Free education for children yes, but once a person reaches adulthood they should be responsible for their decisions. This does not mean as a society we cannot help each other... But helping does not mean FREE.
The current mayhem going on in Québec over education costs is pretty much split two ways.
1) Those that clamour for a free post secondary education and 2) Those that clamour for an acsessible but not free post secondary education, where the person studying should have some burden of the costs.
On the free side you are basically asking for all of society to pay for one persons education.
On the other side you are asking society to pay part of one's education.
Either way, everyone has to pay for an individual choice to get higher education, but what about the person who decides to study in an area that no social programs are in place? Many career paths require training or risks (starting a business) and we do not have programs to help these individuals and those that do are often not as generous as those for university studies.
And what about the artist who wants a career in whatever path he has chosen (music, acting, dancing, cirque), getting the appropriate help is not a guarantee.
Or what about the person that finishes high school and goes on the job market right away and 5 years down the road this person has a project to start his own business, once again the incentives are not as generous as universities and they require extensive and complicated paperwork.
How about an athlete that wants to compete profressionnally but requires training that he does not have funds for?
Whatever path you chose, in a society where people give money to the governement that money must be spent so all can benefit equally.
How about one program? Here is a draft idea of what I am speaking of: Every person is entitled to receive up to a 100 000$ loan from the government with a one time only markup to help pay for the administration of this agency, lets say it was 20%, which means a 100 000$ loan becomes a 120 000$ INTEREST free loan. In short the program must remain self-sufficient.
The loan can only be used for education, a business plan, trade school, athletic training, or an artist (lessons, studio time, etc...), obviously basic criterias would have to be in place so people use it for what it was intended, primarily having a system in place where the money goes straight to the institutions (university, training facility, equipement, etc..) and not the person asking for the loan.
Going bankrupt or similar measures would never let someone off the hook for this loan.
The loan starts to be repaid 3 years after it was loaned. Re-imbursement is done via salary deducations at a rate of 5% for anyone making under 30 000$ and it goes up in increments of .5% per 10 000$ to a maximum of 10%. So someone at 30 000$ would pay 1500$ while someone making 60 000$ would pay 3900$ per year.
You could then abolish all government programs (tax deducations, incentives, grants, etc...) that give money to students, athletes, artists and businesses.
One program, with everyone having equal opportunity, no descrimination... No free ride either.
No comments:
Post a Comment