Not-So-Rare Budget Loss for Taxpayers

Like all propaganda, if you say enough times that the feds incessantly cut aid to higher education, people will start to believe it. But also like propaganda, if you eventually look at the facts you will discover the lies of the student aid mantra.

According to the College Board, it turns out that far from shrinking, inflation-adjusted federal student aid has actually more than doubled over the last ten years. And, no, that wasn’t all loan aid. Pell grants — money taxpayers never get back — rose 86 percent. And that’s not all. Over the last ten years total aid per full-time-equivalent student increased 62 percent, while tuition at four-year private schools rose only 32 percent and at four-year publics only 42 percent.

Well how do you like that? Rather than suffering, students have actually been benefiting from exceedingly generous aid. Okay, maybe “generous” isn’t the right word. After all, you wouldn’t say “the victim gave generously to the mugger,” and that’s essentially what’s been happening to taxpayers for decades — they’ve had student aid dollars taken from them at the point of an IRS gun.

So when you cut through the propaganda, it actually turns out that the only “rare budget victory” would be a victory for taxpayers. Unfortunately, we almost never get to see what that’s like.

Neal McCluskey, Education Policy Analyst at Cato Institute, at 10:25 am EST on March 17, 2006

Posturing vs. Reality

Sorry, Neal, we’ll have to step back a bit from the ideological posturing. Statistics can tell us whatever we want them to, especially in an age where we can so easily manipulate (or fabricate) them to suit our needs.

Let’s step back from the broad scope, let’s forget the forest for a moment, and just look at the trees. I’ll tell you something about me. I’m 38. I have a wife and two kids. I began college at the tender age of 15 (surviving off of Pell grants and the limited largess of my family). I worked part time during my first two years of college. Then took off for four years to work full-time. I returned to school in 1989, then transferred to a new school in 1990 (beginning again as a freshman in my fourth year of college). I was young and didn’t quite know what I wanted to study.

All along, I maintained an A- average. I worked to support myself (waiting tables, mowing grass, fundraising for the university, taking odd jobs and temp work). Student loans were the only way I could sustain myself. I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree, and began a Master’s program in 1994. More student loans. My full scholarship did not cover my living expenses. More part-time work, and full-time classes.

I taught at a community college for two years after that. My measly income from that worthy activity was about $6000/yr. I supported myself by teaching privately, tutoring, and other part-time and temporary work.

Today, I have a PhD. And I have no income. My student loans amount to nearly $74,000. I’ve never been late on a payment. I’ve applied for about 90 jobs in my field in the past two years. No job. Sure, I could take a job as barrista at Starbuck’s, shelve books for Border’s, or work at the checkout at Walmart. Is that what education is for? Is that in the best interest of these United States (and the world) that highly educated folks like me have difficulty working as educators?

But why is it difficult in this economy? Because there is not enough funding for education! Because our government puts a higher priority on subsidizing the private student loan industry than in providing direct loans, or better providing funding to support education without forcing students into debt. It’s a simple answer. Sure, it’s complicated to execute. But isn’t the education of our people worth it?

Sorry to say, Neal, we do have an obligation to the greater good. And part of the obligation is ponying up our dollars to benefit society.

Articulate Dad, Dr. at University of California, at 1:35 pm EST on March 17, 2006

who wins?

Several comments come to mind. First, the government should not set the priorities in a democracy, the citizens should. Kevin’s failure to realize that basic fact suggests he needs to take some basic civics courses.

Unquestionably the government policy aids businesses through indirect subsidies. Is this efficient? Not really but that is the way things have worked throughout the history of the U. S. What we seem to need is a modicum of civic sense on the part of business leaders. Not since the “Age of the Robber Barons” has the U. S. seen such blatent greed and self-interest on the part of businessmen. Remember that was the period about which several historians referred to Senators as the paid employees of business interests. Are things that bad, matter of opinion for each of us.

My nephew is being offered a starting salary which is nearly equal to mine today after twenty years. Will he or anyone else remember that he could not get that job without college professors? The market will create incompetence as professors leave for other pursuits. That conclusion assumes the market works which the last time I read the research is a very debatable concept.

So who won? Probably no one as Congress will posture, note Spector, and months after the budget is due something will pass that will satisfy no one. Hm, sounds the French at the end of the 19th century.

Kurt, at 3:40 pm EST on March 18, 2006

Citizens vs. government employees

Subsidies, while they ideally should be eliminated, are not handed out by the “people” but rather in two parts — one is by the senators and representatives, many of whom have been captured by special interests, and the second is by the employees of the various departments that distribute these subsidies.

I very much doubt that if put to a direct referendum that is itemized with descriptions that anything approaching the public at large would support much of what the NAS and National endowment for the arts do. It is the political pull of the relavent special interest groups that keep the gravy train coming.

Simply because you can ram it through congress doesn’t really make it democratic.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 11:00 am EST on March 20, 2006