Ignatius Incognito

Ok, so

US companies say they can’t find qualified employees in the US.*

* If you take a look at some job postings in IT, you’ll quickly notice the real problem. They’re asking for eight years experience in space and two doctorates for entry level IT positions. If they bother to tell you how much they’re paying, you’ll notice it’s in the $9-11/hr range. TL;DR: they’re not seriously attempting to hire people.

In other news, many many US citizens believe education is not a right.*

* I’d like to suspect what they mean is “You have to earn an education by studying hard,” etc. but the net result is more like “if you can’t magic some money out of your ass, fuck you.” It’s not like we’re saying “hey, here’s more education/food than you can possibly get any use out of. Ohshit, now we don’t have enough money to add extra layers of gold plating to rich people’s pools.”

If the first part was true (the bit about being unable to find qualified employees), wouldn’t it be really likely that the second part caused the first? Or at least was a major fucking contributor?

Regardless, it seems to me that society as a whole benefits when people are allowed to get a higher education regardless of their means. Think of all the brilliant but poor folks who are locked out of their full potential because we treat an education like private jets.

And that’s taking the “selfish asshole” approach to arguing for free higher education.