Free Universities.

[swoop42]

[pietillidie]

^I doubt anybody would argue with that, but you have to put numbers on your "feelings" about these things. It's the high-productivity jobs that make much of our social wealth possible, including government-supported traineeships, so we have to keep pumping candidates for such jobs out, not deterring candidates or defending our own backgrounds just because that's what we know.

[think positive]

[think positive]

[think positive]

[1061]

[stui magpie]

[pietillidie]

Again, for the ten millionth time, it's not about how you "feel" about these things, TP, or even your personal experience of them.

Have a go at separating your person self from the facts about the world for five minutes.

There are known meta facts in the world that exist whether it offends you or not. Such meta facts might take a form like the following:

* People with Personality Type X are more suited to jobs like Type Y at companies like Type Z.

* People with Personality Type X report being happier and more satisfied when they are employed in Type Y careers.

* Overall, people who graduate with a bachelor's degree earn X% more over their lifetime than those who don't.

* Overall, people who graduate with a master's degree earn Y% more over their lifetime than those who don't.

* Overall, people who graduate with a bachelor's degree are X% more satisfied with their careers than those who don't.

* Overall, the workforce is creating low-end service jobs at a rate X Times faster than high-paying jobs.

* Overall, W Percent of jobs with annual salaries over X currently require an average of Y Years of tertiary education and are expected to require an average of Z Years of tertiary education by 2020.

* Overall, the fastest growing in jobs with annual salaries over Y are in A, B, C and D fields.

Etc.

Until you know what those sort of parameters are, especially pertaining to David and his particular personality, skill set and ambitions, your own highly specific experience may have very little relevance to his own career path.

Despite airing his laundry more than the rest of us and thus appearing less certain about who he is, my guess is David is much more aware of these things than he lets on.

Let's also not forget his achievements: Very few young people have a better writing folio at his age�and indeed have kept at it despite the pasting he has copped. There is great merit in this for a public communicator. Not to mention he's quite the film expert already, and has an excellent grasp of grammar and composition.

This will translate in the knowledge economy in one or another form if he keeps excelling at it.

[think positive]

[1061]

[Pies4shaw]

TP, there's an interesting issue underlying that distinction about where the line should be drawn and why it should be drawn there. No one I know has ever had, or had any interest in, cosmetic surgery but I'm not sure why a person who is miserable about their nose simpliciter is less deserving of public support than someone who has a medical condition that, as a side issue, makes them miserable about their nose?

That same distinction seems to pervade the debate about what education "should" be publicly funded. Knowledge and understanding isn't any less important because it doesn't cure a disease. In fact, I take the view that the most support should be given to funding educational pursuits that don't have any directly apparent economic object, since the ones that do are typically supported by people and organizations that need to employ people who know about such things.

To take a trivial example: our market economy requires lawyers to perform certain functions and market participants will pay substantial sums of money to lawyers to perform those functions because the participants value them. The most lucrative area of practice is, of course, commercial law. But we don't just want our education system to be producing commercial lawyers. Indeed, we don't want the education system just to be producing lawyers with a trade certificate enabling them to practice. The most important role of public funding in such areas is to ensure that the less apparently "useful" pursuits are encouraged and supported. Thus, we need to educate people to understand and analyse the legal system and legal matters more generally, not merely to work within it. Of course, for the few of us who make squillions as commercial lawyers the cost of our "free" education is repaid through the tax system (at least for those of us who think we should pay tax). It's the other pursuits that don't necessarily lead to highly-paid outcomes - but are every bit as important - that need public support.

Thus, in my universe, I am as happy to fund people who study media or film or history (as an aside, what's wrong with the world that we consider the study of the past as some sort of optional extra?) as I am to fund engineeringy, sciencey, medical research sorts of things. Probably more so, since the latter group will always tend to find a funding source.

[think positive]

[think positive]

[think positive]

[watt price tully]

So women are getting an education? WTF?

If we chose the Afghanistan model of education funding we could save heaps.

Then again if we chose the Afghani model of women in Cabinet in Federal Government we would need an increase of 300%.