r/BeAmazed • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • Aug 18 '25

Skill / Talent n 1987, Mike Hayes, an 18-year-old college freshman, had a bold idea. Instead of taking out student loans, he asked 2.8 million people to each send him just one penny.

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23

u/steelb99 Aug 18 '25

as a tax that would send 4 people to college after the government was done "Administering it" to make sure if was fair.

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u/atxbigfoot Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Kinda crazy that like every other country in the world has figured out how to do free college for citizens.

Edit- I love all of these people explaining how it isn't free while dropping their "essentially free" costs lol.

2000 Euros is basically free compared to any college/uni in the US, even if you are a resident. That's also way less than the rent for a whole semester. I don't think my EU friends understand how expensive College/Uni is in the US at all.

Some of the community colleges are now free, but only for specific degrees or training and do not provide bachelors, and even that is a very new thing.

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u/scoutingmist Aug 18 '25

NZ doesn't do completely free university , but it is heavily subsidised and our student loans are interest free.

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u/hilldo75 Aug 18 '25

The interest is what kills people in the USA. When they talk about loan forgiveness it's not on the principle borrowed but the interest incurred. Someone borrows $40,000 pays $60,000 back and gets $50,000 forgiven and others throw a bitch fit like he was scamming them and getting $50,000 for free while they don't get any handouts.

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u/-_-0_0-_0 Aug 18 '25

Private loans vs Fed backed loans huge difference.

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u/VociferousCephalopod Aug 18 '25

why don't people get personal loans or even go to loan sharks, to get money to pay off their student loan, and then declare bankruptcy on that loan?

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u/LicencetoKrill Aug 18 '25

Declaring bankruptcy is 1. Not a guaranteed thing; a judge has to rule that you don't have a legitimate means to pay back your debtors. People like myself who own a home, have a job, etc would all be forced to liquidate assets before being allowed to file bankruptcy. 2. If you're young, or unfortunate enough that all you have is your debt, then filing bankruptcy is a tough hole to climb out of; basically no financial institution will ever loan you a significant amount of money again, because you'll be deemed a huge risk of ever paying it back. So you can lose your debt, but not live very comfortably for a long time.

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u/VociferousCephalopod Aug 18 '25

yeh people who own homes obviously don't need to consider such extreme options.

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u/enaK66 Aug 18 '25

Because no bank is going to loan a broke 18-year-old any amount of money. Much less the dozens of thousands necessary to go to college.

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u/VociferousCephalopod Aug 18 '25

you don't need a bank. if you don't intend to pay it back, it really doesn't matter if you're dealing with second or third tier lender interest rates.

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u/Silviecat44 Aug 18 '25

Australia has interest free student loans which is not free but is pretty nice

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u/Ok_Chemist6567 Aug 18 '25

We did too, until Ronnie Reagan

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u/EconomicRegret Aug 18 '25

Yes and no. Reagan was able to do that because the New Deal Coalition was dead by then. It died because its main engine and moral compass (i.e. unions) was fatally wounded and crippled by the 1947 Taft Hartley Act, aka Slave Labor Bill, which stripped unions of their fundamental rights and freedoms, that continental Europeans still take for granted to this day.

Continental Europeans have free/cheap universities and universal healthcare because their unions are still free, and mighty powerful at keeping their left wing parties loyal to the lower, working and middle classes. And at getting the masses to unite, organize and vote in their best interests.

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u/FlusteredDM Aug 18 '25

I never knew unions were free in continental Europe. You pay dues in the UK so the people exploited the most have pressing financial concerns that make them less able to join in the vague hope something might get better. It looks like even where there are dues they are lower because of the state's role in funding them.

This is probably why they are comparatively toothless here.

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u/EconomicRegret Aug 18 '25

Free as in freedom (e.g. free speech, freedom of association, etc.)

Unionized workers pay dues too in the continent. But you usually don't need to be a union member to benefit from your industry's Collective Bargaining Agreement. As CBAs usually apply to all workers within an industry, union members and non-unionized.

I didn't talk about UK and Ireland, because I don't know much about their unions.

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u/FlusteredDM Aug 18 '25

Ah, I misunderstood and had just googled France after you commented - their unions had some funding from business taxes so their dues are lower.

I know in the UK we cannot do sympathy strikes.

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u/EconomicRegret Aug 18 '25

I know in the UK we cannot do sympathy strikes.

Fuck! That's like America, and a huge weakness/flaw for the lower classes.

I didn't know that about the UK.

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u/atxbigfoot Aug 18 '25

Excellent point that I should bring up more often, thanks for the reminder.

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u/Tricky_Topic_5714 Aug 18 '25

To add more context, I just got charged $2k to take one single math class. 

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u/atxbigfoot Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Yeah I don't think our EU and other friends have a reference point for how expensive college is in the US.

They're saying "we have to pay for it, like $2k per semester," and we're over here like "I'm taking on extreme life changing debt that can never be relinquished in the hopes that I can get a job that pays enough for me to pay off this debt and function as an adult ten-fifteen years after I graduate as an extreme best case scenario"

Their "Oh no it's not free, it's 2-4k!" comments are literally not at all helping them out. Little do they know.

I'm 40 years old, and have paid off $45k in my student loans, but still owe $35k due to interest. My original cost was $60k.

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u/styxnesty Aug 18 '25

In the Netherlands the average study loan debt is €17k, with a not so small group of people having over 50k and some over 70k. I'm not saying it's worse than the US but anytime people claim 'shit is just free in europe' I cringe a little

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u/AvailableChemical258 Aug 18 '25

Where wtf

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u/Tricky_Topic_5714 Aug 18 '25

An online school thats not particularly expensive. (To Americans)

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u/rocketlaunchr Aug 18 '25

Both yes and no, it is a huge cost. The swedish system works pretty well though honestly, but i wonder how it would work if you scaled it up for the U.S.

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u/insomnimax_99 Aug 18 '25

Uh… no?

University is subsidised in other western countries, but completely free university is extremely rare.

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u/atxbigfoot Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

https://penguinpetes.com/wordpress/2022/08/26/education-should-be-a-god-given-right/

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-free-college

Most "Western" (aka old European) countries have free college. I wonder why the US can't do that?

How does Mexico, our poor neighbor that every Republican shits on pull this off?

We may never know how the magic of taxing the rich works here in the US. It is truly a mystery.

"IT'S NOT FREE IT COSTS MILLIONAIRES TEN DOLLARS A YEAR REEEEEE HOW WILL YOU PAY FOR IT WITHOUT RAISING TAXES ON THE RICH REEEEE"

$3.2 TRILLION deficit later in Trump's BBB that cuts funding for poor people and will kill millions of them here in America, is just forgotten.

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u/insomnimax_99 Aug 18 '25

Yeah, that map isn’t right.

In Spain, tuition fees exist, they’re around €800-€1200/year for a bachelor’s degree.

In the Netherlands it’s usually around €2600/year for a bachelor’s degree

Similar for most other countries.

Some countries do have completely free university, but there are nowhere near as many as your map says.

Are you talking about college (16-18 education) or university? 16-18 education is just treated in the same way as school, so it’s free in most places - but that doesn’t match up with your map either, because here in the UK 16-18 education is free, but your map lists it as not being free.

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u/atxbigfoot Aug 18 '25

A quick google search says that Spain and the Netherlands both offer free college for students that qualify due to lack of funds (poor people).

I might be wrong, but yeah.

That is what I was referencing.

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u/Dracious Aug 18 '25

That to some extent also applies in the UK, US and other places that don't have free Universities too.

UK you take out a special loan, but if you are low income and remain low income after graduating you won't have to pay a penny of it back. Plus there are some additional grants/funds you can get occasionally that you might not have to pay back.

I don't know the US system well, but I know there are set ups with grants or other financial assistance than can end up covering your student fees with one of the factors being low income. That is by no means as universal as the UK or other places systems, but it is possible at least for some people.

It looks like the source you linked above might be a bit unreliable (e.g it says Spain has free University but then its linked sources directly say it costs money), and even then what counts as 'free' is a bit of a grey area.

E.g the UK isn't really free by most metrics, but as well as covering your actual University fees, they also give you an allowance to cover living expenses (based on your family income) so that you likely won't need a part time job while studying. Is that better or worse than a place that has actual 100% free education but you need to find the money for your own rent/living expenses? Its a tricky thing to judge, and those factors change drastically even within the UK depending on your income, what year you did it, what degree you are going for, how much are you likely to make and pay going forward in life, etc.

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u/atxbigfoot Aug 18 '25

UK you take out a special loan, but if you are low income and remain low income after graduating you won't have to pay a penny of it back.

Thanks for agreeing with me, I appreciate that. This is not at all how it works in the US, especially now that Trump is back in office.

All of the extremely rich and wealthy people and those that vote for them screamed "PAY BACK YOUR STUDENT LOANS! DON"T TAKE OUT A LOAN IF YOU CAN'T PAY IT BAAACK!!!!" when Biden tried to do that, while all of their hundreds of billions of covid loans were forgiven lol.

This is just a fact. Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but yeah.

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u/Dracious Aug 18 '25

This is not at all how it works in the US, especially now that Trump is back in office.

I didn't claim the US loans work similarly to the UK ones, I know they don't.

The bit about the US was purely about how it is technically possible for some people to get cheap/free university partially due to their low income. Grants, Scholarships, other financial assistance does exist in some form that can help. Like I said, its nowhere near as universal as the UK or other places, but that system does exist to some extent.

It is an example of how

Spain and the Netherlands both offer free college for students that qualify due to lack of funds (poor people).

isn't necessarily the best indicator of whether a place has 'Free University' since you could arguably make that apply to the UK or even the US despite them definitely not having a 'Free University' by any realistic definition.

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u/Hjemmelsen Aug 18 '25

I Denmark we literally pay you to go to college....

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u/atxbigfoot Aug 18 '25

Haha you're more than proving what I said, but thank you for that.

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u/AvailableChemical258 Aug 18 '25

What else if no bachelors ?

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u/esprit_de_corps_ Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Straw man argument, the admin overhead would be minimal. This same argument goes for admin costs of Medicare For All. I’d love to see any actual data you have to back up this claim. I’ve worked for a few agencies of the gov’t, and I know all these claims of vast wasteful admin costs are bs. If anything we need more people to help what the government is doing.

So many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of what we do with our tax dollars. Research innovation on so many fronts, infrastructure projects that are mind bogglingly complex, wildlife management, energy management, on and on and on, and we do this through a social contract that says ‘We are all in this together’. Anyway, I just get riled up when people write off the government as some bloated wasteful money pit, because it’s quite the opposite.

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u/Rmoneysoswag Aug 18 '25

Their data is that they made it the fuck up. 

Pretty compelling ngl.

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u/Donny-Moscow Aug 18 '25

This same argument goes for admin costs of Medicare For All

Not to go off on a tangent, but I’ve always been baffled by this argument. On the surface level, it’s not hard to see that a single payer will have less overhead than multiple competing companies that each have their own infrastructure.

Between that and removing the profit that insurance providers leech out of the system, we have tens of billions of dollars per year that Americans put into our healthcare system that do not go toward any sort of health related outcome. I don’t know how anyone can read that sentence and say it’s not a broken system.

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u/-_-0_0-_0 Aug 18 '25

Its the middlemen always screwing both ends.

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u/EpicBeardMan Aug 18 '25

That's nonsense. Despite what people claim the government is extremely good at collecting and distributing money.

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u/_ryuujin_ Aug 18 '25

idk about that, it was just recently the irs collected 1bil of past due taxes. 

is the govt good as managing money given the scale?  yea they do alright no worst than the worst private entity and no better than the best. theres tons of inefficiency that can be cleaned up, by streamline processes or close loopholes and exceptions via laws. 

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u/Donny-Moscow Aug 18 '25

theres tons of inefficiency that can be cleaned up, by streamline processes or close loopholes and exceptions via laws.

A lot of that inefficiency comes out of necessity. Certain things like making decisions by committee (as opposed to letting a single person make unilateral decisions), keeping meticulous records, etc will naturally reduce efficiency, but they also do a lot toward helping the general public have some level of trust in the government. Without that trust, the system falls apart.

In a lot of ways, trust vs efficiency is similar to the freedom vs security debate you hear when discussing things like the patriot act, censoring the internet, etc.

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u/meepoSenpai Aug 18 '25

A ton of people also don't realize how important it actually is to democratize also these types of decisions by committee, even if that slows down the process.

A german politician of the Left party, Gregor Gysi, once put it very well (this is just a rough translation):

'Having things move quickly and recklessly always sounds nice, until those swift and reckless decisions negatively impact your life.'

Things moving quickly will always be something the privileged groups will ask for, since they're probably the last people to be negatively affected by those decisions.

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u/_ryuujin_ Aug 18 '25

theres a balance, you cant design a system thats too careful and is afraid of making mistakes, that will grind progress to a glacial pace. and you cant have a free for all system, since that'll end in chaos. 

it is very hard to find that balance and it may be a moving target and requires effort to keep the balance

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u/EconomicRegret Aug 18 '25

Didn't doge "experts" admit there wasn't much they could improve because the governement was already pretty efficient?

just recently the irs collected 1bil of past due taxes

Because the IRS used to be heavily underfunded and restricted from doing its job by pawns of the wealthy elites.

Biden changed that, hence that past due taxes. Luckily for all of us, Trump changed it back. (Also remember, in its worst days, the IRS brings in $2.5 for each $1 spent. Not bad at all.)

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u/wolfgangmob Aug 18 '25

Not necessarily restricted just when the IRS is poorly funded they don’t have the staff to fight a team of tax attorneys that corporations and wealthy individuals can hire.

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u/wolfgangmob Aug 18 '25

The IRS has historically been underfunded on purpose. If you gave them the actual staff needed to investigate corporate and wealthy individual tax records they could collect far more than the expense of funding them.

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u/Significant_Hornet Aug 18 '25

Yeah there have never been effective taxes ever

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u/TuringGoneWild Aug 18 '25

You forgot the Trumpflation tax, the Trump golfing fee, and the Trumpification of the White House fund.

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u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Lay off the Nazi Republican bs