“If you are elected president, how will you make a college education more affordable?”
The Concord Monitor had a piece “Where do the presidential candidates stand on college affordability?” that outlines some of the Prez Wannabees positions on that subject. Frankly, I disagree with the question; why is it the proper role of Government of the Federal Government to be meddling in this area in the first place? Sure, we are talking about a public good and folks might say that horse has left the barn, but if we do not continue to ask the question over and over, government always expands if it sees no impediment in front of it. After all, like water seeking a downhill path, government always expands. But back to the “socialize the risk, privatize the profit” question:
That’s because New Hampshire is not only home to the first in the nation primary, the students who graduate from the state’s colleges and universities carry the highest average debt load in the country at $33,410 in 2014, according to the Project on Student Debt.
My question is if you are taking on this level of debt, are you prepared to pay it? Why should it not be looked at, as far as financial terms, as any other debt. Sure, folks are looking at the debt with an eye to future gain – but is that risk always properly scored? For years I have recounted the story of the young lady who graduated from Yale with $100,000 in debt yet expected being a daycare teacher would be just dandy. Maybe being a chemical or petroleum engineer, or a number of other STEM specialities, but that much for a low paying job (which in many cases, only needs a certificate at a local community college).
But I digress from asking the right question – why should a President be offering to mitigate your debt? You know the only “solution” most will offer is with tax money – and I have yet to really hear someone attack the real problem. But, Jeb decides to weigh in.
And the bold color difference between Republicans and Democrats are (emphasis mine, reformatted)?
Mike Bellizzi, 26, from New York state, asked the question at Nashua Community College in late December during one of former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s town halls. “I’m sick of paying my student loans,” Bellizzi said. “How, as president, would you make the affordability factor more prevalent for the youth of America today?” As the young man spoke, Bush nodded his head and said, “yeah” – he knew what Bellizzi was talking about. Bush’s response was typical: sympathetic, concerned, but light on specifics.
What candidates propose to do about college affordability swings wildly between two extremes: from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s plan for free college tuition funded by taxes on Wall Street speculation, to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s suggestion to abolish the Department of Education.
The Democratic solution
…Offering free tuition to all students at public colleges and universities wouldn’t be cheap – $75 billion per year – and Sanders would pay for it with a tax on Wall Street. Sanders also wants to refinance student loans at today’s lower interest rates. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has made a less dramatic proposal in terms of scope and cost. She has similar plans for loan refinancing, though her “New College Compact” is different.
And she wants to go further – essentially a Federalization of the state systems, dictating how they will run their “education businesses”:
Clinton proposes free tuition for community colleges anda no-borrow policy for students attending four-year public universities in their state. Students will be able to use Pell Grants to pay for non-tuition expenses, and money from their work-study programs, families and state will be contributed, too. The cost of Clinton’s New College Compact – $350 billion over 10 years – would be paid for by limiting tax expenditures for high-income Americans.
And Jeb?
The GOP plan
..Bush has also suggested making the first two years of community college free. In Nashua, he channeled democrats on income-based loan repayment, and he also talked about rewarding public colleges and universities based on good outcomes.
Bold colors fade to….nothingness. As we conservatives often keep saying – what IS the difference between a Republican and the Democrats? In this issue, nothing at all, by Jeb’s own words.
I have a great question – and it works at all levels of government education:
What is your ratio of indirect to direct labor? How much of your headcount / cost, to put it in a different fashion, is overhead (not directly teaching students) and how much is allocated to teaching those students? Butts in offices (and generally at very generous salaries) vs butts in front of the old fashioned chalkboards? For that is where the skyrocketing costs (as well as exorbitant facilities provisioning) are.
As a Budget Committee member, I kept asking my School Board that question, year after year. That, combined with the lowering of enrollments that could no longer hide the cost structure they wanted, got results. Eventually, we saw their cost structure go down – and more weighted at the high overhead end than on the direct labor.
Yet, in none of these talks of “affordable” brings this up nor the cost schedules that have been ramping up and up because no one has been asking that important question. Why? Spending tax monies is easy and can hide the rot that is ingrained in the system – asking that question and driving for real answers is hard and entails lots of bricks from entrenched interests thrown in your direction (and those that would stand with you).
Unfortunately, we see that Jeb is just as likely as the Democrat Socialists (Bernie and Hillary) to be content at just throwing (other peoples’) money at this problem; bandaid instead of performing life saving surgery. Asking about the cost structures and why they are so out of whack and driving those costs up? Nowhere to be found.
Indirect vs direct ratio. Get a handle on that and high priced schools will become more “affordable”. Get the government out of the “price support game” (as you can see from the above via loans, loan modifications, and grants) and schools will be forced to start to compete on, you know, real price.
Back to basics.
And oh, yeah, ditch the PC mindset as a bonus.
