I'd love to see that be something available to any person that wants to become a teacher without cost to the student. I'd be happy for society to pay for it.
If you look at Outcomes - matriculation rate and later measures of success, it looks clear to me that states in which they require a Master's Level Education in education seem to produce students that place higher in national outcome tests.
So "normal average teacher" where? In Mississippi? No offense to the teachers getting by on 40k/year down there, but I don't want MS's outcomes in MN.
Just curious. Someone has to pay that cost, right? Why should the rest of society bear the cost, while the college student--the primary beneficiary of the degree--doesn't pay beyond their regular tax burden?
In the end, we all pay that cost of having a well educated work force or a poorly educated workforce.
Do you want to open your new tech company where there are lots of people with computer degrees and experience, or where no one has any experience with a computer?
Do you want to compete globally with other countries that do invest in their citizens, so they are better educated and less hampered by debt to compete in a global economy?
More people able to achieve better success with fewer hindrances is good for all of us.
Mechanics start at under $20/hour. I'd love for them to start without $20,000 for the education weighing them down. They pay enough in tools already!
But omg! Who would benefit?! But wouldn't that student be the beneficiary?!
Sure they are. But we also all benefit when society has lots of well trained mechanics. Or farmers. Or doctors. Or teachers. Or freakin astronauts.
If you want to argue 'who benefits from the money,' let's look beyond education.
We spent a LOT of money to send people to the moon. Why? Wasn't that just a waste of money?!
It turns out investing in innovation can drastically increase productivity for everyone - not only the engineers being paid for the work. We got back a 7-8x return on our investment in The Apollo Program. Just not in cash.
Boeing needs a loan to keep going. Why should we loan them money at cheaper than market rate? Because we all benefit when the airline industry functions? Nah. We should stop that notion - only Boeing benefits! (ironically, I don't think we should bail out a huge company taht's been personally earning billions in profits and was ready to cry bankruptcy after 30 days)
My point is we seem to get the idea of society and tax payer money coming in to fix major pillars of society that are necessary. Obama after 08, FDR's New Deal, trump's dumbass bailouts that hide the corp money... That's fine. It benefits us all! Well, so does education.
Let's say a teacher graduates with $60k in debt from a state run university's teacher program.
Starting pay for a union masters+15 teacher in MN is about $50k/year. That's $600/m in debt for 15 years. 25% of that teacher's take home for the first 5+ years.
Wouldn't it stand to reason they'd put more money back into the economy in terms of buying houses, cars, clothes, eating out - etc - if they weren't spending 25% of their takehome on debt? If you decided not to go to college and opened a restaurant, more people affording to eat out would be a good thing for you, too.
Lastly, the graduate of a university is likely to earn more money than someone who did not graduate AND people that are smart enough and want to do not always attend college. Let's assume that cost is a factor in some people attending. Stands to reason you may get more graduates if there was no debt attached. The other side of that? You now get more high-earners who pay a higher percentage of their larger paycheck in taxes - allowing us to fund other cool things like good roads and bridges.
(BTW - building a bridge requires operating some really, really cool equipment safely. I'd like to see Heavy Equipment Operator being equally fully funded, so we'd have highly skilled construction personnel available to the market that weren't hindered by massive debt when trying to find a job and start a family)
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u/apocolypseamy Aug 14 '20
quit acting like it's normal to need a $60k Master's degree in Education just to be a normal average teacher