Hey guys just a basic question. How would the really really poor afford school for their kids under a complete free market system?? I mean what if a family was extremely poor?? It seems to me that this is a tough question to answer when I am asked it.
They couldn't. But what better alternative that doesn't involve coercion is there?
They would have to rely on charity of others, which incidentally would be much easier to fund when half one's earnings are not stolen by the state.
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Private (especially religious) schools have scholarships for poor kids. Without government to steal people's money, they'll be more common.
Also, even these days there're alternatives to formal school such as home schooling - and they're getting more and more popular due to the Internet and people being fed up with the government propaganda and lack of standards in education.
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I see a couple options.
1. You would pay for it. (direct charity)
2. Someone else would pay for it. (direct charity)
3. Schools might take on X underprivileged students and retain them based on merit or some other standard, subsidizing the cost across all of the attendents of that school (indirect charity)
4. home school by parents
5. neighborhood homeschool (one parent teaches many children, subsidized by all of the poor parents)
6. less education
7. People won't like this one, but work based education. Kids perform basic labour tasks in return for instruction (think apprenticeship, not child labour).
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The largest rates of private schooling are in the slums of coastal African cities, aka the poorest people on Earth.
It costs barely nothing to educate a child. It only seems expensive because of how inefficient the state's factory school system is.
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O hai thar.
wut hapenz are the pur kedz goto outseid schulz adn ues thare wallhax and auedio bostersz to haer and see all edyoucayshun frem oustide so thay lernz withut goen ento scholz
This is a very difficult question indeed. For many years the state has provided education, meaning that their is currently no incentive for entrepreneurs to provide education free of charge or for very little cost. I believe under a free market system there would be the incentives to do this. For example the digital revolution could provide many opportunities for free education and future technologies could provide countless more intuitive solutions to this problem.
Ultimatly the question boils down to whether the market could fill the gap left by state provided education, and I believe it certainly can.
Markets clear.
Stranger: It costs barely nothing to educate a child. It only seems expensive because of how inefficient the state's factory school system is.
I see your point, but I dont completley agree. Obvioulsy the current school system is very inefficient and a private school would have to be much more efficient to draw prospective students, but I dont think that neccesarily means it will be significantly cheaper. The schools would still be expensive because of the tools they would buy to educate their students i.e. computers, books, food/lunches, teacher's pay, and many new technological innovations that would come out of a free market system. I think it would cost less to operate a school under private ownership, but it would not be significantly cheaper despite being much more efficient.
I would think that a system of schools would develop that just teach kids the very basic of reading writing and math. Then, they could go to a trade school owned by a company with a little education, and learn a skill.
The child's trade school education could then be paid for by the company that owns the trade school if the kid agrees to work for them when/if he meets their "graduation" requirments (similar to the way scholarships in college are awarded. You get the money if you maintain a 2.5 or whatever it is...)
Obviously such a system would be very competitive amongst poorer children, but I think it would work.
Under a private education system, I would imagine that the current inefficient method of teaching kids a little bit of everything, but a lot of nothing would no longer exist. From 15 years old, children would begin to focus their studies on an individual subject like math, english, engineering, chemistry etc. It would essentially be beginning a college education style at a much younger age.
Just my thoughts.. I am no expert ;)
...And nobody has ever taught you how to live out on the street, But now you're gonna have to get used to it...
Like earlier mentionend, education (especially basic) isn't expensive. Paper and some pens. The only real cost is the teacher. Whats made education so unaffordable and screwed up is ... tada! the state.
Edit: Also the model everyone follows today is the horrible 19th hundred prussian model. Highly ineffective and produces only soldiers and dumb workers. Not skilled craftsmen and entrepreneurs.
This question, for some reason, doesn't seem all that difficult to me. Especially if you're asking how they'd obtain education comparable to what most education is now, government education. Honestly, I don't think we would need an education system comparable to what we have now, I think the one we have now really, really sucks. I think it'd be better to scrap the whole government education idea entirely.
A common idea or two that I think should also be scrapped... The idea that, to be educated, you automatically need at least X education in X areas. If you go to a technical college and get a degree in a specialized area, to most people you will be considered "less educated", even if you go on to use that specific education to make millions. Is basic math important? Sure, but even that can be taught in a specialized way, and the specific areas of basic math that you'll need can be focused on, as well.
As far as getting educated, in any sense of the word really, in a free market, I don't think it would be all that difficult... I mean... Even in todays world(in the US), I've learned a lot through what was basically an apprenticeship. I was payed, minimum wage or above, but the point is that I went, and I worked, and I learned, and what I learned is valuable to me. More so than a lot of what I'd learn in an average day of government controlled highschool.
Also, self education and charity, sometimes a mix of both. Publicly available libraries would be a great resource for self education... Another way, just find someone that knows, and just ask questions. I've learned a lot in a certain networking class not just by going, sitting through the lecture, reading the textbooks, all the "normal" stuff, but by, after class, going and asking the teacher questions that I'd come up with, whether they had to do with the class or not. Granted, I'm still his student, and he may not answer questions for any random person, but there are plenty of people out there that do.
Pretty much, if you can get internet access, you can obtain basic knowledge in just about anything. I was at MRU(Malware Removal University) where I could obtain, without paying a dime, a fairly extensive knowledge about current malware issues, how malware works, easy to use removal procedures, and also social and teaching skills, because an important part of what you learn there is how to instruct people to follow the procedures.
I've gone to youtube and learned some really great tricks of the trade for using Fireworks. I've gone to youtube and learned some neat tricks about Windows. I've gone to youtube and listened to opinions concerning computer related software and things like that. You could even consider that business if you wanted to.. It certainly has to do with what customers value more, and would help when developing or improving a technology. Go to google, which doesn't cost money, search for a term, say, html and css, which doesn't cost money, end up at W3.org, which doesn't cost money, and you now have one of the most renowned web standards organization's websites at your fingertips. You can learn html, javascript, css, xhtml, xml, the list goes on and on. There is so much on the internet that is offered without charge, it's just a matter of finding it. And yes, there is false stuff on the internet too, so discretion is required, but that doesn't mean it's not a "safe" place to learn. Of course, it does require internet access... However, even to people who don't have a lot of money, finding internet access most likely would not be difficult at all. Public libraries would more than likely offer it... The coffee shop not too far from here offers internet access, and computers, to customers. But a 50 cent doughnut, sit down, and learn html.
So... Education is everywhere, not just in schools. You don't have to go to school to learn, it's just what we call the place that's dedicated to learning. I honestly believe that in a free market society, there would be (or could easily be) good options for learning whether you were poor or rich. I honestly believe that most education you will receive by any means other than government education will be better than government education. So, in conclusion, we DO NOT have a need for the government to provide education.
Hope that helps.
Edit: Sorry for editing my post so much, but I had another thought... A good example, if you will. Last semester, I took a basic web design class at a local college. After it was all said and done, you can imagine, I had payed no small amount to take the class, and spent no insignificant amount of time doing so. I mean, it wasn't thousands of dollars for one class, obviously, but several hundred, especially when you include the cost of the book and other fees. After all was said and done... Going into the class, I knew probably somewhere around 70% of what the class taught, by learning on the internet and by a book or two that someone had given me. So... Traditional education is certainly not the only option, not even in todays world, and in a world where other options were those on which we relied, education certainly wouldn't be impossible to obtain, even to those without a lot of money.
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FreedomIsYellow: They would have to rely on charity of others, which incidentally would be much easier to fund when half one's earnings are not stolen by the state.
I agree. The reason why I was able to study abroad and today I am able to write all of these posts in English is because I had the honor of having my high school and university scholarships privately funded by benefactors, who through a selection process looking at my previous grades decided that paying for my education abroad was a charitable act worth doing. I am very grateful that I had that opportunity.
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Rubén:I agree. The reason why I was able to study abroad and today I am able to write all of these posts in English is because I had the honor of having my high school and university scholarships privately funded by benefactors, who through a selection process looking at my previous grades decided that paying for my education abroad was a charitable act worth doing. I am very grateful that I had that opportunity.
Now imagine if they had more of their own money, not confiscated under threat of confiscation, violence, incarceration and murder.
It's sadly ironic that you would benefit from private charity, and then grow up to endorse public/social/democrat theft.
liberty student: Rubén:I agree. The reason why I was able to study abroad and today I am able to write all of these posts in English is because I had the honor of having my high school and university scholarships privately funded by benefactors, who through a selection process looking at my previous grades decided that paying for my education abroad was a charitable act worth doing. I am very grateful that I had that opportunity. Now imagine if they had more of their own money, not confiscated under threat of confiscation, violence, incarceration and violence. It's sadly ironic that you would benefit from private charity, and then grow up to endorse public/social/democrat theft.
Now imagine if they had more of their own money, not confiscated under threat of confiscation, violence, incarceration and violence.
I was benefitted by the charity of Dr. Armand Hammer, who spent a great amount of his wealth helping out the governments of the U.S., the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, etc., and who somehow played a role in the fall of the Berlin Wall. I live to his ideals more than anyone else's.