r3volution 3.0
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2014
- Messages
- 18,553
I've been thinking lately of methods of advancing libertarian goals other than electoral politics. It's not that the latter is unimportant; no, it's extremely important, the sine qua non of success in the long term; but we can walk and chew gum, and there must be other things we could do to augment our political efforts. Well, one thing we could do is put more libertarians in positions of influence within civil society; we need more prominent libertarian CEOs, lawyers, journalists, academics, clergy, etc, who can use their status to grow and legitimize (and help fund) the libertarian movement.
How can this be done?
What we're looking for are the best and brightest. We need them to both become libertarians and then achieve their potential and assume high status position within society. How do we convert the best and brightest to libertarianism? We can publish information, as does the LvMI, CATO, and many other fine educational institutions, but that doesn't make the horse drink. How do we draw them in?
Money. Free money.
Suppose we have an accredited university which is 100% free to students, with extremely high entrance requirements. There is nothing like this in the country. Even the most well endowed universities don't offer free rides to more than a small fraction of their undergraduate students (athletes aside). People who would otherwise not be interested in attending a university with a libertarian bent (due to their socialist indoctrination in school, etc) would jump at the chance to avoid ~$100k in student debt, as would their parents. We could affect a serious 'brain drain' in our direction.
How much does it cost to run a university? A traditional brick and mortar school is extraordinarily expensive, mostly due to faculty salaries. Harvard, with 21,000 students, has an annual budget of well over $4 billion dollars. Online universities can dispense with building and maintaining physical campuses, but more importantly they can drastically reduce the number of faculty, since one video lecture from one professor can be seen by an essentially unlimited number of students. Per student costs drop to virtually zero (apart from grading, which in some fields (e.g. creative writing) can't be automated). Bottom line, this endeavor is not as financially imposing as it may firstv sound. By my rough calculations, a couple hundred million dollars would be enough to endow a massive, world-class online university (which would then be totally self-sustaining). A Koch or a Thiel could do this without breaking a sweat.
TL;DR - any education is helpful, but we need a degree-granting institution, $0 tuition, to affect our own "long march through the institutions"
How can this be done?
What we're looking for are the best and brightest. We need them to both become libertarians and then achieve their potential and assume high status position within society. How do we convert the best and brightest to libertarianism? We can publish information, as does the LvMI, CATO, and many other fine educational institutions, but that doesn't make the horse drink. How do we draw them in?
Money. Free money.
Suppose we have an accredited university which is 100% free to students, with extremely high entrance requirements. There is nothing like this in the country. Even the most well endowed universities don't offer free rides to more than a small fraction of their undergraduate students (athletes aside). People who would otherwise not be interested in attending a university with a libertarian bent (due to their socialist indoctrination in school, etc) would jump at the chance to avoid ~$100k in student debt, as would their parents. We could affect a serious 'brain drain' in our direction.
How much does it cost to run a university? A traditional brick and mortar school is extraordinarily expensive, mostly due to faculty salaries. Harvard, with 21,000 students, has an annual budget of well over $4 billion dollars. Online universities can dispense with building and maintaining physical campuses, but more importantly they can drastically reduce the number of faculty, since one video lecture from one professor can be seen by an essentially unlimited number of students. Per student costs drop to virtually zero (apart from grading, which in some fields (e.g. creative writing) can't be automated). Bottom line, this endeavor is not as financially imposing as it may firstv sound. By my rough calculations, a couple hundred million dollars would be enough to endow a massive, world-class online university (which would then be totally self-sustaining). A Koch or a Thiel could do this without breaking a sweat.
TL;DR - any education is helpful, but we need a degree-granting institution, $0 tuition, to affect our own "long march through the institutions"
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