Posted on 01/05/2015 8:55:29 AM PST by Academiadotorg
Could the time to end federal aid to higher education have long passed?
“The federal government has no constitutional authority to do anything with regard to higher education (or any level, for that matter),” George Leef writes in Forbes. “But in 1965, Congress was swarming with ‘progressives’ who were sure that because college seemed to be a good thing for the rather small percentage of Americans who went, the nation would benefit if almost everyone went.”
“So the federal policy began to make higher education more ‘accessible’ for students, most significantly through grants and easily available loans. The result was that college education was transformed.” Leef is director of research for the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, based in North Carolina.
“It had been a good that some Americans thought worthwhile, so they strove to qualify for admittance and saved for the modest cost,” Leef notes. “That’s why higher education used to work very well.”
“Federal intervention turned it into a virtual entitlement that delivers less education at more and more expense. It has also helped create the problem of credential inflation, shutting people who don’t have college degrees out from good jobs they could easily learn. As long as we have this law and the constant federal meddling it provokes, we will have a fantastically wasteful higher education system.”
And just one more thing: “Federal outlays have increased the cost of college,” economist Richard Vedder said in a conference call last year, and yet “a smaller percentage of students come from the bottom quintile now than in 1970 before we had these federal education programs.”
The right time to end it came at the precise instant that it began.
Exactly.
which he said would fix the education system already fixed by the 2001 GW Bush and Ted Kennedy legislation called “No Child Left Behind,”
which was supposed to fix a system supposedly already fixed by a 1994 piece of federal legislation called “Goals 2000,”
which was supposed to fix a system already fixed by “America 2000,”
which was a 1991 response during the Bush administration to a 1983 federal report on education called “A Nation at Risk,
which was published a full four years after Jimmy Carter first fixed the nation’s public school system by establishing a cabinet-level Department of Education in 1979.
College Tuition long ago jumped the shark.
I wouldn't think those courses would be easy at all.
I think sitting in those classrooms, doing the assigned projects and listening to those "professors" would be an excruciating experience.
In fact, I don't think I could do it for even one classroom session, let alone a whole semester.
I think I would have an easier time letting a tarantula lay eggs in my ear.
And just one more thing: “Federal outlays have increased the cost of college,” economist Richard Vedder said in a conference call last year, and yet “a smaller percentage of students come from the bottom quintile now than in 1970 before we had these federal education programs.”
And that is the rub with Fed Ed aid (actually, any Fed aid). The one who would benefit from it are competing with a much larger pool of applicants than necessary. I'm torn on the student loan issue, as I did benefit from it, but it was less than $10K (in the '80's), and I paid it off early...
Of course Reagan had this correct: “If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.”
Funny thing.
I’m watching Parks and Recreation and Andy is signing up for Women’s studies because its an easy credit.
Liberals and “Progressives” are the most useful useful idiots of the Marxists. For the Marxists the “unintended consequences” of what they help Liberals and “Progressives” write and propose are not unintended at all. They are always to make the open market conditions for something worse than before, after which the logical answer is that the market (having been driven, managed and regulated to death) is the problem and turning something 100% over to government management is the solution.
Liberals and “Progressives” have been “educated” by Marxists to be stupid while being arrogantly convinced they are not just brilliant but unquestionably correct.
Notice that history shows America’s great accomplishments and great strides took place before LBJ and subsequent liberals and RINOs in power turned it into a namby-pamby society, more concerned about pandering to Nancy Boys, lesbians, illegal aliens, moochers, welfare queens, looters, muslims terrorists and cop killers than honest, patriotic, hard working taxpayers.
Americans built the Empire State building in 16 months.
It took 13 years to replace the Twin Towers.
Men with slide rules put a man on the moon in eight years from a standing start.
Since the Apollo program ended it has been 42 years since an American did anything more consequential than circle the earth in low orbit.
Now NASA is ordered by the president to spend time on “Muslim Outreach”.
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