In this alternate universe school is completely funded by the government and housing is included.
Look, I’m not saying that you’re lazy for not spending your nights and weekends at the library taking online learning courses, but you can answer your own question by answering another, “What’s stopping you now?” There are fewer barriers to education now than there ever have been. People who are curious learn. People who are driven accomplish. People who are both discover.
School isn’t just learning the stuff in the classes. It’s the shared experience too. It’s the teachers holding you accountable for learning.
“Going to school” is a very different thing than just trying to learn on your own. Self motivation and time are a huge barrier for a lot of people. I think the OP was imagining being able to go to school every day and just take classes for free with other people also interested.
I have done my fair share of school. I just think it would be cool to keep learning, but not only that. I think if peoples default was to continually learn stuff and the time allowed to do it wasn’t hampered by outside influences we could all engage in much deeper conversations about all sorts of things.
You should never stop learning. School gave you the framework by which you can build new information and knowledge, use it!
Harvard puts classes online for free, libraries are already paid for through tax dollars and YouTube exists. You can go back to school whenever already friend
As a self learner, knowing this, I’d like to have a word with whomever set requirements for any job requiring a degree.
Probably those who had massive errors happen because people bullshitted their way into a position. Certification is important. It’s impossible to test all the bits of knowledge required for a position every time someone applies for a position with the potential for huge fuckups (doctor, engineer, pilot, etc.)
I don’t want to be in the plane with the self taught pilot, even though I think the requirements in the US are kinda bullshit.
I’m not denying that schools are fleecing students and jobs have some protectionism going on with certifications, but there’s a balance to be struck. These requirements happened for a reason.
I’m a firm believer that as long as you can show you knowledge and can accomplish the job, the piece of paper is unnecessary. It’s also why I think apprentiships should be more of a thing again. Degrees are a very modern thing that while a very useful tool, isn’t being used right.
Of course, and any job will expect some degree of training anyway. But there’s only so much that can be tested for before hiring someone. A degree is just a reference from the university that you meet their standards of mastery at whatever major at whatever level. Some jobs expect you to have one just like some expect you to have references from individuals, but others will have other tests for qualification which may even just be an interview conversation. Apprenticeships are pretty similar; each is an individual or group staking their reputation on vouching for your competency. Even a GED or high school diploma is a reference, just from an organization or a public institution.
A degree shows that you can complete a long-term multi-phase project involving a large variety of tasks and disciplines while following the rules established by the organization.
You can go back to school whenever already friend
The hypothetical included living costs. Which would let you digest those educational resources to learn. Saying they are there without having a system in play is just ignoring the realities of life.
teachers would be really freaking sad with all the people who go only for the free housing
Would they though? Wouldn’t they be thrilled to teach things in an open ended, no pressure type environment. It wouldn’t have to be structured like it is today. People could learn what ever they are interested in, focus solely on that, and teachers could offer different levels of difficulty based solely on each person’s ability.
With free housing, I’m expecting quite a bit of people to be there without interest in learning anything. There is also a lot of pain if the learners aren’t filtered into skill levels because you’re going to have to “conserve” teacher power so that everyone gets at least one teacher for their subject. A “bright-line” solution to this would be dropping those who don’t pass a test after a few weeks, but then you also risk filtering out those who only want to learn a specific subtopic.
That’s not the point. The point isn’t to force people to learn. The point is eduction is readily available. Sure there might be a person there that doesn’t want to do anything but live in their dorm or what ever. Except, there is no obligation for them to learn anything either because school doesn’t end.
They could be stuck into a class all about socializing while playing video games. A class about stacking blocks. Whatever.
Then you say, well then how does society work if everyone is dicking around in school. It’s not a complete answer but imagine you have all these people who have learned all this very specific stuff according to their interest. What do you think they are going to want to do with it? They will want to apply it.
The library?
It’s already like that except the funding part. There’s free online learning for basically anything available to everyone in the world, 24/7. And people do take advantage of it.
You can learn whatever TF you want from reliable, trusted sources it’s just that all you get from it is the knowledge. You don’t normally get a degree or a certificate or anything like that. Because those things are for traditional institutions (and how they make money).
If you really want to learn something, go learn it. What’s stopping you?
If you really want to learn something, go learn it. What’s stopping you?
Work.
If I don’t work full time I can’t afford to house or feed myself.
Work wipes me out mentally leaving me no mental bandwidth to spend what precious little time I have left to go learn, even if I want to.
I would love to be able to dedicate time to learning like I did when I was at university but even with the government funding available to me I would have to upend my life.
I do spend time doing learning around things that interest me but it is depressing how little bandwidth work leaves for me to do that.
