Tuition Free College: Federalizing State Universities?

[kennetha]

So various states, often fueled by their residents intense antipathy to higher taxes, decide that they are no longer willing to support their state university systems the way they once did, causing tuition expenses to go up, causing students at state U to have to borrow more, also driving State U to admit more and more out of state students, who are expected to pay a lot more tuition.

Along comes certain Democrats with “tuition free” state college (for instate students at instate schools only) plans that basically let the states and their residents off the hook. The plans say as long as you don’t decrease your level of support, we the people of the nation, will make up the difference so that your state colleges will now be tuition free.

And by the way, we’re also going to forgive all the debt your decisions forced upon your students.

But one might reasonably ask whether it is really the Federal government’s responsibility to step in and let the good, tax-averse people of New Hampshire off the hook for their lack of willingness to fund higher education.

You might also wonder how much control the Feds will demand once they start paying much of the freight. If I were the Feds, I would demand a lot, lest my costs skyrocket.

So perhaps we should see such proposals as a step toward Federalizing State Universities. Bernie’s plan, for example, requires that within a certain period the use of adjuncts be reduced. He requires that 75% of faculty at State U’s in states that accept the fed money be tenure track or tenured. Currently that number of adjuncts is somewhere in the 40’s (national average). How that is supposed to happen is not specified. An unfunded federal mandate, if there ever was one.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Why not? The US needs to catch up with the rest of the Industrialized world.

Where College in Public Colleges and Universities are paid for with higher Taxes, especially on those who are big earners, to give others a chance. Private Colleges are still available. An educated populace helps a country thrive. That could make the US a leader.

Here in the US, graduates right out of college are in debt so deeply, they have to put off being consumers. They cannot afford Housing, Health Care, basic essentials because jobs do not pay living wages for the fields they studied.

My daughter had to go into deep debt to become a Doctor of Chiropractic. We helped with her Undergraduate Degree at the U of M as much as we could. She still had debt from that. Added to another $100,000 plus loans for her Post Graduate, she was over $140,000 in debt by January of 2004. When she went into Private Practice as she set up her clinic, she had to borrow another $75,000 plus over 10 years, which she paid off 3 years in advance as she is on her 3rd location for her Clinic. Now that she is in profit mode, she could afford Health Insurance for her employees and pay them more, bought another home with the profits from her first home, but still owes on her College loans for another 22 years. She just turned 44.


If much of her loans can be forgiven, that will be a boost for her. She can be able to retire at a reasonable age. Her Clinic is highly regarded in her area. But my daughter is but one of many stories in this country that could have come out of the gate winning, instead of being burdened by debt that would take years to come out from under.

[kennetha]

2. Nobody is proposing debt forgiveness for graduate and professional school

Those loans are a form of self-investment. And forgiveness would represent a massive transfer of wealth from the less well of to the much better off.