Since this is an open thread, msnbc.com has an article on Obama’s higher education plan.

msnbc.msn.com

Some highlights:

-Student loans become an entitlement like Social Security or Medicare
- “Near” government monopoly on student loans
- Every American attends college
- Raise graduation rates
- An emphasis on need instead of academic talent
- Wants the U.S. to “lead the world” in the proportion of college graduates

One unanswered questions from the article is, if college is an entitlement are these “loan” expected to be repaid? The article calls the status quo “unsustainable”.

Another question is what will this do to the value of a degree? The article gives no analysis to this issue. While I generally consider education a worthy goal, I question the efficacy of the government sending everyone to university while trying to inflate graduation rates.

Yet another factor is, since the government guarantees the education plan as “free” many nations have had to ration access to control costs. To not ration access leads to a fraction of the college student body who are perpetual students. Some European nations have a problem with this.

The last unanswered question (and I think the most important) is what to do with people who do drop out or flunk out of college. With a virtual government monopoly on student funding, how many changes will the government give a student to graduate? Our system, while not perfect, has the feature that people of all age groups and experience levels attend higher education. Many university systems in Europe (presumably Obama’s model) give students one chance to make grades. In some European nations, older and returning students are very uncommon. College is the playground of the young, but if you fail out you are essentially dooming yourself to blue collar status. This is unlike the U.S. university system where a significant fraction are older or continuing students. Our system, which not perfect, allows for a certain amount of class mobility not found in some European systems.

This last issue strikes me close to home. I flunked out of college the first time. Now that I’m older, I’m getting my degree next spring. Under Obama’s plan, would I have been allowed to return?