A public service

An anthropology class is not the place I would normally expecct to hear a public service announcement. So it was somewhat surprising to hear the Professor stop lecture 10 minutes early to inform us about various student service options available on campus, ranging from a women's resource center to a psychiatric clinic to an escort service to get you home safely at night. I appreciate the information, I suppose, though none of it is new and most of it probably not useful to me; I suppose I appreciate that someone bothered to inform us. But who is someone? Is this some new campus policy, that all intro anthropology courses discuss self-help options? I'm glad the administration is so concerned for our welfare; but then again, as tuition-payers we are the source of its income.

In many respects a college campus is a socialist environment. You pay a certain fee to be there and are thus entitled to many of the services on offer, and the rest seem to be subsidised. You have access to the health club and to resource centers, to doctors and sports-injury clinics, to social events, presentations, and theater, as well as computer labs and other facilities. Of course, like everything else in life this stuff costs money and nothing comes for free, so the fee (tuition) paid is designed to reflect this and is not a small number. Whether or not the fee is representative of the services received (or on offer) is not the point: You pay the same fee regardless of which services you use. And in most respects, you get what you need, you utilise those services which you require, and other students utilise different services. Why isn't this principle carried over into everyday life?

This isn't an argument for socialism per se, but rather the observation that this system seems to function efficiently and could be used as a model. Of course, there are some freedoms that are proscribed and perscribed, and you are limited to the quality and quantity of services on offer. Additionally, the fee paid for this lifestyle is obviously not perpetually sustainable, but rather is financed by extensive loans or private payment.

In Europe, by contrast, the education is publicly available and many of the services are otherwise on offer, though the campus community itself doesn't exist hardly at all. The services exist in a larger context: in Sweden, for example, you can be paid to go to the gym, you have access to subsidised health care or insurance. In much of Western Europe, the commodity for which we americans pay such high fees--higher education--is free. It is this dichotomy which is particularly interesting, as these societies provide the service of education as a benefit of a larger program--general society--whose fees--taxes--are borne by everyone, yet the education service itself is not necessarily of the quality seen in the US. That is, in terms of facilities and services on offer; the quality of the education alone is measurable by different standards and not by me.

Both of these trends (in America, expensive education with services in a society with little or no services; in Europe, free education with no services in a society offering a variety of them) have their issues. In Europe, one of the biggest political issues in almost all of the states is the payment, reform, and/or maintenance of the social welfare system, which in the US seems to be restricted to the limited welfare programs (i.e. social security or medicaid) provided by the government with huge private concerns being responsible for health care and other areas. Europe is also trying desperately to reform their education, either lower or higher or both (Britain as an example of the former, Germany of both). Take your pick.