Money and Education

You've got to spend money to make money. It is a simple fact of life. Even beggers pay in opportunity costs of performing other possible work in order to get their money. Nothing comes without cost.


You do need to ask yourself, however, how much cost is the right cost?

I look over my tuition bills, and notice something comforting: I can afford to pay them. Half of my tuition, approximately, is covered by the government. Again, tax dollars. The LCBO doesn't make nearly enough to cover all this. :) But there are a number of people who would like the American system: Everyone pays their own way. Libertarians, mostly, but even some of the more FAR-right (if you catch my drift) leaning conservatives wish this as well. I disagree: People who go through tertiary education tend to get better employment than the average, the longer they take advantage of that benefit, the higher their wages later in life, again, on average.Of course, our highest tax brackets have an almost 50% tax rate, so those higher wages are really going straight back to the government, with interest as time goes on.

The Canadian Government, then, is much like a loan shark, paying off the hardest part of your student debt, so that when its investment, (you), matures, it gets a decent rate of return.

It is in the best interests, then, of governments to pay for their citizen's educations, as it both helps someone go towards their most suited career (choice of education with difficulty of courses weeds out the wimps for the harder stuff but allows all dedicated people through), without them worrying about money, but they will eventually pay it back with interest in their tax dollars.

It's a very left idea, nigh socialism left really, which is why I thought it was odd that such an approach, if used thoroughly for Long Term, would significantly aid in reducing the overall debt of a country. Just a thought experiment, but these little things can be fun too.

And your fun fact of the day: Coca Cola is the number one soft drink producer in Germany, because it built plants for soldiers during WW2 that still run today. It was also exempt from the sugar rationing unlike its competitors. Without WW2, Coca Cola would not exist as it does today. Very random, but small and weird factoids like this just accumulate.