You had me up until "off the backs of poor brown people."

I guess that makes sense if you're arguing that federal dollars allocated to higher education would otherwise be spent on social programs benefiting poor brown people.

It seems more likely to me that the government, especially with needs-based grants and loans, is making college cheaper for the middle class at the expense of rich taxpayers, who also generally pay full-price for their own kids to attend college.

The larger point stands, though. I put the over/under for total nominal increase in college tuition spending over the next five years at $97B. Any takers?
guy | 02.08.08 - 10:54 am | #

Well it's a bit of hyperbole, but not much. College welfare is a highly regressive form of taxation. Rich kids, middle-class kids, they tend to take advantage of the dollars being spent on education. Whether through subsidized loans or through dollars spent on education. ie state schools.

Poor brown people tend not to go to college, so all that money that they have paid in state sales taxes, or most egregiously, through lottery sales, or even any income taxes they might have paid, go to making college more affordable for middle-class suburban voters. That much is a fact.

You can fault the poor people for not taking advantage of the racket, but you can't say that they aren't paying for people to go to college. People who most cases could find some ulterior funding. Or in the cases of state schools, it's the straight funding of the schools, not even just the tuition costs.

But I'm not breaking any new territory. Free-market types have been making this argument since the inception of state colleges, and you can find a much more convincing version of it somewhere else.
Rob | Homepage | 02.08.08 - 11:05 am | #

I agree with the post in principle, but disagree with the characterization that "schools will continue up their prices and spend like crazy when they know they have a wildly increasing revenue source. Both from guaranteed tuition payments, and straight-up payments from the state and federal governments"

Working at a state school, I find that to be an exaggeration at best. My state in particular has dramatically reduced its funding of higher education. In the past 20 years, it's dropped from funding about 60% of the cost of public higher ed down to around 25%. At the same time, legislators have demanded limits on tuition increases (to keep it affordable for all!)

This has forced the state universities to start competing heavily with private universities in fundraising to make up the shortfalls. Internally, we have gone from considering ourselves a state school to a state supported school to a state affiliated school (a good thing, in my opinion, but not indicative of massive spending from wildly increasing revenue sources).

Unfortunately, we still have the massive additional expensive regulation mandates of being a state school related to things like ADA compliance, asbestos, and health and safety issues that are much more strict than what most private industry is required to follow.

And like most service industries, it's harder to take advantage of savings through mass production like industry can -- sure, we can offer some distance learning through the internet, etc., but the demand is for small classes and individual attention.

While technology helps most industry become more efficient, it tends to make higher education more expensive, because now you have to constantly upgrade everything from hardware and software to infrastructure to support the latest productivity software, or you're teaching outdated information (rather than simply doing so when it is cost-effective for productivity).

This is not to complain or to say that there isn't waste and inefficiency in state education -- there is. And the overall point about eliminating state schools is valid as an economic model. But that doesn't mean that all members of an irresponsible model are acting irresponsibly.
Pete Guither | Homepage | 02.08.08 - 11:35 am | #

Well, I see your point, but I still believe that tax incidence is higher for the middle and upper classes, even factoring in sales tax. Not as a percent of income (which you point out, as the sales tax is regressive), but certainly in total dollars.
guy | 02.08.08 - 1:56 pm | #

Peter - Is your state Ohio? Higher ed funding here has dropped dramatically, and our Board of Regents is considering consolidating some academic programs.

For example, instead of having 5 state-subsidized medical programs (I made that number up), maybe they'll have 2 or 3, but they'll be bigger and better and cheaper.

There is some work demonstrating a link between higher ed government funding and higher ed spending (google Richard K Vedder, for one), suggesting that bills like this will cause increases in spending. However, decreases in government spending have not been shown to decrease spending at colleges.
guy | 02.08.08 - 2:02 pm | #

Guy - Illinois. But lots of states have cut back on supporting Higher Education, because they're spending so much on other stuff (and unlike the feds, most of them actually pretend to aim for a balanced budget).
Pete Guither | Homepage | 02.08.08 - 4:01 pm | #

Pete,
I've read the rant before but never realized you were at ISU. I got my degree at Bradley right down the road.
Nate | 02.10.08 - 3:32 am | #