From: gurd@next04wor.wam.umd.edu (Daffy Duck)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: High costs of college education
Date: 12 Oct 92 06:19:24 GMT
Reply-To: gurd@wam.umd.edu

Thomas Omar Smith writes
> This is sadly true, in that its how the politicians will view it.  The
> reason education costs have skyrocketed is because of the continual
> increase in Federal scholarship money.  What happens is, each year, the
> government makes a large amount of money available to pay for need based
> scholarships for underprivileged students.  Well, the best way for a
> college to make a student underprivileged is to increase tuition.  That
> way, they get a bigger part of the government scholarship money for
> their students, and therefore more real money for themselves.  They
> compensate by giving in house scholarships to those students who are not
> getting such federal aid and need money, and by getting more money from
> those who can actually pay.  The net result is that the same students
> attend, but the real amount of money the university receives rises.  And
> those who have to borrow money go deeper into debt.
> 
> 	Of course, the government perceives the rising costs of education,  
and
> therefore feels it has to make more money available.  And the cycle
> starts again.
> 
> 					Tom the non hacker
> 					Kemp in 96!
> 					"If patriotism is the last refuge
> 					of scoundrels,  Then  
environmentalism
> 					is the current refuge of  
totalitarians."
> 					Bob Jackson

   This is not exactly true.  First guys lets get something straight,  
government funds that go into public education do not get sucked into some  
black hole and never reappear again.  Even most of the conservatives at  
the state supported university I attend support public funding of higher  
education.  Study after study has shown that government spending on higher  
education, like in transportation actually brings in more money in the  
long run.  Spending more money on higher education isn't a panacea,  
however drastically cutting funding for higher education and jacking up  
student tuition/fees double digit percent year after year is simply  
unacceptable (Pete Wilson take note when students burn effigies of you you  
are not very popular among them or their parents).

   This is not to say their are no problems.  The Republican Governer of  
Mississippi Kirk Fordice has made a very valid point about his state that  
applies to most states.  That is that his state support TOO MANY  
universities.  He wants to SHUT DOWN (theres no nice adjective to describe  
this) several of the state supported institutions and concentrate what  
limited funds the state has on its better universities.   In my state  
(Maryland) the same is true and although politically bitter medicine is a  
necassery step.  No one seems to have brought up the fact that we simply  
have too many four year schools in this country and some of the publicly  
supported ones need to be closed down.  Many of the private ones are  
already facing financial difficulties and will eventually close in my  
opinion.

      Also many so called "private" universities also recieve state aid,  
how many people know that Johns Hopkins University, the University of  
Pennsylvania, and Cornell University recieve aid from their respective  
states?  This has got to stop, if Johns Hopkins University closes many of  
its liberal arts programs because of a cutoff of state funds, it doesn't  
really matter, since so few people are enrolled in them.

     As for the issue of federal financial aid, that's easy to put a stop  
to.  As it is now the amount of federal financial aid recieved is based on  
the "educational" cost which is essentially tuition+books+living costs  
minus a family contribution based on the students and or parents income  
and assets.  Simply modify the formula to cap .  This would not penalize  
those attending schools in areas where living costs are high, but would  
discourage them from attending expensive schools.  It seems unfair that  
student A and student B both come from families with identical incomes and  
assets.  Both graduate from the same high school and have essentially the  
same GPA/SAT score.  Student A elects to go to "Flagship State U" and cand  
gets a pell grant of $1,000 for the year.  Student B elects to go to "Ivy  
U" and gets a pell grant of $2,500 just because his school is more  
expensive.  I know some people (especially the adminstrators at overpriced  
private universities) will cry bloody murder, but it will get them to stem  
their tuition increases (I should note in all fairness many so called  
"public ivy" schools are starting to charge outragous tuition now too).   
Also it would make students and parents much more selective consumers of  
what is next to a home purchase the biggest investment a parent/student  
will make in their lifetimes.
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