It is the sign of a weak mind to immediately assume that a problem, real or imagined, is due to inadequate government funding. It is also the sign of a socialist or a Democrat. And since we’re talking about that state to the left of New Hampshire, this begins to make whatever passes for sense in the People’s Republic.
They are all in on reducing Vermont to a pretty face with lots of top-down intrusive government baggage.
And Vermont Digger is there to help.
Vermont perennially ranks dead-last in the country for state funding, per-student, on public higher education. The state’s financial neglect of the Vermont State Colleges is decades old, and has translated into regular layoffs, sky-high tuition and low college-going rates.
Vermont’s state college system failures are the fault of educators and administrators, not taxpayers (and not just this one). Bailing them out with more taxpayer money will reward those failures and reduce them to the level of uselessness currently enjoyed by K-12 public education — out-of-control rising costs with little or no increase in outcomes. No accountability. Another bottomless money pit propping up liberal constituencies with taxpayer dollars.
Massive debt to which we’ll all belong, to paraphrase the leftist Maxim (or should we call it a Marxism?).
In this Case, Less Is More
Better “Higher Ed” needs less taxpayer support, not more. The government needs to stop backing so many student loans. And the State should divest itself of responsibility for these institutions which need, to borrow from the President of Keene State College in New Hampshire, a bit of free-market right-sizing.
KSC’s El Presidenté was talking about the unexpected decline in enrollment that leads to layoffs, buy-outs, and other acts of downsizing spun as right-sizing. Keene didn’t expect it; the Marketplace did that. I’m saying that’s a good thing – forcing them to get leaner, more efficient, or die.
Just like any other “business” competing for anything. The invisible hand. Moving resources to products and services (education can be both) that provide the most value and appeal to the consumer.
The government gets in the way on purpose. That needs to stop if we want kids to learn and for that learning to have value.
Stop running them like the US Postal service, which wastes enough money annually to build a wall on the southern border every year.
But this is Vermont. The land of Maple Syrup and sticky liberalism. Where plowing tax dollars into a problem is the first best answer to every question. But how much and how fast? Yes, there is a need for nuance.
How to bend taxpayers over the barrel without them noticing?
If Legislators ask for full boat-free college all at once, they might have a rebellion, even in the Red-Green State of Vermont.
S.38, (would) cover four years of tuition at the Vermont State Colleges for in-state students. But while Senate Education committee chair Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, is blunt that S.38 won’t go anywhere in its current form, he thinks a scaled-down version just might.
The plan sucks 30 million from the education fund. Or, they could take 7-10 million. The public schools don’t want anyone pilfering their slush fund. But where there’s a will, there’s an A-hole.
The idea of government-funded Pre-K in VT is on as well. They want to use internet sales taxes to backstop that. Spend-spend-spend.
At the end of it, all is the bottomless money pit and an elitist liberal social construct. Who would send their kid to a non-state school if they didn’t have to pay for a state school? Only very wealthy people. Just like K-12 when Democrats get their way.
So, while the Vermont legislature looks for ways to incrementally screw taxpayers, they can also expand the class divide they so often whine about by ensuring that only ruling class kids get a good education while everyone else goes to crappy Government U. At the highest possible price, you can’t possibly turn down. Free.
