Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Why FREE college HURTS the poor - VisualEconomik EN" video.

  1. This video completely and utterly misses the point. By keeping education free you keep up the supply of fully educated people providing your companies with more bargaining power for them. That makes it easier for them to create jobs for everyone else who hasn't taken this education and keeps the relative income of the educated vs the not educated much more similar. Furthermore, there's nothing stopping you from covering living expenses partially or fully even if the universities are free. The Norwegian system is free education at all levels even for non citizens, while living expenses, study materials and excursions is covered by student loans for citizens. Free education is not about removing differences to begin with but to invest in the economy benefiting everyone in it. If the tuition fees where to be covered by loans that would lead to higer wage pressure for companies that require a highly educated labour force, increasing the costs and risks of trying something new and makes many concepts unviable. And ir increase the wage difference on the negotiation side, instead of on the tax burden side.
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  2. Also, the reduced differences isn't caused by the taxes and who they're allocated to but by the end result of increasing the supply of low cost highly educated labour. Without huge loans to pay back more of them are willing to take lower salaries, and if you invest in the whole chain you'll get a bigger supply driving down the costs allowing companies to use this educated labour to create more jobs also for less skilled labour. And the relative purchasing power of low skilled workers in terms of services requiring a high education also Increases. They're putting the cart before the horse...
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  3. Well their assumptions are wrong... Free education lowers differences by keeping the wages of highly educated labour low. The differences aren't reduced on the tax side, that's completely misunderstanding the dynamics at play.
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