[can.politics] Who pays for education - company towns

bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (03/07/87)

Actually, in retrospect, the one thing John's plan reminds me of the most
is what he would perhaps point to as an example of capitalism at its worst --
the old style company town.


The idea there, as I have heard it told, was that the company freely
provided loans to employees when they were short, never really demanding
repayment, and letting the total get quite high.

If the person wanted to leave the company (or the town) the loans became
due.

The real problem with Mr. Chapman's scheme revolves around the fact that
the government (through subsidies and these easy loans while you stay in
the country) keeps a monopoly on the educational system.  If you want an
education, and you aren't rich enough for it, you are trapped into a system
very similar to the company town described above.

If education were privately owned, with no government controls, then
it would be a different story.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont. (519) 884-7473

chapman@fornax.UUCP (03/08/87)

<innaccurate analogy with company towns>
 
> The real problem with Mr. Chapman's scheme revolves around the fact that
> the government (through subsidies and these easy loans while you stay in
> the country) keeps a monopoly on the educational system.  If you want an
> education, and you aren't rich enough for it, you are trapped into a system
> very similar to the company town described above.

In case you haven't noticed the government does have a monopoly on
education (of course you can always do what one of the Socred cabinet
minisers did and write away to Calif. for an MBA - snicker).

> 
> If education were privately owned, with no government controls, then
> it would be a different story.
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
How true, then only the wealthy could afford a decent education.
Try and check in with reality sometime Brad.  Look at the tuition
fees of good private universities in the US and then compare them
to fees at publicly controlled institutions (particularily here).

> -- 
> Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont. (519) 884-7473

*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***