From: utzoo!decvax!cca!hplabs!intelqa!omsvax!bc@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: Re: "re: Education as a right"
Article-I.D.: omsvax.187
Posted: Fri Oct 29 16:03:01 1982
Received: Tue Nov  2 02:32:06 1982
References: teklabs.1492

The idea of allowing the repayment of educational loans with work in
the area of education is very appealing.  It has two major advantages
over the technique of expecting repayment in money only:

	1) The cost to the student can be reduced because the actual
	value returned to society is higher, thus allowing more people
	to get expensive educations.

	2) The value to society is higher because a good deal of
	skilled labor can be had which would normally be far more
	expensive (how much would you people out in netland charge per
	hour for contract consultant or program work?).  In addition,
	at least as things are now, much more such labor would be
	available to institutions like schools, hospitals, and local
	governments which can't afford to pay the way the Fed can.

Just to start a loud argument, I'll make the observation that the
suggestion is not unlike the often mentioned idea of universal
national service (I *did not* say 'military service').  I think such
a service could make a lot of difference to the current plight of local
governments, required on the one hand to do everything for everybody,
but the easily visible scapegoat when the taxes get too high.

If anyone knows a good news group to put that discussion on, let me
know; I'd love to get into it.

				uucp knows my name anyway,

				Bruce Cohen
				...!hplabs!intelqa!omsvax!bc
				...!pur-ee!intelqa!omsvax!bc