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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)RE
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352
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • You say that, but Republican legislators all over the US are fighting against universal free school lunch programs.

    But their goal isn't an educated workforce, it's to cynically destroy the public school system so that they can funnel taxpayer money to dubious christian private schools via voucher programs.

  • I mean, they can only do that, because people are willing to pay that. Just increase the supply and prices should go down

    You could make the same argument about medical care in the US. Shelter is a survival need. You can't just go without it if it's too expensive. So (like medical care) it makes no sense for there to be no public option to exert downward pressure on the market. Really it makes no sense for so much of the stock to be in a market at all, but at the very least there should be a viable public option. (Public housing stock in the US is incredibly insufficient and there are decade-longs waitlists for housing vouchers.)

    However, a large number of policymakers in this country (and probably most countries) are landlords and very few are renters. Expecting a class to act against their own interests because it's the right thing to do is naive.

  • It's a top down problem. The universities didn't invent it. For years, candidates have campaigned on "lrn2code" so much so that we make fun of it here. They weren't saying that to bring new perspectives or art to the discipline. They were saying it because tech jobs have basically become the only path to the middle class. Small wonder, then that enrollment situations are what they are.

    I graduated from UC Berkeley's College of Engineering with a CS degree right as the recession hit. Even then, I could see the demographics of my classmates trending away from your typical nerds who just like being on the computer into guys who were just after a paycheck.

    Point being, like everything, this is a systemic issue. Give people one path out and they'll take it. The US economy is basically just giant business conglomerates and tech companies. Myopic capitalism has led us to this.