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i agree with suchfriends and gliceand and the other few who said stuff that i agree with.
all of you basically said what i said, but it is m summary of what i think of this thread.
there is also not only a question of if universities should be free, but also what constitutes "giving back" to society. i am most troubled by this. sway seems to to claim that it might be ok to fund a businessman or a doctor, because the taxpayer, sway in this case, will get something in return, whereas sway, gets nothing back from the philosophy or musicology student.
the question is does contributing to society only occur when it is felt on an immediate level, or can the payback of my tax dollars simply be an intellectual well cultured, critically thinking society, as suchfriends and others have mentioned? i would think that that is one of the only reasons to have government, to fund and make sure that as a society we all have equal opportunities and that we can all think as individuals. not to support multinational corporations and to waste over a trillion dollars on a war.
which brings me to my next point, sway, you keep on asking how do these institutions become free, with the answer being taxdollars. but wouldnt there be a lot more tax money to fund much more things, if for instance, large corporations didnt get tax cuts and thus there was much more money to invest in people, rather than in companies?
a lot of tax money also goes to america's and other countries' useless wars, a lot of money that could have ensured free education without having the working class worry that it is coming at their expense.
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