gets into which school, or if they get into school at all).
End result is that the society stays strong because the best and brightest do indeed go to school for free - based on merit.
Does the Pope advocate for the destruction of the evidence of other people's religion and history, or call for people's death?
The Pope is the head of a church, but I'm not certain any of the last few have done anything I'd think is reason to call 'religious fanatic'. The Westboro folks maybe.
The Taliban, who think everybody who doesn't agree with them deserves death, well, now those guys I'll call fanatics.
fanatic /fnatik/
Noun
A person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, esp. for an extreme religious or political cause.
(source: google.com)
It's a subjective qualifier. Arguably anyone who dedicates their life to a religion is 'excessive and single-minded' and the leaders of any religion are going to qualify at some point or another.
With regard to your specific question...yes, popes have many times "advocate(d) for the destruction of the evidence of other people's religion and history, or call for people's death(s)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
So I disagree with your statement. People should be judged on their actions and not grouped together under a religious (or other) context and denied respect on that basis alone.
I'm not ashamed of my sexuality. I don't pirate porn, largely because the majority of it is fake and really poor quality (I'm not in the target audience), but let them tell my neighbours. They'll get hit with a defamation lawsuit pretty quickly.
And my neighbours have been able to wrap their heads around the fact that I'm a tree-hugging dirt-worshipping lesbian hippie who goes to festivals where witchcraft is practiced from time to time, I think they won't have any problem understanding that I may look at porn occasionally too.
Dirt worshipping?
Religion is not an ethnicity. And religious fanatics deserve no consideration of respect.
Do you consider the pope to be a religious fanatic?
Here in France, university costs relatively nothing
- right, when you say 'nothing' you mean nothing to you, conveniently forgetting that somebody is paying for everything. France is bankrupt, by the way, it can't pay its debts either so all this socialism will end on the streets, similar to Greece or so.
It costs me money in that I pay taxes in France but at least I get something for it - excellent free medical coverage and education (and a whole bunch more). What are you getting for your tax money?
With regard to France being bankrupt...according to the IMF even with all 'this socialism' France (89.97% debt to GDP ratio) is in better financial shape than the US (107.1% debt to GDP ratio) and can't be at all compared to Greece (170.73% debt to GDP ratio): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
You should check your assumptions before posting them.
Most in-state tuitions for community colleges are at this level. Have you actually looked?
Worst case, move to Va. This is how state competition works. If your state sucks, leave it.
You haven't answered my question about the 10k including housing, food and transportation; nor have you addressed my point about being able to find work or have parents to pay the costs for you (or to put you up for free in their home while you're at school).
I had five years of College / University and ran up huge amounts of student loan and credit card debt even though I was working one or two part time jobs making as much as I could in such jobs. No parents to pay for anything so I was covering it all myself.
When you're covering it all yourself and you're working shitty part time jobs to earn whatever you can while not failing out of school due to lack of time to go to classes and study, 10k is a lot of money. Assuming your 10k doesn't include food, housing and transportation, it's that much more painful.
As for not liking it...no, I don't like it. I think it's a formula for failure for the society over time.
Going back to the original point of the article - merit based scholarships should be based on grades and not based on the family's ability to pay. If they were - if school were free for the students who work hard enough to deserve it - then you have a system that wins for the society in the long term.
Long rant, I won't quote it.
Here in France, university costs relatively nothing. Students who cannot afford to pay for housing get aid for this as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_France#Tuition_costs
There are a limited number of places available in any given school, as well as total in the country, and competitive exams to eliminate those who do not merit continuing.
I am in college now, and familiar with tuition costs. Right now, a Va resident can attend basically any college in Va for ~ 10k / year. Thats tuition, books MIGHT add another 1-2k, but you can generally rent books for $50/class x 4 classes x 2 semesters.
Yes, if you cant cover that, you dont have the gumption. Sorry.
And I love how the headline demonizes merit based aid. Oh the horrors.
Indeed you are lucky to be a resident of a state with relatively low costs.
Does that 10k include housing, food and transportation costs?
Not everyone can find non-school hours work that is going to pay enough to cover most or all the costs after taxes and not everyone has parents to pay it for them.
I see no point in discussing this further with someone who believes that no matter how bad things were handled it wasn't Bush's fault and no matter how well they were handled it wasn't to the credit of Obama.
This is delicious. In other words, you say you see no point to discussion with someone who disagrees with you.
Not at all. I have long discussions with many people who disagree with me on a regular basis. I find such discussions to be interesting and stimulating.
I'll try and clarify for you: I see no point in discussion with someone who will ignore any information that goes against what they want to be true, which appears to be the case with you.