Centerfield

These ideas sound expensive. I am all in favor of supporting higher education, but I think it should be a done in a way that links providing opportunity with taking responsibility.

That's why I'm a little reluctant on grants and tax credits and expanded support without ownership rsponsibility for an education. I absolutely don't think higher eduation should become more of an entitlement. We can't afford it.

I believe it was the unlikeably cold and cantankerous John Silber (BU prez who ran for MA governor once as a democrat-we've had GOP govs ever since) who proposed the idea that I liked the best. It's been many years since I read his book, so I may be adding some of my own ideas and distorting his others. But suppose this: suppose we consolidate all the fed'l colege financing programs and turn them into one program that guarantees a 100% financing loan for every able student, so all who want to go to college can go.

THEN, the schedule for paying back the loan varies depending on income and possibly career choice. You could include a public service payback program. As your wages grew, your payback schedule could increase. Or if you never made much money, you'd never be asked for it back. There'd be a sliding scale. Someone who went on to do social work at 30k per for 40 years or taught at a private school for 18k per would maybe never be asked for all of it back.

The spending and liberal side of Kerry and Dems that do not like at all. Way too much spent on so-called Education already. Want the illegals off and non-citizens off loans, no freebe no pay back grants to quotas etc., esp. for MDs, PhDs. given to quotas. Have seen it all. You go to them, not me. I know the level and scores.

Way too much spent already on univ administrators constantly searching for extra programs and college prof overbenefited. They took the country down the wrong paths any way. It's more pap than not and mostly warm body hours. I know of a few far more efficient ways. How dumb are people who are supposed to be a univ level? Many classes are propaganda on the too young and inexperienced any way. Eighty percent of the programs and subject areas do not belong there any way. Shouldn't even be there as too young and inexperienced.

I guess I don't hold that strong an opinion on this subject and could be persuaded either way, but my attitude is that priority-wise, focusing on primary school education is more important in comparision.

When you look at the number of college seniors who go to college, roughly 47% went on to some sort of college in 1973, while 62% went to college in 1993. I wish I had more current statistics, but unless there has been a large shift, it seems to me that with such a large shift, it doesn't seem like financing is holding many people back.

If you believe the conventional wisdom that public education is underfunded and producing mediocre results, then the issue is more our ability to produce kids that educationally ready for college as opposed to making it cheaper for them.

Like I said, I could be out of touch, but when I was a high school senior in the 80's, there seemed to be more people at college who probably weren't ready to be there (education-wise) then people that had the skills and couldn't go. Things may have changed, as did my receding hair line.

A serious question: What would be the optimal ratio of students who go to college? 100% is certainly too high, but the 3%-10% of students who go in some European countries is certainly too low.

I guess I know too much about education at the state and local levels to give much weight to federal "fixes." Many of the things that seem reasonable (Mathew's #4 for example) are really things that are best addressed at the local and state levels. If the support and drive isn't there at the local level, it's just another sinkhole where school districts fake a half-ass program to get the federal funds. Local programs like the International Baccalaureate high school program work because the places that have it now had to fight to get it and fund it. Make it easy to do, and quality and effectiveness will decline immensely. I've seen it happen.

And I really don't like the "Service for College" approach as a participatory entitlement. We already have it to some degree (AmeriCorps, GI benefits) and expanding it would mean coming up with one major ton of make-work projects with their own price tags and political agendas. This is an area where the funding for the participants isn't even the biggest part of the price tag.

But hey, I'm a professional cynic. Show me how things CAN work reliably without being just another give-away for an interest group, and how that program will actually improve our country (in objective non-agendized terms) and I'll crunch numbers and lobby.

Brian,

I don't see spending money on education as an entitlement, although I guess by definition that is what it is... I see it as an investment with substantial returns.

When I was in college, less than 10 years ago, the Board of Regents at the University of Washington was discussing tuition increases as high as 30%, which would be devastating for a lot of middle to lower class students. From what I understand, because of the budget situation in many smaller states, this is more typical than not.

I don't see how colleges and universities can survive without more involvement from the Federal Government. The costs associated with operating a major state university are simply too high for many smaller and more rural states to handle. I am not saying Kerry's way is the only way, but I do appreciate that he is putting some light on an issue that most Federal candidates have simply brushed off as a state problem.

I like your idea about consolodating the loan system, especially the progressive payoff scale... The entry-level graduate positions aren't paying that much anymore and I don't see where suffocating recent college grads with debt they already cannot afford is a preferable economic situation.

I guess I am kind of liberal on this one. If you want to go to college and you have earned it, the government should ensure that happens if you do not have the means to do so.

Part (a major part) of rising college tuitions is the availability of external funds. As long as the big funding and the loans are available, the institutions gotta have more of it.

I've seen this symptom often in politics, especially at local and state-level politics. When times are good, the politicos rush to establish new spending and institutionalize it. Then when money gets tight, it isn't the newer programs or newer bits in established programs that are offered up to the chopping block, but essential services. "If we don't raise taxes, we'll have to cut Police! (Or schools, roads, etc.) No belt-tightening in the satrapies, though--that executive caffeine-supply technician in legislative review office is in no fear of layoffs.

With universities, it's much the same. "We gotta raise tuition or cut library/lab/classes!" But don't expect the football team to reduce its scholarships, or the head coach to get a pay cut, or the more politically correct departments to cut their traveling seminar attendance budget.

When politicos say they need more money, look again. Closely. What did they have to work with ten years ago, and what areas have they expanded spending in since then, and why? This can help you seperate unfunded mandates from simple bureaucratic blackmail. Government expands to absorb revenue...and then some.

Bolton's Law Of Ascending Budgets: Under current practices, both expenditures and revenues rise to meet each other, no matter which one may be in excess.

I disagree, bk. I don't think we can afford not to make serious changes that will make higher education more affordable and therefore within the reach of a larger slice of the population.

The NY Times had a really great piece on this a month ago. Unfortunately all that is available now is the abstract: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30813FB3C590C738FDDAD0894DC404482

A little bit more of it can be found here: http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages?msg=17576.1 where I started a long discussion/debate based on the NYT piece.

Matt,

Well, like I said, I don't might ensuring that someone who deserves the opportunity gets it. I just don't think opportunity absolutely has to mean "free" or even "subsidized.

Tully is definitely on the mark. I know firsthand about some of the stuff he's talking about. Rules in place guarantee that colleges constantly seek to grow in order to qualify for higher levels of funding. This often means misplaced emphasisin spending, and outright waste.

And an even larger part of this discussion is the so far unmentioned underlying assumption that you NEED to go to college to be able to have the skills to perform at a high-level job. The truth of this varies by field. While it's very true that you may need the degree to get hired, this can be very different from actually using the skills you may have acquired in college. Any education reform discussion should try to address this disconnect.

Tully, I understand your skepticism regarding service loan payback. If not done right, it could be another black hole. The reason the idea attracts me is that it could offer an alternative to the "throw money at the problem" approach by substituting something of a "throw labor at the problem" approach, as long as the labor substitution used the power of goverment low-cost or interest free loans as a vehicle to provide that substitute labor at an overall lowered cost. That would be crucial, otherwise, it's still just an entitlement in sheep's clothing. I think a lot of these payback service assignments should be designed around "understand our goverment and our culture." The labor could be used to provide lower cost daycare, teachers assistants, DMV , mental health, and elder care workers. It would be some sort of a "cycle of American life" service program.

I know, pie in the sky.

Tully is right that a major factor in skyrocketing college costs is that more money (by scholarships and loans) is available to pay for it. Hard problem to solve.

When a university is run like a business -- e.g. University of Phoenix -- it looks a lot different than Duke.

Also, I'd repeal Title IX. Then again, I think athletic scholarships are horrible idea in general. It's bad enough some fool gets into an elite university because he plays tennis real good, but letting him attend for free is makes no sense at all.)

Just a couple more comments.

If public schools would become more efficient, that would be great. But once again, far and away the largest part of public education funding, and the control of same, is local. Federal funding just doesn't make up the bulk of public education funding. It's mostly local tax money such as property taxes, and the place to work on it is right there in the school district. Most school boards are elected. Tough as it is to remember in a presidential election year, the greatest impact that you can have on your schools, both political and practical, is right at home.

And I think the same principle applies to "National Service" programs. National service programs tend to get co-opted into propaganda training schools for whoever can seize the control. In the past, that's been the (pardon the phrase) liberal cognitive elite. Modern big-government liberalism has thrived because we pay for so much of it with our tax dollars, and the bigger the government gets, the more government-employed voters we have voting for (suprise!) more government. If we could figure out a good way to let communities determine their own public service uses, it would reduce the problem. Nothing will eliminate it.

But I'm REAL big on local activism. Whether it's liberal or conservative activism, the closer the issue control is to the people paying for it, the better, and the more real control the payers have over where there money goes. Federal "one size fits all" solutions are woefully inadequate and horribly over-priced.