Here's Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free

[ashling]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/heres-exactly-how-much-the-government-would-have-to-spend-to-make-public-college-tuition-free/282803/

If we were we scrapping our current system and starting from scratch, Washington could make public college tuition free with the money it sets aside its scattershot attempts to make college affordable today.

[jwirr]

1. People have forgotten that in sending children to college there is a return. These children will be

the job creators and the inventors of the future. And they will pay in taxes that will help many of the rest of us. And that is just a few of the benefits the USA would get from spending the money on college educations.

I don't think that could possibly be returned from fighting more in Afghanistan. Or any other war.

[aggiesal]

11. Great point ...

Last edited Sun Apr 27, 2014, 10:31 PM - Edit history (1)

When I graduated back in 1984, I paid a little over $5000 for 4 years in college
at a state university. Pell grants paid for most of that, and the state pitched in
some aid as well, so that when I graduated I had only $700 in student loans.

My yearly taxes are more than $5000, so I say the government got more then it's
monies worth out of their investment in me.

[PasadenaTrudy]

30. Pell Grants

saved my ass too. Bless them. I ended up getting my BA at a Cal State Univ. with no debt....

[MoonchildCA]

49. My daughter just received her BA from a Cal State too...

With no debt. I'm all for free universities in general, but in the meantime, at least it's still possible to attend a state college and live at home debt free.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. Oh come on,....being a "job creator" is something passed down by God, not "gubmunt".

[jwirr]

20. LOL. When I was in college a teacher was talking about the cost of military equipment and he told

us that once the equipment was made if there was no war we just set someplace to rot. It had no other use than war. Of course today we are using it to militarize our police but that is not good either.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. I get the feeling the only way we're going to get bridges and roads built,...

....is if we have a civil war and blow them up ourselves.

Meanwhile, I stumbled on this:

[jwirr]

24. Another good use for that money.

[magical thyme]

55. that's because we're a meritocracy, and Gawd just made the job creators better than the rest of us.

[Enthusiast]

38. There will be no return on the Afghanistan adventure.

It will protect no one's freedom here or there. It will have achieved essentially nothing of value while it did much harm.

[jwirr]

61. Exactly and that is true of most wars.

[rrneck]

2. Thars gold in them thar commons. nt

[green917]

5. +1,000,000

Nt

[PumpkinAle]

3. Don't forget the lobbyists for the private, for profit education

are dead set against this because it would hurt them in two ways - (1) very, very few would want their type of education and (2) they rely on government sponsored financial aid [all the time vilifying the government for wanting accountability]. Sadly as we have seen lobbyists and their money hold great sway with this Congress.


It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber.
Robert Fulghum

[grahamhgreen]

4. Not just free, but students should receive a stipend while attending, as they do in civilized countr

Countries.

[daleanime]

8. +1

anyone willing to sent years improving themselves and our nation should be helped!

[truedelphi]

31. This is a point hat is rarely made, but it is absolutely essential. n/t

[seveneyes]

40. Yes, and grant the same for any American, regardless of age

It's past time.

[jtuck004]

6. We pay thieving, lying banksters $85 billion a month from which they profit.

A total in payments to them to further their ongoing criminal enterprise of over $1.2 trillion a year. Nice having so many friends in high places who really don't give a flying rats ass about ordinary working people).

We could provide the tuition above for less than a month of that.

Could staff the FBI forensic accounting office (which is how they put the S&L folks in jail for the same behavior) with the rest of it and set them to rooting out the criminals that are running our financial system and driving people's lives into the ground. I think we would be better off than being in the now with over 7 million families thrown out in foreclosures, 9 million more homes still underwater, and banksters reporting record profits while selling homes mostly to the wealthy and investors.

But I digress...

[truedelphi]

33. Buh Buh Buh the

Republicans would never allow it!

[DirkGently]

7. Our priorities are screwed. n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

9. Priorities..."Bombs, not brains."

[aggiesal]

10. OK, I'm pretty good at math, but ...

I can't figure out how they calculated $62.6 Billion when loans alone are over $107 Billion.

Can anyone clue me in?

[caraher]

17. It is a bit confusing

but the $62.6 billion is just tuition collected at public colleges and universities. There are non-tuition expenses covered by financial aid, and some aid goes to non-public institutions. So the total spending and aid are both much higher than $62.6 billion - the claim is that this is all we'd need to add to eliminate tuition expenses in public higher education.

[DemocraticWing]

44. Private schools.

The federal government spend plenty of money on giving aid to students at private colleges and universities. Presumably eliminating that funding and using it to make public schools free and more accessible would have the dual results of saving students money and enhancing the reputation of public schools by having more top students attend those schools.

[Vashta Nerada]

12. It'll never happen with the current oligarchy in power.

[Scuba]

13. Yeah, but Haliburton doesn't own any Universities.

[marble falls]

18. But look how tuition has skyroketed. Banks want to make loans for over priced educations.

[Doctor_J]

15. That's why the administration and Congress are selling it

or rather giving it away. They give it to the billionaires (along with 500 billion in K-12 education), and in turn make millions now, through "lobbying", and when they retire.

[psiman]

16. Bravo!

Publicly funded higher education would be the greatest invest that we as a people could make in our future.

You do a good service in pointing out just how modest the cost would be be, in comparison to projects that get showered with money while nobody bats an eyelash.

[GoneFishin]

19. Therein lies the answer as to why we don't spend the money that way.

- More educated people will expect better pay.

- Graduates who are debt free will be less desperate and more selective about their job choice.

- More educated people will be better critical thinkers.

- More educated will be less likely to be tricked into voting against their own best interests.

- Free public college means less profit made by the for-profit schools.

- Less profit made by banks on interest from student loans.

- War profiteering is way more lucrative for the connected 1%. And there is less accountability and oversight.

- More taxes paid will mean fewer reasons to sell off the commons to the 1%.

- More taxes paid will mean more money in the budget for pesky government agencies like the FDA and EPA.

[aggiesal]

47. In 1984 when I graduated from college, ...

the government paid over 80% of a college education,
and the student paid less then 20%.

In this backwards world, the student now pays over 80%
of their education, while the government is paying less then 20%.

I don't wonder why student loans are sooooo high.

One last note, India is now paying more then 80% for their
citizens education and scandinavian countries are paying 100%.

There's something wrong with our US society.

Hey, but that's our tax breaks at work.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. But..but..that would be socialism!! Whereas, killing people is capitalism at it's most basic.

[Xithras]

22. I actually don't think it should be "free" for everyone.

Give people a choice...a full government ride, or pay for it themselves.

If they choose the government ride, they get a 2% federal income tax penalty for 20 years to help pay for the next generation of students who will use it. The penalty should not be erasable by deductions, but should be scaled down by income...so the poorest will get 0% penalty, the wealthiest a 2%, and everyone else somewhere in between on a sliding scale. If the government puts you through school and you end up wealthy with $250,000 a year in taxable income, you'll pay $5000 a year in education taxes ($100,000 total). If the government puts you through school and you only end up with $25000 a year in taxable income, you'd pay something like $50 a year in education taxes. That way, everyone who benefits from the program will help to ensure that the next generation can benefit as well.

If they choose to pay for it themselves (mostly wealthy people, who would want to dodge the tax penalty), place a federal excise tax on all tuition charged to public and private colleges. The proceeds from that tax would help to fund the students going to school on the governments dime. That way, everyone pays into the system.

[alp227]

42. some states have actually proposed such a thing.

WA: http://mynorthwest.com/11/2459840/Bill-would-let-college-grads-pay-tuition-from-future-paychecks

and OR: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/04/oregon-moves-a-step-closer-to-free-college-tuition/

[mindwalker_i]

25. Congress doesn't spend money on America or Americans

It spends money on things which will result in some of that money coming back to Congress as campaign contributions. Iraq resulted in lots of money to Halliburton, and some came back to congress for that. Congress spends money on tax breaks, some of which comes back as contributions.

The sad truth is that spending money on education has a zero rate of return for congress.

[cantbeserious]

26. Free Tuition Removes The Skimming - Can't Have A Free Market Democracy Without Skimming

eom

[NJCher]

27. we need big changes in education

I'm all for qualified students getting more of a break, but as things stand now, there are too many students who are not qualified to be in college.

I think people should have to work for four or five years before they go to school. As a college teacher, what I see are students who know nothing but about being a student. They do not appreciate the American education they are given. They are only going to school because they want a better job and they could care less about knowing anything.

They are brainwashed by popular culture. They have every electronic toy in the book. Many drive new cars.

Most of them sit in class on their cell phones, barely paying attention to the instructor or the lesson. Yes, it's against the department's policy: they don't care. Then when they fail, they put the instructor through the grade appeal process. They are, you see, "entitled."

There are still a few good students out there, but they are few and far between. The best students are immigrants, who truly appreciate the opportunity American education gives them. I have one immigrant student (Hispanic) for whom I am so grateful. He is genuinely hungry for knowledge and is so enthusiastic about intellectual material that I just want to hug him. He could use the aid: he might have some fin'l assistance, but works full-time. He had been paying for health insurance but thanks to the ACA, his father now puts him on his policy.

I hate to say it, but left to American students, America would be in even worse shape than it now is. Immigrants are our saving grace.


Cher

[exboyfil]

52. I can't agree with your generalizations

There are a lot more than a few good students in our public universities. You need look no further than the large number of students who get Advanced Placement credit prior to going to college. There is a large segment of students which care about their education and are working very hard to achieve good grades. My daughter is going off to Iowa State in mechanical engineering this fall, and I guarantee you those students work very hard (she has already taken four classes from ISU via the internet, and she put in considerable hours on very hard material).

I frankly think the students today are more serious and high achieving than they were 30 years ago when I went to college. We did not have Advanced Placement courses, and, in general, my daughters have taken the same subject matter one or two years before I did in college.

[Brainstormy]

56. I beg to differ

with you on a couple of points. We did have Advanced Placement 30 years ago. I graduated from high school more than 40 years ago and took advanced placement classes myself. As for students today being "more serious and high achieving than they were 30 years ago," I'm not sure how to prove that objectively, but my personal experience in teaching in a state university system for 15 years didn't seem to bear that out. I witnessed a progressive decline in the quality of the work and general attitudes of students who seemed to become increasingly materialistic and resentful of any class or requirement that they couldn't see as directly related to getting a job. (Like Freshman English composition.) During the 80s and 90s all standards declined and more remedial courses were added to college catalogs. By the end of my teaching career I was routinely teaching students who would not have been awarded a high school diploma twenty years earlier. I believe that all of this was symptomatic of a deteriorating public school system and economic changes, and I agree with you that there are many, many good students in public universities, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many long-term college professors who agree with your general assessment.

[exboyfil]

60. My father-in-law

taught mathematics at a university for 40 years. His conclusion was the best students were 1 to 2 years beyond the best students when he started. We did not have AP courses in my school when I graduated in 1981. My debate partner went on to be Truman Scholar among other awards. Several of my classmates obtained PhDs. Many became lawyers and at least one became a doctor. It was a very good high school.

I know that in my daughters five university classes she has taken that the standards were every bit as rigorous as the standards when I took those comparable classes in 1981-1982. I took them as a freshman and sophomore. She has taken them as a high school junior and senior. Her Mechanics of Materials awarded 15% As and about 8% A-s (she got an A-). Trust me her class was far more rigorous than mine from Purdue University. Her Statics had comparable grade distribution and it was equivalent in difficulty to my class.

My daughter also has had some pretty good community college classes. I think that, while an A was easier in Calculus I and II than mine at Purdue, that reflects the lower expectations in community colleges. The courses were still a good foundation for the later engineering courses (otherwise she would not have gotten As in them).

It may be limited to engineering, math, and science, but I stand by my original point that the expectations on those majors are as great as they were when I went through Purdue in the early 1980s. In fact they have added some courses I was not required to take while at Purdue (Statistics and Manufacturing - both great additions to the ME curriculum). While I have never taught at the university level, I have taken engineering courses from six different universities (Purdue, Iowa, Iowa State, North Carolina State, Penn State, and Tennessee Tech).

The original poster was lumping a large contingent of students into "I don't care about my education" pool to the point that he was recommending that they defer obtaining their degrees for five years to better appreciate what they are getting. I am saying that if you go to a career fair at Iowa State for example you are going to see thousands of very serious students that have been engaged in their education and have probably borrowed thousands of dollars for their education. My daughter got $4,500 in merit aid for her freshman year (out of about $20K expense). I am biased, but I am not aware of another engineering freshman more qualified to begin the mechanical engineering program. She has classmates that will are starting their math with Differential Equations and have already completed their Chemistry requirements. Some have their Freshman design requirements out of the way as well via High School engineering classes. My daughter will have about half of her engineering degree done before she gets to campus. She is a bit of an outlier but not by much.

[NJCher]

57. I'd like to agree with you

I should say my observations are based on NJ only and three decades of teaching college classes.

Maybe things are better in Iowa.



Cher

[WillyT]

28. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[JDPriestly]

29. And how much more does our government spend on collecting all our metadata and spying on us.

That money, too, would be better spent on free higher education for all qualified applicants to colleges and universities.

[Enthusiast]

36. +1 a whole bunch.

[Warren Stupidity]

32. without a revolution, this, and other obvious sensible reforms will not happen.

the current system is broken and needs to be overthrown. Not through violence, not by force, but overthrown.

[Initech]

34. Always got to feed the war machine!

[Enthusiast]

35. The nation's priorities are askew.

[YOHABLO]

37. Askew? I think that's an understatement.

[Enthusiast]

39. Yes, an understatement.

[steve2470]

41. But but bootstraps !!!!one

Yes, public colleges need to be made free.

[n2doc]

43. But that might turn them into evil pinhead liburls!

Gotta keep that populace dumb, or at least scared.

[DemocraticWing]

45. We don't need to spend any extra money to make public higher education free.

The large amounts of money we spend on loans, grants, etc goes not only to public schools currently, but to private universities as well. If a student gets a Pell Grant or a federal loan, they can either use it at everything from public universities to private religious colleges. Even Ivy League schools have a number of students receiving federal student aid, somewhat stunning when you understand they have $30 billion endowments and presumably could provide more aid to their students without government handouts.

It's time to eliminate school vouchers for private education. It's a stupid idea that Republicans float on the secondary level, and it's a dumb idea in practice in higher education. Take all of the money the federal government spends on higher education and provide it to public colleges and universities. We can extend the idea of free and universal education past high school graduation and beyond.

There would be a few choices to make to ensure this is a sustainable system of course. The first would be to expand community and technical colleges, make them free, accessible, and easy to get into. Not every student who graduates high school is ready to attend a four-year school, and not all of them should do so. The second decision would be to raise admission standards of public four-year schools (nothing insane, perhaps something like a 3.0 GPA and 21 ACT) to make sure the schools are full of students with good chances to graduate. If students can't meet those requirements, they're welcome to attend a community college for two years, and if they graduate with an acceptable GPA should be able to get into a four-year school easily.

If we take these steps, public schools would not only be free and more accessible for American students, but would likely go up in prestige considering the quality of students would rise when those students understand that a free public education is a much better deal than a private, expensive (and not exactly higher quality) college. You'll notice that most other industrialized countries' elite schools are mostly public or at least somewhat government funded. If an elite college like Harvard thinks public schools have too big an advantage, I think an agreement between the federal government and elite universities could be met that resembles that of how the British government treats Oxford and Cambridge. We can smash the idea that prestige is a viable concept in higher education, and make a quality college education something attainable for every income level, every region, and every student.

[MelissaB]

46. I just moved to Kentucky and down the road from us is a beautiful college that is tuition free

for those admitted.
Look at their endowment. It's over 1 billion dollars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berea_College

https://www.berea.edu/

We have spent two half days in the town, and I'd love to retire there. It's stunning.

[bhikkhu]

48. In Oregon we have a first-year free program

which my older daughter just got set up for. Its set up as a "deferred graduation" thing, where they put off high school graduation until they spend a year in college (which makes our graduation statistics look horrible), but basically it lets kids go to college for a year without any significant cost. In my daughter's case, she still doesn't know what she wants to do and was doubting that she would go to college at all otherwise - its hard to go into that kind of debt without a good idea of where its leading. Not going to college, on the other hand, especially here, tends to lead to little or nothing.

In the long term, it should be a great way to get kids to stay in school and make progress in college without the heavy initial costs. If the state can afford it here, I think most any state could do it, given the will.

[nikto]

50. It's obscene, but FOLLOW THE MONEY

Education in America isn't so much about students these days.

It's about Investor$.

[Ex Lurker]

51. Open it up to trade schools

Not everybody is cut out for or wants to go to college.

[Oakenshield]

53. We probably give in excess of 60 billion dollars alone on...

Big oil subsidies. We can absolutely afford to provide free public college, if we just stop throwing money at the oligarchs.

[liberal N proud]

54. The military industrial complex has a choke hold on our future

[Moostache]

58. We need to be honest with ourselves...

This is a country that is steeped in stupidity and has a real problem with the way educated people are presented and perceived. We have morphed from a country that set its sights on the moon to once again having a large portion of people who would simply accept that said moon is made of green cheese if they heard it on TV or read it on the internet.

For the love of man, we had a "debate" earlier THIS year about freaking creationism...in the 21st century!

America has become a failed experiment and desperately needs a reboot. To put it bluntly, we suck and as long as the decision makers remain culled from the same monied interests and scum sucking pigs, that is incapable of change.

[stonecutter357]

59. K&R

[niyad]

62. 85 billion 14 years later for something that is supposed to be nearly over???