There is a story going around about how Kay, a single mom in Manchester, isn’t eligible for an Education Freebie Account (EFA) because she’s $90 over the income cutoff.
The conclusion reached by the author of the story is that we should have universal eligibility for EFAs. But that’s backward.
First, note that cut-offs based on ‘income’ have always been kind of a goofy thing, and not just for the reason illustrated in the story.
Instead of setting up hard limits, why not have a sliding scale? Have parents fill out the usual forms for financial aid (which have been refined over decades), and if they’re eligible for only a little help, give them a little; and if eligible for more, give them more.
Second, what counts isn’t ‘income’, but disposable income, and also assets. The question has to be: Once you’ve accounted for other necessities, how much can you come up with — not just from your income, but by selling off luxuries — to put towards the education of your own children?
This should also be the approach to public schools, by the way — which are a form of assistance, but one that’s handed out indiscriminately. You should contribute what you can to the education of your own kids, and only if you fall short should the burden be shouldered by your neighbors.
(We have someone in our town who, freed of the requirement to come up with the $50,000 or so that our town was paying each year in tuition for her children, has been able to put that money into real estate. So, she now owns several properties in the area, effectively gifted to her by taxpayers — one of whom had to have his daughter take out a personal loan to pay his school taxes.)
The answer isn’t to make public schools and EFAs handouts to people who may not need them. The answer is to make both into means-tested programs, with parents contributing as much as they can.
(You want to see school costs rolled back? This is how you do it, with parents suddenly leading the effort instead of fighting it.)
Note that sliding scales for assistance aren’t a new idea. We already see it with certain kinds of tax deductions and credits that phase out according to net income rather than gross income. The more you make, the less assistance you get, and vice versa. If you make enough that you don’t need any assistance, you don’t get any.
As far as Kay’s situation is concerned, the fact that $90 is the difference between no assistance and full assistance is ridiculous, but not in the way the author implies, and the solution isn’t the one he suggests.
The proper way to avoid this problem (and a lot of others) isn’t universal eligibility for EFAs but means testing for both public schools and EFAs. They’re both forms of welfare and should be treated as such:
Four Simple Rules for Funding Education
