Here in Sweden education is free, and the government provides a (small) monthly payout to students.

It doesn't benefit the ruling class if too many of the wrong people access education; they may get ideas.

A man I respect quite a lot used to say that college should pay a full-time wage to the students. It should be challenging, it should be a real education (which a lot of modern college is not), and in exchange for that, if you are improving your understanding of the world and your ability to contribute to society, that should be something that society pays you a pretty decent wage for, because it's a fucking valuable activity.

It was free until some time in the 1960s when black people started getting involved in higher education, then the republicans got big mad about that and changed the rules because they're racist pieces of shit. They would rather make everyone suffer if it hurts one person who isn't a white christian republican.

There's more detail but that's the short version.

It doesn’t.

It takes time and effort to gain more knowledge. It has never been cheaper or more accessible to acquire knowledge than it is today.

To increase your intelligence, is another matter all together.

Disclaimer: I 100% support "free" healthcare and "free" education.

Being a teacher is a job. Being a college professor is a job. Being a nurse is a job. Being a janitor for a college campus is a job. People need money and benefits to do jobs. We've not yet achieved a post-scarcity economy where people can work without being reimbursed for their efforts.

Anyone who labels the goal of providing publicly-funded education or publicly-funded healthcare as "free" is either arguing in bad faith or too naive to understand what the goal should be. As a society we should provide public services, such as education and healthcare, to all humans who ask for it. For the good of all humans. But it's something we all have to collectively fund.

It doesn't if you know how to read. I don't think of college as paying to learn; it's paying to prove to others that you possibly have learned something. You can just learn things outside of school on your own. You just won't have a degree proving it.

It's still free. You're not paying for the education, you are paying teachers and university buildings/materials. No one is stopping you from going to the library and learning. The internet hosts a large wealth of knowledge.

I'm ready for those downvotes, but it's just a hardpill to swollow

It doesn't.

You need to study to be smart and studying is free.

I would argue that its rare for education to make you smarter, it mostly makes you more knowlegable.

Knowledge is mostly free though. You can get it from the internet, from the library etc. A lot of what you are paying for is the certification - some places let you just sit the exam I think.

The library is free, my dude

It doesn't.

It costs money to get a piece of paper that proves you got smarter.

You can go to any public library and get access to nearly published material to learn from for free.

All you're missing now is academia. So go bum around a public university library and ask some college student if they canl check something out for you. Admittedly there's a money piece here, there's way around it, not all of them legal, but that'd be your easiest path.

RIP Aaron Swartz

Free education would empower 'those' people. And the right desperately needs an other to denigrate.

*in the US. In Germany a semester at my university costs about 300 Euros and that includes cheaper lunch and a ticket to use all public transport in the whole of Germany.

It is not about getting smarter. It is about transferring knowledge. For that, the teaching person must a) have the knowledge, and b) the skills to actually transfer it. Both do not come easy and cheap.

You simply pay a professional person money for professional work. And sometimes it is really, really worth it. I learned one programming language in an expensive three day course - from the person who wrote the actual tools. This was intense. The amount of knowledge and insight gained was marvelous. And well worth the money.

Libraries are free.

Many libraries and community centers offer free classes depending on the subject. Local clubs can offer classes. Lots of youtube classes are free, like Khan Academy.

What you’re paying for is the degree on top of the education. A checkmark in a box that employers use to weed out people that don’t play the game of jumping through the hoops.

In Australia University used to be free. At some point they realised that Asia is close and has a virtually limitless supply of rich parents who want to pay big money for their kids to be lawyers and doctors.

Education is now one of Australia's main exports.

There are a lot more quality free learning resources than people realise.

It only costs money to get the little piece of paper that says you did the thing and are therefore smarter. 🙃

I guess you're talking about the US.

Well, everything costs money there: education, health, safety... It's capitalist dystopia.

formal education feels like it was fully co-opted by "the market"

If you want to join "the market" (have a job and get paid for it), you need formal education
To get formal education, you need money
To get money, you need to join "the market" or have someone who's "in" to pay for you

As for "getting smarter", that's different from formal education