in the words of president hilton: that’s hot.

Yes. Men and women, this is how it’s done. If you’re going to work up the web, make sure to include the social media aspect to it - keep the conversation going.

So, having comments on this thing, in my opinion is an essentiality. (Hey, if the leader of the free world can make up words, so can I.)

Huzzah.

Oh yes…the liberal propaganda begins…

Really? Are you liberals that high in the clouds? Half of the ideas you idiots come up with would never function in the real-world. Much like your ultimate goal: Socialism.

Give me a break.

and why is free education a problem, kevin?

Absurd….

They already have this in Louisiana. As long as a high school student’s grades are decent and they take certain classes, their tuition is paid for. It is called the tuition opportunity program for students (TOPS).

Wow… even the advertisements on this website are Utopian. The DeBeers diamond cartel giving African diamond miners prosthetic hands for those lost in the diamond conflicts? Not really thinking like that’ll ever happen…

Hey Kevin,
I guess you have never left the country, because all of the nations that have the highest level of happy citizens are in socialist countries. There is lots of proof that Socialism does work and work well.

Oh yes, it crazy because god forbid we give everyone in this country a fair education. Conservatives go on and on about how “You need to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!” yet they refuse to give anyone the tools in which to pull themselves back up. People like Kevin don’t realize how much this would help people, and they ultimate goal isn’t socialism its a system that is fair that doesn’t leave a large amount of the American population living on the streets. I’m not trying to take your money away, hell I love money, but the point being is that no matter how much money I have it has always been my perspective that it is my job to help the guy next to me just as you would a family member, or perhaps my parents just raised me the wrong way.

Great. We need to work on this way. Our young people need more opportunities, especially in the education,work, art, culture,health
and science. Maybe one day we can eliminate the tuition in all the public educational system.

Sería hermoso.Necesitamos trabajar en ese sentido. Nuestros jóvenes necesitan más y mejores oportunidades en la educación, el trabajo,
arte, cultura, salud, y ciencia.A la mejor un día podremos eliminar el pago de inscripción en todo el sistema educacional público.

In a perfect world, public universities would be free but lets face the facts, “There is no such thing as free lunch”. I graduated from a public university in VA and feel as though I was already paying too much in state taxes. Our national debt is in the trillions and you people think we can start fixing our system by making education free?? An undergrad degree doesnt mean shit these days and even people with master degrees are serving up your coffee in some cities. What people need in America are to be creative and innovative again…stop being brainwashed by what corporate America wants you to buy into and think outside of the box. Education is great and provides opportunity but a free college education is going to do little to bridge the gaps between socio economic classes. The value of great public universities will go down and all the rich kids that can afford to go to private schools will be looked at in higher regard and get all the good paying jobs.

Am, The DeBeers is obviously satire, as are most of the other ads.

You should do some reading about what DeBeers does to the third world countries where they do their diamond mining. Ever hear of the term “blood diamond”?

The prosthetic is obviously just a token symbol of their unwillingness to change. You can buy a diamond and fix somebody’s blown off hand, or not buy a diamond at all and not fund the whole mess.

[...] 4, 2009. They’ve even set up an entire website with all of the liberal fantasy headlines. Universities to be free! Bike paths to be expanded! Thomas Friedman to resign, praise the Unitarian Jesus! It’s not [...]

Well i am swedish and we have free education… and that is fucking great!
So stop saying it is unrealistic and shit and fight for it! If i was american and saw “kevin” on the streets i would punch him and take his wallet!
The Yes Men, they Can!

In Germany, not only is University free, but if your family can’t afford to support you, the state will help with your living expenses. ButI can see why, of course, Americans would not like to have such a system.

Education IS free. What we are paying for is for the people to show us where to look for it, and the piece of paper saying that we paid for it. Your local library has it all within its walls, for as long as we are still allowed to have libraries that is….Autodidactics, people….
But seriously, not too many of us are inspired enough to even look for it, thanks to the dumbing down of our fair nation, and so to have free schooling would be a boon to us all. As would free health care and clean energy. Socialism works for the people, just not for the greedy.
Saw the post-election piece in Lawrence, KS, and was thrilled, while most of the sheeple around me were wondering “why would anyone do this?
instead of waking up from our collective dreamstate to the nightmarish realities we all need to face….kudos to ye yes men!!!!

At this point in time U.S. universities are losing academic freedom at an alarming rate, just read about Norman Finkelstein and what happened with his tenure. Partisan student groups now video tape teachers giving classes that are at odds with their political objectives. They then turn these video tapes over to organization heads even consulting foreign entities at times that then call the people who endow the university, and hot shot criminal lawyers, and I do mean criminal lawyers and they leverage the university to deny tenure in much the same way leverage is at the cause of our economic crisis today. Both serve hollow selfish ideologies at least as far as “We the People” are concerned…just ask the question and follow the trail of blood and money, “who benefits?”

The next day:

Professors strike!

College professors walked away from their campuses in droves today, claiming that the federal government is not offering sufficient money to maintain both their standard of living and a decent education for their students. “I don’t have a problem in theory with raising taxes,” announced a Yale economics professor, “but this flurry of legislation has the American people strained to the limit. It sounded like a good idea, if you only thought about the students–but now everyone is feeling the pinch, ourselves included, and we just don’t see how we can teach effectively in this environment.”

[...] 4, 2009. They’ve even set up an entire website with all of the liberal fantasy headlines. Universities to be free! Bike paths to be expanded! Thomas Friedman to resign, praise the Unitarian Jesus! It’s not [...]

In France no one pays for the school education, the education system is free however the people and the student body fights against the idea that schools should be business run and privatized so that it isn’t taken over by some capitalistic system.

“They already have this in Louisiana. As long as a high school student’s grades are decent and they take certain classes, their tuition is paid for. It is called the tuition opportunity program for students (TOPS).”

Oh yeah, Louisiana, that center of learning and progress.

We seem to muster $700 billion annually to fund the Pentagon’ s empire strength military budget (not counting the dual war expenditures), funding secondary education is certainly attainable at a far lower price.

It’s not about raising taxes, it’s about using them wisely, aka for creation NOT destruction.

MM

ps; I agree with our Swedish Friend, Kevin should get jacked because a-holes like him are the reason we can’t ever have S*&t in this country.

I could actually see this happening. In Delaware there are a few tech schools that you can get into for free (for two years) if you have a 2.5 GPA or higher. I don’t think that by next 4th of July you’ll get in for free to most of these schools but I can imagine it getting cheaper at the least, of maybe free if you get a 3.5 or so.

i like your program… even from germany i will join

It’s so nice to see such changes. The United States will soon start looking like a society again.

This happens in poor third world countries, why can’t it happen in the richest country in the world?

Students across the world arranged protests as part of the “International Day of Action against the Commercialization of Education” on Nov.5th: http://www.emancipating-education-for-all.org/content/record-protests-part-international-day-action-so-far

Let’s get organized and unite in our struggle for Free and Emancipating public Education - worldwide!

I think free education at a college level will harm the education system. I think the university system should be completely privatized. With the solution offered in the article what would most likely happen is a university education will eventually become the same as a high school diploma and essentially be worthless in the economy. Students with the financial ability will attend Yale and other private schools, which would most likely have to raise their tuition due to losing people to the free public school systems, and those privatized educations will be far more valuable than they currently are. I will admit, socialism is the “best” system out there, but unfortunately it boils down to people not wanting to work hard for government hand outs, take a look at what Russia went through.

FACT: Americans are smarter now than anytime in history.

great idea on this website in general, awesome….

I wish somone had figgurd this way back. Now I work jobs doin things that dont need no skoolin. Always gettin fired, for no reason to.

Track back some history, and we will see that as state funding for higher education drops off, tuition goes up. If we won’t pay enough taxes to keep up with inflation, tuition must go up to pay for the profs (sure), the computures, the up-keep on buildings and grounds, the electricity, the …. We can pay for it together, or individually. If suspicion that professors are making big salaries is the problem, look it up. That’s public information. After a decade more education to become an expert and teacher, with those loans, those salaries do not have my profs living high on the hog.

The article begins with the proposal that tuition be eliminated, not that schooling becomes free. Everything has its costs, and educational institutions are no different. If the cost is paid directly by the buyer, or by the community, or by the nation, the cost has to be paid or the product is withdrawn from the market. Nothing is “free”, but the cost may be defrayed among a larger group of buyers,(call them “citizens” or “taxpayers”, be it education or health care or defense.
The important question is not how a thing is paid for, (although going into debt to buy it is fraught with complication), but how much it is worth.

An educational institution which does not educate should not be funded, either publically or privately, anymore than any other product on the market should be supported mindlessly.
In education, as in any other purchase, the buyer is the key. If the product is worthless, there will be few buyers. A product gains value by reason of its utility, and “resale value”. It also gains by the old law of supply and demand. If supply exceeds demand, value drops. To maintain demand for education, “supply” must be limited in order to retain value.ie, not everyone has access to it. This means students must maintain high grades and levels of participation, or be forced to seek their education elsewhere, to the point of paying for it directly, as they do now at diploma mills, or retreating to the always valuable “free” libraries, as noted elsewhere.

If paying for the variety of things needed for a healthy, secure
society by spreading the cost among those benefiting from inclusion in that society is to be called “socialism”, then the term should not bother us. It might also be called “patriotism”, or, if it pleases you, the practical means by which God Blesses America.
The relentless effort to require each among us to pay his own bills, provide for his own future, establish his own retirement, share his own burdens, generally falls apart soon after we need some aide ourselves.
Personally, I prefer the risk of being called a socialist, on these terms, than being simply a “Proud and Independent American”, unwilling to share the costs of maintaining and building that entity. Or, to be honest, risk finding myself alone when the need for myself or my family
arises. It can happen to the most independent among us.
“We have met our enemy and he is us”? Perhaps, but on the other hand, may we consider that, “We may never have met our ally, and he is us!”

Bruce Budy

I live in Canada and where I live, we have a free College system. When you get out of college the government pays for a big chunk of your University tuition (although its only in Quebec right now). This is right across the border here, the same with universal healthcare! If Canada can do it, I’d hope that the US with its bigger population, abundance of talent and resources, could do it too.

“. . . a university education will eventually become the same as a high school diploma and essentially be worthless in the economy”

So, letting poor people into the university system will make the institutions less valuable? This seems to be under the assumption that those that cannot afford college are inherently unintelligent and would thus make the university system much like the public high school system, where classes contain unmotivated, unambitious, unintelligent people (along with those intelligent people that can ‘obviously’ afford a college education (which is just not true as I have seen many smart students discouraged from higher learning due to their income levels)). I feel that at times in this response page, low income has become akin to unintelligence.

What I believe this article is addressing are the ideas that college admittance would no longer be based on finances. Obviously it would be quite a feat to provide enough services to all individuals who would like to attend a university; that would require a great deal of money to build more institutions and hire more faculty. Keeping the number of institutions and thus college graduates roughly the same would still create the supply and demand relationship that currently functions in our economic scene.

College admittance would then be based on intelligence, a refreshingly old idea, a foundation to what college admittance has always claimed itself to be. In this manner, those who have proven that they are academically ambitious are able to progress in their education, while those that peruse other ideals are free to do so. This would keep the dumb rich kid out of the classroom and for once give the smart economically challenged kid a chance. The value of a college education would still be preserved, maybe even improved as it would be more academically based/challenging.

There is obvious proof that this system works, so why fight it?

splendid!
die you pen stealing fuckface kevin.

Yes, men and women from all your western democracies throwing these fact pies in our American face about socialist education and healthcare that disproves all we’re told by our mendacious government, you are wonderfully, thankfully and sadly, writing as an American, correct.

[...] 4th, 2009″ and outlining the end of the war in iraq, a national tax base for schools, and free public universities, among other things. In addition to the print paper, an online version has been posted at [...]

[...] tuition for everybody! 29 11 2008 Perhaps Marc Bousquet’s dream can come true. From the fake New York Times distributed by the Yes Men in NYC a few weeks ago: A bill to eliminate tuition at public [...]

[...] — boldly announced the end of the Iraq War, the nationalization of major oil conglomerates, the elimination of tuition at public universities, and the indictment of soon-to-be-former president Bush on charges of high treason. The poignant [...]

Great comments, but yes, “We need to speak about Kevin”. But more immediately, what is this flashing HSBC ad that appears alongside on my screen? A mid-close-up of a smiling and elegant-as-always Obama posed against the iconic dome of Capitol Hill. A “tombstone” with something like “The more we see the world, the more we understand that some things do matter.” Para break. Then something like “Not just whom we elect as president but how we make sure he does, like all our elected officials, what we elected him to do.: Para break. “It is not over yet.” Then, three words in uppercase flash in sequence over Obama’s image: “PIVOTAL”, “EPOCH-MAKING”, (and what gets the lather out of me, for it is in the “already happened’ past tense) “SQUANDERED”! What’s that all about? NN

End the Drug War = +$48 Billion annual
http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

End War on Terror since Taliban is 70% funded by opium trade which is now locally produced from ending War on Drugs
= +$1 Trillion
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

Tax sales of now legal and regulated drug trade
=+6.6 Billion (10% of 66 Billion presently illegal drug trade)

Release all nonviolent drug offenders
=+$7.8 Billion Annual

Save other unseen costs of present drug laws
=+ ??

Easily funds extended education and why don’t you through in Universal Health coverage while you’re at it??

So easy a cave man could do it! But then again if this happened we would all be heroin addicts with dirty finger nails passed out in some doorway on the street right?? Riiiiight………

We do not have an economic crisis in this country…we have a policy crisis. Which brings us back to education doesn’t it? Hmmmmmmmmmm

It’s funny how the left ridicules Christians for believing in a God, but the left believes in the concept of FREE.

Here’s a hint for you liberals too dumb to figure it out on your own. Nothing is free. And the government can’t multiple loaves of bread (taxes) to provide more in services than it takes in.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

You do get what you pay for…
Send me my PhD by mail.

To KEVIN and all.

HEY! POOR PEOPLE CAN GET A FREE EDUCATION RIGHT NOW. Just study hard, get good grades and use scholarships and grants. “FREE STUFF” is free because it is worthless. Socialism is great for those people that DON’T WANT TO WORK. Those of us that have to support you lazy assholes consider you THIEVES IN CAHOOTS WITH the whoring Government thieves. One blogger here said that “there is proof socialism works…”. RENT A BRAIN YOU DILDO. Whatever college you attended didn’t teach economics or history. We believe in choice. We choose free market systems (read the Constitution) and freedom (read the Bill of Rights). Here’s a question for you lazy socialistic idiots. If there’s a revolution in this country, WILL YOU FIGHT? And if you will fight, WHERE WILL YOU GET YOUR FIREARMS? You’ve outlawed them in the “socialistic states”. Good luck. Enjoy your TV show and web porn.

Uh huh. Take a chill pill, Tex.

Who is to say these guys aren’t proposing a free market solution in this fanciful article (but possible in the current economic climate)? What if this bill were to eliminate tuition and allow a free market approach to take place (e.g. if students aren’t saddled with student loan debt, and are admitted based on their intelligence, who is to say that companies and philanthropic organizations wouldn’t be willing to pick up the tab?). I read these articles with a grain of salt, and see a libertarian tone among many of them. The SANE economy totally sounds like a commodity based economy (Gold Standard). The getting out of Afganistan & Iraq falls right in with libertarian beleifs also. You gotta look at these faux newsstories with a macroeconomic eye.

To the guys that made this possible: Genius. Sheer genius. Keep up the good work!

There is no such thing as free education. Tuition costs skyrocketing. We the people will have to pay for it, its called taxes. A flood of people going into the public college system will only explode the costs, and devalue the education provided.

Scarcity raises value. If everyone in America had a college degree, there would be no added value in it. Just like if everyone could fix computers, tech support people would have to find some other job.

Number 44. There is nothing in this future edition that presupposes a free market, or similar solution. Every last article is pushing a command economy, aka socialism.

Just look at the econazis and socialists and globalists they provide in the “make this change happen now section.

“All Public Universities To Be Free

By Mary K. Rawlings
Published: July 4th, 2009″

Has no one noticed the publication date of this article?

It says that this article was published on July 4th, 2009. This is obviously the wrong date, and I was wondering what the correct publication date was? Thank you, Samantha

u all have good pionts but where is the money going to come from we dont have all the money in the world to just give it away.

In India,each district (county) has many colleges owned by government and the fee charged there are very minimum (highly subsizied)and for poor student the fee is totaly free. For people who can pay, the tuition fee charged is around $50.00 per annum. Even in private colleges, the tuition fee charged is around $300.00 per annum.When India can provide susidized college education to all its citizen, why America can’t ? so the comment of Andros have no points. In India college education is affordable to even poor and it is not big burden to families. If India can…why not we ? LET US THINK……THERE MUST BE A WAY.