You want to discuss the tax burdens we are leaving our children, and our grandchildren? I'd love to discuss the financial burden we are encouraging them to accept as the norm, in the name of education no less.
So I invite you to follow me below the squggledoodlethingey fold, and let's get to discussin', shall we?
Well, for goodness' sake, Bud! Where did all this come from?
Fair question. I read an article today over at a friend's place. As I read the article, I was finding within my alleged brain some questions and response to the article that I wanted to present to the author.
Then, I began reading the comments to that article, and I immediately became, for lack of a better or more appropriate term (because their isn't one!), suspicious about one of them. My suspicions would be soon confirmed.
In the interests of public and/or fair disclosure:
I am a forty-plus-years educator (now semi-retired), having served from elementary through post doctoral faculty positions, both public and private. I have created my own private education institutions, and am currently creating a private, fee-based online education system, having served others in the past ten years.
The newest project is named The Online School for the Creative Arts (TOSCA). It is not designed to be a degree-producing school (yet). It is designed to offer, for a very reasonable price, those skills needed to exist and succeed in creative arts opportunities. (Yes, they DO exist, in very high numbers.)
I say that to let you know that I have some personal, on-hand experience with the issues this student raises. I also have experience as one who has a good bit of experience in more than one state legislature, who has had to deal with higher education from the other side of the issues presented. I think I have a fairly good point of reference for the discussion. I might also admit that I have four terminal degrees, only to tell you that I am a product of the post-secondary (public and private) education system in America.
So, overall, I would hope that I could bring some reasonable points to the discussion. The Federal Budget indicates that we will commit some 4% of our tax dollars to the funding of Public Education by 2016. However, that number changes appreciably, in terms of actual dollars spent. There is an 11%% (cite) reduction in federal tax dollars available to spend on anything! But, as this from the OMB indicates, not only is the actual outlay vs. receipts from TARP funds closing fast:
But if current laws remain unchanged, federal outlays other than those for the TARP are projected to be $366 billion (or 11 percent) higher in 2011 than they were in 2009.
Why? Simple. Because there are fewer dollars coming into the Treasury. Again, why? From a balanced budget for four consecutive years to the largest deficit situation in our nation's history is NOT a leap of reasoning.
Yet, the demand for post secondary educational opportunities is growing. Those students, the largest majority of whom are under the age of 22, are desiring to further their employment, career aspirational, and personal dreams, that's why. I will, at least for the moment, disregard private post-secondary considerations from the discussion.
One of the points you raise is that too many students are in the post-secondary systems of State public educational systems. There are, by close to an order of magnitude, more students available than there were before, say, the year 2000 by virtue of population growth alone. Meanwhile, during that same time, the plethora of unfunded educational mandates coming from the federal government left State Higher Education Commissions, and State Boards of Education to create the funding that the federal government required, but would not/did not provide. Within the realm of education itself, irrespective of other State budgetary concerns, this dampening of the educational opportunities for State citizens was only the beginning. Since 1980, public education demands have only increased. Yet, State Treasuries have consistently decreased, and especially in their percentage of dollars for education.
In the educational universe, this contraction has become life-threatening. Student admissions are up, and so are tuition costs per semester (since 1980, an average of 18 times as of 2012, yielding tuition rates that average today some 8 times what matriculating students were expected to pay in 1980). Due to the considerably criminal proliferation of first non-federal, then Federal Student Aid/Loan programs, students have been enticed to "learn now, pay later". It is no accident that 1980 also saw the massive introduction of unsolicited credit cards to post-secondary students in America. You want to discuss the tax burdens we are leaving our children, and our grandchildren? I'd love to discuss the financial burden we are encouraging them to accept as the norm, in the name of education no less.
Meanwhile, the direct costs of providing that education to the institutions has not contracted but grown proportionally to the student demand for that education. Instead of the institutions themselves understanding that it is their obligation to not only provide the best possible education for it's customers, and eventually it's products, the institutions have put the costs of public higher education on the market. The Federal Student Loan Programs have provided many millions of completely (by the way) qualified students the opportunities for advancing and bettering their lives.
I strongly disagree with the notion that colleges and universities generally, and public Higher Education institutions specifically were ever, much less purposely reserved for "the brightest and best". Higher education is not a privilege reserved for those who alone could fund it. Education is a right of all citizens, and is included in most (if not all) State Constitutions in our land. States take their post-secondary educational obligations quite seriously, in fact. It is usually second only to the public debt In it's hierarchical standing for most of our States here in America. Citizens of virtually every State in the Union are consistently in favor of education funding. Yet the contraction continues. State governments are dealing with this continuing inconsistency in many diverse and creative ways.
Yet, more and more it seems that education itself has become ever more the political football, serving as both the whipping post and the savior of State budgets. Students at every level of the State educational systems are the victims of political intransigence. It is only in the very best self interest of our nation that education, at every level, be recognized as our most valuable resource. It is a resource we are squandering at unimaginable levels. Today, we see recent graduates with a debt load they will NEVER retire. Who, finally, does that harm the most?
It harms our nation the most. We cannot fulfill the promises of our forefathers, much less compete on an international scale if our products are vastly inferior. Yet, the non-US component of education seekers matriculating into our public education systems, and especially our post-secondary educational systems have been increasing since 1974. Why is this? Is it because our educational institutions are more reasonably priced? Absolutely not, especially when one considers the cost versus the ability to pay that cost. Is this increase because of opportunity? Yes. Opportunity for what?
Our public education systems, and most specifically our post-secondary public education institutions are, without argument the very best in the world. Our instructors define what world class is. Our facilities for learning are the very best in the world. Our instruction itself has no peer. Even as this very national treasure sees itself maligned, attacked, and made irrelevant politically, yet our place in the world of institutional education remains, for the moment, secure.
There are those who would have us simply dis-assemble the dream of acceptable, available, and affordable higher education in America first envisioned by Mr. Franklin. Just do away with the Department of Education. Sell our treasures. And, while we are at it, let's completely screw those who have made our educational excellence their life's work. Let's simply absolve them of their earned retirement, healthcare and other benefits because, after all, well, you know. And, above all else, do NOT let them have any say whatsoever in their present or future. Those damned unions just MUST go. Public education, they say, has outlived it's usefulness to us, to America. Let's just home school our children. At least then we can inculcate in them the values, morals, and social relevance we think they should have. Well, sure, society will crumble, but....
No, it is not fair to presume that every kindergarten student in America will graduate Magna Cum Laude from a public college or university, and our educational paradigm should not (and, by the way, never has) lead necessarily to that end. But, our educational paradigms, and very specifically our post secondary educational paradigms MUST include that as one possible educational outcome for every student taught.
Education is second only to the most core principles of democracy in America. There's a reason for that which holds true only if your are an American citizen (or want to be) with more than a walnut's understanding and/or appreciation of this land.