I've heard that thesis about giving people things free and they don't appreciate it, including college, all my life. And it is balderdash.
I was born and raised in Richmond California, the third most dangerous city in the United States today for murder rates. There were gangs everywhere, and I had to watch where I went at all times. When I was a senior in high school at Richmond Union high school, the gang the "Shockers" put out a contract on me for breaking up with their president's sister. For a year I had to be extra careful and occasionally I would get threats that I was going to be beaten up by the Shockers. I did finally have a showdown with them, but they didn't beat me up, thank God-lol.
My friends and I did horrible in high school because just surviving was a big deal. And we had to work all the time so we could afford a car. But they had a local junior college, Contra Costa college, and many of us that didn't get trapped into an early marriage or join the military, or something like that, transferred over to that junior-college.
Ted Costa who was the president of the above gang in Richmond enrolled in that same junior-college when I did and came up to me and apologized for his behavior when we were in high school.
The tuition was almost nothing, and a person could get in with any grades and start over. Lots of the kids were gang members In fact the gang members had a fraternity they called Sigma epsilon ?SEX (Ted Costa was president), and most of the rest of them were just poor kids. I was president of another fraternity. I knew hundreds of the kids and how well they did. In a nutshell not only did we almost all graduate from that two-year college, almost all of us transfered to a four-year state college. I transferred to San Jose State and then later to the University of Washington for graduate work.
As mentioned, virtually all of us made it through that two-year college and none of us took it for granted. We were grateful and we studied and we kept our grades up. We worked hard, because now we were adults and were happy to have the second chance and we were proud to be going to college. We poor kids that did so terrible in high school and had been written off as stupid lazy bums by the counselors. One told me I would be a garbage man. True!
California had a great law that if you carried a 2.5 average at the junior college you could transfer to any state college including UC Berkeley (they may have required a 3.0?). I remember two gang members that transferred to UC Berkeley and became accountants, if you can believe that.
We were poor, and had no money, and the college was free and we got a good education. Virtually all of us went on to become productive members of society. Take a look at my bio and see if that looks like I was a slacker during my lifetime, or took that free college for granted. I paid my way through six years of university because it was affordable, but often I would work all night and go to classes in the morning.
I don't know of any of us that did not go on to join the middle class and become productive members of society and avoided welfare and everything else that goes along with being poor. Virtually all of us made it into the middle class and the one reason was that
FREE junior-college that was available to us.
So don't tell me.
It is simple human nature to want to succeed in life if given a chance!
<< | | If you give people things for free they dont appreciate them and protect them. Same with college. Simple human nature. Socialism goes against human nature. Its also immoral. Its basically theft. |
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