Just remember that "I grew up poor and I worked hard" is n=1 just the same as "I know a poor person who is lazy."
I don't have statistics, and I'm not sure that anyone does, but I do believe that there is a great deal of fact to what pharmasaur is saying. I would not doubt that on average, students from poor families perform less well than those in middle or upper classes. Not necessarily laziness, but maybe they don't have a working computer, reliable transportation, etc. Maybe they are not intentionally lazy, but were never taught about having a good work ethic.
Is it wise use of resources to pour all of this money onto those who are set up for failure? If you barely made it through high school, what are the odds that you'll make it through college? I grew up in a poor neighborhood, and I am one of very few that didn't drop out of college. Many, as pharmasaur said, went for 3-5 years, took general classes, nothing to make a degree out of, performed below average, and generally had a lot of fun. Of course this is a generalization, I'm sure plenty of students work hard with this opportunity that they are given, but what is the rate that we accept? Ten partiers for one good student? Twenty, thirty?
Merit based seems to be the way to go. From my experience, academic scholarships rarely cover the full cost of attendance. I had the highest scholarships my college offered in undergrad, and still had to take out loans to cover the difference. Why is a highly performing student still on the hook for those loans? Make it so the best and brightest don't have to pay, while the others, if they are truly interested, will pay or take loans to attend. If they aren't interested in earning an education, they aren't going to waste anyone's time or money by going through the motions for a little while until they quit. Being financially invested in something is an incentive for hard work. If you're paying for something, you should value it. This goes back to that argument about $0 copays. Who cares if you skip class? You didn't pay for tuition anyway, no skin off your back. The high performers who would be getting a free ride have already demonstrated work ethic, so this isn't an issue for them.
Those that say "you drop out, you pay it back" may be true for mid-semester dropouts, but I don't think it is the case if you simply decide not to register for classes. Maybe laws have changed, maybe there is a loophole that my childhood friends know about, but when they said "I'm just gonna take this semester off" and never returned, they didn't receive any sort of bill.
inb4 "you hate the poor, you dirty bigot" and "we should give them all our money so they aren't poor anymore"
The regulation here is that if you drop out, you pay for that semester. If I take a semester off, I don't get a bill either because I'm not taking classes; so
, can you clarify what you meant by that?
I don't think you're a dirty bigot and you make some valid points; however, many students from disadvantaged backgrounds don't have the tools to succeed from the start (as you pointed out). I don't know about you but my high school didn't adequately prepare me for college. Already inner city students are at a handicap from an academic perspective. Then there are added factors- parent involvement, safe learning environment, ample resources, language barriers (and I'm not talking immigrant children here...many American students barely know how to read/write), and several more.
If schools transitioned strictly to a meritocracy, students from situations as I described above are just not going to be up to par academically to get merit based scholarships, at least not at first. Why did your friends drop out? You really believe it was only the partying? Why are those students partying/drinking more than others to begin with? Just food for thought.
As I mentioned to pharmsaur, our government should be focused on the root of the problem..not limiting student success after the fact. They should be looking at programs that reach out to inner city and poor families. They should be improving our education system to prepare children to be competitive in a global economy. They should quit pushing every student to go to college and put more emphasis on vocational programs. Those are good careers. Some people don't want to sit through four years of a liberal arts degree just to get a 30-40K job in a cubicle...or worse yet, work as a barista, which is becoming more common in this economy.
With pharmsaur, I took issue withhis blanket generalizations and his seemingly caustic attitude toward an entire group of people, although he had some good points underneath all that. Not to mention his addition of "Yo".
I'm tired of people coming into this forum complaining about how they work so hard and others don't. It's the same for health care...people complaining how their patients don't speak english, ask "dumb" questions, are on medicaid, etc etc.
We are health care professionals. Most of us came into ths profession because we wanted a decent paying career that would allow us to do something goodfor society at the same time. As part of that, we are supposed to be advocating for our patients, helping them, educating them. This doesn't mean we should be bending over for every little thing but we should at least try to understand others. We need to have open minds and be ready to challenge our own beliefs. I learn a lot of things from my patients that I won't learn in pharmacy school. I just have to pay attention.
I have respect for those retail pharmacists who really try to succeed at helping patients and go above and beyond counting red or blue pills. You have to be able to adapt to different people literally one minute to the next. and you have to realize that not everyone is as fortunate...it's the same for education.
Everyone needs a chance at life. It sucks people take advantage of a broken system but it will happen in some form or another no matter how many regulations you draft. Fix the root of the problem. That's the key. Be a part of that.