university funding / how do your universities work

[Ben]

for me-

my experience was in completing a four year degree at a public university. it was paid for in part by me, in part by scholarships, and in part by aid provided by the university (a public loan through the government, essentially). this means that approximately 0% of my school was just granted to me (i had to do well/qualify for the scholarships, work a job to pay my own money, and im required to pay back the loans given to me in some time) and, more or less, im kind of okay with that. i do not come from an upper class family

in the US, as is typical of our federalist system, "public" means part of the state. there arent really public federal universities, are there? maybe military ones. anyway- a lot of private universities in the US are for-profit, religious, or otherwise scams. many of the very high class and well known universities are also private, though (and very expensive). there are about three times as many private as public, though honestly i bet a bulk of the private falls under the "agenda-driven" or "scam" category

i felt like my education in particular was good and relevant (i studied astronomy) but i can easily see the arguments hidden in jokes about liberal arts majors and so on. it may be a cynical part of me, but i wonder if people will take advantage of a free education in order to pursue things because they can rather than because they have a conviction. i definitely met many people that did not take advantage of their time at all and i makes me wince to think about it

as for the political aspect- like i said, i think that it would be great if there was more support for highly academic, substantive students to be granted scholarships or funding. of course, this is already in place- people who do incredibly well are already getting into college and being paid for but im talking about lowering the bar a little. im usually a "stop throwing money at things" person, but as far as throwing money at things go, i think that nurturing this stuff is pretty worthwhile. i understand that academia is an Institution and breeds all kind of weird shit but, that is hardly always bad