More Taxpayer Money for More Sheepskins? Bad Idea

Neal McCluskeyIt hasn ’t been much discussed in the presidential campaign—personality, scandal, and COVID-19 have dominated that—but the idea of spending big taxpayer bucks for “free” college still looms. The Biden campaignis proposing free tuition at four ‐​year public colleges for anyone in families earning less than $125,000 a year, and free community college for all, among many promises to lavish taxpayer money on ivory towers. The basic justification seems intuitive: education is good, more education must be better.But “intuition” and “reality” are not always the same, and pushing more money and people into college in the name of “education” would be like shoveling raw meat into an obese dog in the name of “nutrition.” You can have way too much of a basically good thing.Let ’s start with some money info.The way the argument goes for drastically increased federal higher education funding is that colleges have had to suck more and more money out of students as state and local governments, which directly fund public four ‐​year institutions and community colleges, have been cutting their subsidies. But that isnot what the data show.The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) helpfully publisheslots of data on public college finances going back to 1980. What they show is that public colleges have increased what they take in through student charges far beyond what they have needed to make up for any lost state and lo...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs