In this alternate universe school is completely funded by the government and housing is included.
Am I crazy, people have interests, right? Even the most useless person, given the chance, would be more than willing to explore those interests. History of Marijuana? Cheeto manufacturing?
Those types of classes would probably overfill.
Even the most useless person, given the chance, would be more than willing to explore those interests.
Maybe to a certain extent, but probably not to extent necessary to succeed in college.
A major difference between high school and college is that people choose to be in college; they don’t choose to be in high school. Make someone’s economic life dependent on college and it switches back to being high school.
And something that you haven’t addressed is when people leave. I’m imagining people being more than happy getting stuck in thesis hell for their Masters or Doctorate because it means they still have a roof over their head and food on the table and being a student would be a far better job than a lot of other work out there. There is a reason why all degree programs have a point to try push students out, either via graduation or flunking out.
Masters or doctorate implys they don’t need to leave the system. They are contributing. In this world, there is not need for honors or degrees in the same way it is now. Degrees, the way you imply, mean you indend to stop educating yourself and join the workforce. That’s not the point. You don’t have to stop. That’s the point.
This system could work, but there needs to be an incentive to actually learn instead of hogging resources. To create value and not just be a huge budget hole of consumption like OLPC, the incentives should be passing tests for a skill that people can be paid for. Until we institute anarchy, such a project would be doomed to close if there wasn’t such an incentive.
(That is, assuming people allow the government to allow people to get free housing by simply learning about the history of weed, which is still banned in many states. Such “interesting” topics also have way more hold within only the neurodivergent community than the masses.)
I’m more just world building here then actually plotting a path to this utopia. Societal needs will always push their way forward but I think there is a level of misappropriation of resources and around education.
The world kind of builds itself, honestly, though.
If society made education our ultimate pursuit answering unanswered questions would be what it’s all about. Who would teach them? The people who never leave the system, of course. What if they aren’t good teachers? Not every teacher is suited for every student. Structuring classes can be based on learning competencies. Teacher involvement can be based on learning competencies. Ok, but someone needs to run society. Well, we have a population of highly educated individuals.
I think, the more we break down this thought experiment we find that this is actually the natural order. No, not in the form of academia but in the form, what is it called, anthropology? Think to your friend group. Friend groups succeed when they have a unified task. Because each contributor has their own set of experiences each provides new information for the rest.
I don’t know. Thanks for humoring me.
