Posted on 05/08/2015 9:31:33 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Over the last decade, states have made massive cuts to higher education, with average state support falling from $9,729 per student in 2001 to $6,815 in 2011. While a large share of the blame for these cuts can be pinned on the financial crisis and subsequent recession, some of the decline is due to a deliberate effort to eviscerate public higher education. For instance, Bobby Jindal plans to savage higher education spending in Louisiana to the tune of $141.3 million, or about 12 percent of the state’s higher education budget, to pay for tax cuts. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker is cutting $300 million over two years, again to pay for reckless tax cuts. Kansas is an even sadder story. Though the state had a large reserve fund in 2012, Governor Sam Brownback quickly depleted it with a massive tax giveaway to the rich. Now he’s cutting K-12 and university funding to the tune of $44.5 million. There’s a good reason our list of governors seeking deep cuts is shaded a uniform red: Both research and history shows that Republican-controlled states are more likely to cut higher education. One study found that when Republicans take over governors mansions they reduce spending on higher education by $0.23 per $1,000 in personal income (a measure of the state’s total tax base). Each 1 percent increase in the number of Republicans in the legislature leads to a $0.05 decrease. Given that the average spending on higher education across all states in 2014 was $5.47 per $1,000, the effect is large.
Nationwide, the total impact of these cutbacks is breathtaking. Between 2008 and 2013, states cut a total of $16 billion, adjusted for inflation, from their higher education budgets, even as enrollments rose more than 11 percent. Funding per student dropped even more dramatically, falling by more than 27 percent, or about $2,500 per student. These cutbacks, in turn, have translated nearly 1-to-1 into tuition increases, which averaged nearly $3,000 over the past decade. But the question is not simply deficits, but priorities: Just seven months of funding for the F-35 Fighter would be enough to fully restore higher education spending across the nation.
A new Demos study estimates that 78 percent of tuition increases at public universities in the past decade can be explained by decreased state spending on higher education (see chart). Commonly cited factors like “administrative bloat,” are far less important, accounting for only 5 percent of the increase in higher education costs.
These state cuts and resulting skyrocketing tuition prices are incredibly worrying for upward mobility in America, because they’ve forced young people seeking a college education to borrow unprecedented amounts just to earn a degree. Low-income students and students of color leave college with more debt than wealthy white students (see chart), and they bear the brunt of austerity.
Public universities and community colleges are important, because the top tier of private universities are very exclusionary, and few poor and middle class students are admitted. Further state cuts to higher education will create a world where only some, mostly wealthy Americans have a shot to better their life by completing higher education.
It’s not just progressives making this point; recently, Standard & Poor’s argued that inequality was slowing growth by reducing college graduation rates among low-income people, likely in part due to the effects of the debt necessary to finance low-income students’ educations. The analysts suggested that a way to bolster upward mobility and reduce inequality would be increased college attainment. Yet in recent years, many conservatives, who claim to support economic growth and business, have made savage cuts to education.
These cuts are particularly shortsighted because the benefits of higher education, both for individuals and society at large, pay for the cost of investment many times over. The body of research on the impacts of higher education is massive, but their consensus is that increased higher education impacts nearly every corner of society, from increased economic growth to lower crime, better health, greater civic participation, and even childhood development. A few highlights: One study found that 8.7 percent of all economic growth between 1959 and 1998 could be attributed to increased education. Other studies have found that increased higher education leads greater rates of voter participation, to the tune of 22 percent; a 15 percent reduction in crime, and better cognitive development among children of parents with college degrees.
On the flip side, the costs of state disinvestment in higher education are similarly staggering. Further state cuts will lead to even higher levels of student debt, which then leads to lower homeownership rates, less retirement savings, and fewer vehicle purchases, among other effects. Previous Demos work suggests that $53,000 in student debt will lead to lifetime wealth loss of $208,000, largely through lower retirement savings and home equity.
Although public investment in higher education is broadly popular, the wealthy tend to be the least supportive. In their recent study of the wealthiest Americans, Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels and Jason Seawright find that 78 percent of the general public agree that “[t]he federal government should make sure that everyone who wants to go to college can do so,” compared to only 28 percent of the richest Americans.
There are bright spots in this sad story: President Obama’s plan for free community college is a welcome opportunity for the government to step in and fill this gap. Two weeks ago Senate and House Democrats introduced a resolution to create debt-free higher education. Hillary Clinton says she’ll be rolling out a comprehensive plan to tackle student debt. On the other side of the aisle, the House Republican budget would eliminate guaranteed funding for Pell Grants, which helped 9 million low income students attend college in 2013-2014 school year. One analysis suggests that some students using the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) program would end up with twice the debt under the Republican budget proposal. They would also As the national discussion about higher education proceeds it’s important to remember the government has an important role to play in supporting debt free higher education.
It was also before they were taught what to think and to regurgitate socialist talking points.
There are still a handful of colleges and universities which still offer the old-fashioned Liberal Arts degree and has multiple job offers waiting for graduates. One of the better known ones is Hillsdale.
I agree with you as to Hillsdale. However as for liberal arts students I found that at UofC Berkeley after WWII these people were snobs. There were remarks scribbled on the toilet doors and walls in libraries with vulgarity about science students being out of touch with the real world. So much as to my admiration for liberal arts majors of the day.
I found the quote I read at Politico:
“His [Scott Walker] record on providing in-state tuition to illegal immigrants is also likely to come under scrutiny. In 2001, Walker, at the time a state assemblyman, voted for a budget bill that included a provision to grant in-state tuition costs at state colleges to undocumented immigrants who graduated from Wisconsin high schools, under specific residency circumstances.”
Walker also signed a resolution supporting the Bush-McCain Amnesty in 2006.
I'm glad Walker changed his mind since 2001 and 2006.
Problem is, every Republican running for president (except Jeb Bush) talks tough about immigration during the Primary season.
Then, in the general election, the tough talk disappears.
Then, after they lose the presidential election, they go right back to supporting Amnesty, like McCain and Romney.
As you will note from the dates in my post, once Walker had the authority to do something he did it, decisively. And that budget, which included the revoking of instate tuition for illegals, launched the siege on Madison.
Hardly your characterization of the facts and how it will play out in the future.
He was an elected assemblyman voting on the same budget in 2001.
He had the authority to vote “No” in 2001, but he voted “Yes.”
Why does his 2001 vote in favor of in-state tuition for illegals have less significance than his vote (or veto) against it in 2011?
I have also found more recent and more disturbing information.
There's a July 2013 You Tube video of Walker discussing the just passed Gang of Eight Amnesty.
He makes it very clear, less than two years ago, that he is completely in favor of massive legal immigration as long as the immigrants are “hard workers.”
Now, running for president, and needing Conservative support to win the Primary, he is suddenly concerned that massive legal immigration might have a negative impact on wages and job opportunities for home grown Americans.
In the same video, Walker also makes it clear that he supports future citizenship for illegals now in our country, provided there is some waiting period, and they don't get citizenship before people who applied legally.
Sorry - Walker's sudden conversion to an Immigration Hawk is becoming less and less believable.
You remind me of someone whistling past the graveyard, since you’re blatantly opposition posting for another candidate.
Anything that is going up faster than medical costs is definitely out of control and that is deliberate UNDERstatement.
“liberal arts is the most insane education on this planet.”
Liberal arts is actually what education USED to be about. There is no REAL liberal arts education now, just pretend and that is why Johnny has a degree but can’t use there, their and they’re correctly. I have actually seen all three used INCORRECTLY in the space of one or two sentences. Most recent degree recipients could not pass the eighth grade final in history, literature, language or geography from sixty years ago. I have seen recent reports saying that the skill that is really most in demand and the one that is hardest to find now is the ability to communicate. I find that fairly easy to believe. Many multiple choice tests now have questions with four possible answers and the REAL correct answer is not even given as a choice.
This is also why there is a push for a higher minimum wage. It is price inflationary and the government is desperate to get inflation going again to monetize the debt. Not too fast, of course, but it is built in to their projections as much as annual raises are built into a family’s budget.
Deflation is really hurting governments all over the world. It is the equivalent of the breadwinner of the family getting a cut in pay.
Which candidate might that be?
Ted Cruz supporters despise me because I have posted multiple links showing that Cruz also used to support massive legal immigration, massive increases in work visas, and 12 million work permits for illegal immigrants.
Immigration - both legal and illegal - is my number one issue.
It is an existential political threat to American Conservatism.
Since the Reagan Amnesty in 1986 the Democrat Party has imported 20 million new Socialist voters, which makes it almost mathematically impossible for a Conservative Republican to be elected president.
The Democrats, with enthusiastic support from the GOP, plan to import another 20 million Socialist voters in the next decade, and Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, and you, have no serious plan to stop them.
And you accuse ME of whistling past the graveyard?
You’ve decided to be contrary - a pox on all their houses.
That’s your choice.
I see Walker pursuing it to help the nation.
You choose to believe he won’t, despite what he says.
That’s your choice.
Why don’t you tell us what your platform would be if you ran.
And then convince me that you will follow through, despite the fact that I know nothing at all about you.
For the last 10 years, I've been one of the most prolific and most outspoken Immigration Hawks at Free Republic.
In thousands of posts and comments my position has never varied, and every word is archived.
My platform?
Unlimited work visas and citizenship for any individuals (not families) who earn more than $250,000 a year in the USA for three consecutive years.
Everyone else - stay home and vote Socialist in your own country.
Illegal immigrants - stop their welfare and ER health care and sue their employers. The illegals will self-deport.
And, just so you know, I voted for and donated to every Republican presidential nominee since Richard Nixon in 1972. And I donated to Nixon and Goldwater before I was old enough to vote.
Re: "You’ve decided to be contrary - a pox on all their houses."
The only pox I'm worried about is the Left Wing fever that has infected tens of millions of Republicans every year since Teddy Roosevelt became president in 1901.
I stopped reading at “Walker’s vicious...”
Thank you for your reply.
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