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It's dumbfounding to me that we can continue to have this conversation and not touch at all on the continuous reduction in the taxes that have historically fund
by lordCarbonFiber 11y ago
It's dumbfounding to me that we can continue to have this conversation and not touch at all on the continuous reduction in the taxes that have historically funded state schools. Easy access to capital and increased demand resulting from the competitive job market are certainly major factors, but to absolve the boomer generation of their hand in causing the problem (or go so far as to demand the universities shoulder the costs over taxpayers as in the 1987 article, talk about pot calling the kettle black in terms of the greed department) is absurd. As far as I can tell in a casual search, state funding for higher education has been nearly monotonically decreasing since the 80s (source for numbers on cuts in the last decade http://www.cbpp.org/research/states-are-still-funding-higher-education-below-pre-recession-levels http://www.cbpp.org/research/states-are-still-funding-higher...). Breaking the "I've got mine, time to cut taxes" culture will go much farther in addressing the issue of education costs than demanding less students have access to financial assistance.
- sanxiyn 11y agoThe linked article shows no such thing as "state funding for higher education monotonically decreasing since the 80s". Figure 7 only shows share of state funding decreasing. Note that this can happen if tuition is increasing faster than state funding, even if state funding increases or stays the same. Figure 7's source is State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, so let's get the report directly from the source. Here is the latest report: http://www.sheeo.org/sites/default/files/project-files/SHEF%20FY%202014-20150410.pdf http://www.sheeo.org/sites/default/files/project-files/SHEF%.... Figure 2 shows inflation adjusted, per student state funding peaked in 2001 rather than monotonically decreasing since the 80s.
- WildUtah 11y ago"state funding for higher education has been nearly monotonically decreasing since the 80s" That's not because of taxes. Taxes haven't gone down. Doctors and Pharma have extracted ever more cash from Medicaid. Wall Street has badly mismanaged public pensions as public unions have demanded ever richer pensions. Prison populations have multiplied. It all adds up to less money in state budgets for education.
- sanxiyn 11y agoActually, state budgets for education increased, a lot, even if you adjust for inflation. What decreased is state budgets for education per student. That is, budgets increased, but the number of students increased faster.