Do you think students should get as much education as they can afford?

No, as much as they feel they need.

I agree, whole heartedly!

That is ridiculous.

Well, that’s what he said!! I agree with you @SuperMouse! Romney is ridiculous.

I don’t understand how anyone likes him.

They should just borrow from their parents.

Romney sucks. If people could only get as much education as they can afford, you said it; there would be very little people with enough education, and therefore nobody would get careers, and shit wouldn’t get done. What is this dude on crack or what?

LOL!! Well, like I said, only the elite would have an education. Only the elite would be running the country.

@Dutchess_III So basically, this guy would probably be a good dictator with all his crazy ideas.

Based on the full quote, it seems to me that this is a result of both Mitt Romney’s poor communication skills and the purposeful use of meaningless words in an attempt to simply not upset anyone. I think he was making a poor attempt to take advantage of this rare agreement with Obama and trying to give an impression of cooperation/bipartisanship by not saying anything too extreme. Unfortunately for him, though, he’s pretty transparent and not so good at it. Stating that “this is a land of opportunity land of opportunity for every single person” and that people “get as much education as they can afford” are completely contradictory statements; when put together, they quite obviously mean absolutely nothing. He probably did not intend for that statement to come out the way that it did, though. It seems to me that this was a very poor choice of words that failed to communicate the moderate and very vague point that he was trying to make (low interest rates on student loans help students to afford to continue their education), even though he was clearly BSing.

Has there ever been a candidate who has put his foot in his mouth so much and insulted so many people in such a short period of time? I mean, at least the biggest consequences of George Dubya’s word vomit were Bushism of the Day calendars.

Oh, and to answer your actual question: Definitely not. To suggest so is completely preposterous and would completely collapse the education system in addition to completely dividing the classes. Education is already way too expensive- if I could only get a college education that I could actually afford, I probably wouldn’t be getting one at all.

I think university education should be free, and admission should be based on academic excellence.

Thoughtful post @Fly. I think it was a Freudian slip as well. No telling how many times he’s debated that very concept with his buddies, even though it is utterly ridiculous. It’s weird, too, when you think that his father was raised in modest, sometimes poor conditions, and was truly a self made man. The wiki link says, ”....(he) attended several colleges in the U.S. but did not graduate from any.” Wonder who paid his tuition? It’s possible he paid it himself…he was a hard worker. But on the other hand, tuition was probably relatively reasonable and inexpensive, compared to today.

I don’t think it should be free, @Hawaii_Jake. The overhead has to be paid somehow.

Considering the endowments many of the universities have, they should pay for the tuition of their students. When the interest on the endowments would pay the tuition of the student body, the university does not need federal help, especially if it is a nonprofit college or university.

Harvard made a profit of 21.4 percent on its endowments last year or $4.4 billion.
They could easily cut tuition to nearly nothing.

University is free in Germany, and they are an economic powerhouse. The government pays for it.

I don’t really want to pay for someone to get a PHD in art history. But I would be totally fine covering Community Colleges. If you want something after that then we could just use the current system.

Doctors are the exception. We need more and if people can test into the program it should be free if they agree to work in public sector for a given amount of time. I get all my politics from watching Northern Exposure.

Pell grants only cover up to a bachelors degree, @johnpowell…and it only covers roughly the tuition of a state or community college, not a private college.

I know. If you want to go to a private college or get a advanced degree you can figure out how to fund it.

But if you want to go to a Community College to learn how to frame houses, or autocad, or be a nurse, or mechanic I would love to help pay for it. I don’t want to pay for Political Science degrees.

@Hawaii_Jake Yes, but there are two differences between us and Germany.

1) Like any other Non-US nation, Germany is a bunch of Socialists and therefore inferior to pond scum.

2) The US is not an economic powerhouse; so we cannot afford to pay for college or healthcare for people without jeopardizing the one economic thing that we excel at; tax breaks for the uber-rich individuals and largest companies. It’s the last thing we have going for us, and we don’t’ want to lose that.

Funny. He was supporting the extension of low interest student loans. Agreeing with Obama. Yet he’s getting shit for explaining it awkwardly. I think the guy is a dumbass with no clue, but this is one thing he doesn’t deserve our opprobrium on. Hard to believe there is bipartisan agreement on any issue at all, these days.

@wundayatta If this were an isolated incident, I don’t think that it would be a big deal. However, this is one of Romney’s consistent faults. As I said, though, it seems like he simply made an unfortunate choice of words, which I don’t think deserves nearly the amount of flak he is getting for it. It does seem to be part of a much bigger issue with him, though, that we have seen really blow up in his face these past weeks on his European and Israeli tours.

@wundayatta I agree with @Fly. First, while he may have been agreeing with Obama, Romney has been making it clear that part of his whole campaign is attacking Obama for things he agrees with him on, for instance, attacking him for modelling obamacare after romneycare (and then going on to praise Israel’s government health care), and more recently basically repeating Obama’s own point in his ‘rebuttle’ to the ‘You didn’t build that’ out-of-context line (skip to 5:40 for the particularly relevant part).

And secondly and more importantly, he’s shown himself as completely oblivious to how helpful the government can be, such as saying that people who want to start a business should “borrow money from their parents” and more recently talking to a guy about the ‘you didn’t build that’ line who only got his business off the ground because of a government loan.

Considering all that, I think it’s far more of a freudian slip then anything else.

Children must get the education they need. They need to learn to think, ask pointed questions, and to question authority. Some may need a university education so that they can entire a field in which they are interested and enjoy. Others need technical school because of their interests. Others are content work hard at a decent job and be free to enjoy the home life they desire.

It was relatively easy to take one of those paths not long ago. Now with the emphasis on transferring manufacturing to the cheapest possible labor, corporate indifference to their country of origin, and over-whelming corporate greed, those paths are rapidly closing.

Jobs for trade school students are diminishing or at much lower pay than in the past, university educations leaves students with the debt equivalence of a house, and opportunities for non-skilled labor are for minimum pay a fast food restaurants or Walmart.
Welcome to the third world!

In Australia those tradespeople working for the mines are in great demand and making more money than the average 4 year college graduate. And because the mines are hiring so many those who choose not to work for mines and stay at home are also earning very well.

Not everyone wants or needs to go to college. 4 year degrees in psychology, sociology, philosophy etc. are not really in great demand and aren’t going to get you much of a real job.

From my own personal experience I would say that I studied more and applied myself much more diligently because I was paying the bill myself and because I had a career goal. In high school where it was free, I really didn’t care.

@rooeytoo The average CNC machinist makes a fair income without any college, and my hometown recently had an issue with the Waste Management people since the recycling guys were only getting ~$90k/yr instead of the >$100k the garbage people were getting.

I also know of more than one person with a Masters degree that wound up with jobs like Home Depot or McDonalds.