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I'm not sure what your point is. Let's say the above were true, a non profit organization uses its tax subsidies to let students attend for free - how is that n

I'm not sure what your point is. Let's say the above were true, a non profit organization uses its tax subsidies to let students attend for free - how is that not a good thing? And how is that not something that should be encouraged?

vilhelm_s 11y ago
We should compare to how much good the same money would do if it was taxed instead of left to Harvard? E.g. the German state pays $32,000 per student and degree, so foresaking $400,000 of taxes in order to educate one student seems like a bad deal.
dalke 11y ago
My point was that the article provided some substance, and gave numbers which explain why a needs blind admission policy does not, on its own, justify the existing tax policy. The question you asked was addressed in the article, in statements like "In a world where the government only provides limited resources for higher education, we’re almost certainly shoveling an outsized share of them to schools that don’t need the financial help." and "we seem to have stumbled into a system that disproportionately subsidizes the educations of a tiny few." The second page tries to address what a more equitable distribution might be. For example, "Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley caused a minor uproar in higher education circles by proposing that colleges should be forced to spend 5 percent of their endowments every year, the same way private charitable foundations are." However, the author is clear that there is no simple answer, and leaves the topic hanging with "I think we’d all like to spend a little less money sending other people’s kids to Harvard." Personally, I think it should have ended with "we'd all like to spend a little less money sending people to Harvard and more money sending more people to college." As to your last question, there is a balance of factors that make it difficult to answer. If the monetary policy is such that one person gets to attend Harvard for free or 4 people get to go to a public college for free ... which should we choose, and why? (Based on the numbers in the article, and the cost of tuition for different colleges, the actual number is probably between 1:2 and 1:6.)

vilhelm_s 11y ago

We should compare to how much good the same money would do if it was taxed instead of left to Harvard? E.g. the German state pays $32,000 per student and degree, so foresaking $400,000 of taxes in order to educate one student seems like a bad deal.

dalke 11y ago

My point was that the article provided some substance, and gave numbers which explain why a needs blind admission policy does not, on its own, justify the existing tax policy. The question you asked was addressed in the article, in statements like "In a world where the government only provides limited resources for higher education, we’re almost certainly shoveling an outsized share of them to schools that don’t need the financial help." and "we seem to have stumbled into a system that disproportionately subsidizes the educations of a tiny few." The second page tries to address what a more equitable distribution might be. For example, "Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley caused a minor uproar in higher education circles by proposing that colleges should be forced to spend 5 percent of their endowments every year, the same way private charitable foundations are." However, the author is clear that there is no simple answer, and leaves the topic hanging with "I think we’d all like to spend a little less money sending other people’s kids to Harvard." Personally, I think it should have ended with "we'd all like to spend a little less money sending people to Harvard and more money sending more people to college." As to your last question, there is a balance of factors that make it difficult to answer. If the monetary policy is such that one person gets to attend Harvard for free or 4 people get to go to a public college for free ... which should we choose, and why? (Based on the numbers in the article, and the cost of tuition for different colleges, the actual number is probably between 1:2 and 1:6.)