I think we all should help pay for the things that benefit all of society.  That includes good roads, good sewer systems, safe water supplies, and, of course, a good education system.  Our society can't continue to be one of the world's best if the next generations don't get good educations.  Doctors can make a lot of money, for example, but the rest of us need those doctors to be well trained and in good supply.  Engineers can make a lot of money (or they used to be able to), but the rest of us need our industries to be competitive in the world in order to have good jobs with good incomes.  So, I have always supported education spending, having never voted against a school tax or bond in my life.

I am now retired, and enjoying it immensely.  But, that is because there were things I wanted to do that I could only do in retirement.  Not everyone  has such a list of things, and to expect that they would enjoy retirement as I have could be a mistake.  And, it is also a mistake to expect that everyone who goes to college will earn a big economic return from doing so.  Unless they attend a college with a goal in mind, seeking the education that qualifies them for a job, or prepares them to run a business of their own, they may well gain little economically from the education.  So, it really isn't a sure thing that if we push our children to attend college they will gain lifetime economic benefits from our doing so.  That is a poor reason for sacrificing as much as many families have to to send the kids to college.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Dynarski's argument seems weird to me, from this little blurb anyway.  Put in the framework of the old "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day,teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever" adage -- it's kind of like arguing that there should be no public support for helping people learn how to fish because they will reap the benefit.  Instead, there should only be public support for giving people fish...?  Or no public support for any kind of fish-related activities at all, I guess.

The real issue for us to consider is the societal benefit of higher education.  I believe the era of the factory and good paying production jobs has ended.  There are going to be fewer and fewer jobs for the undereducated.  Workers are going to have to be nimble. Only folks who know how to learn are going to be truly employable.  I don't think our society can afford the drain of a large uneducated class.  I vote for mandatory subsidized post secondary education.  That is the best way for us to regain competativeness in the world economy.   

Ron Byers

Public assistance must be available for higher education. Simple.

The reason? If we don't we will end up with people running the country and everything in it that reflect a narrowly defined set of views, restricted knowledge base and experience and maybe most disconcerting of all, a sense of entitlement based on nothing more than birth. Diversity is what makes this country tick. Reducing or eliminating opportunities for persons based upon their economic circumstance is to remove an essential piece of the American Pie.

That this is even a topic of discussion is very worrisome.

thepeoplechoose

While I disagree with the fundamental assumption that we should borrow money to pay for college, I do agree that everyone should pay their own way.  The problem with borrowing is that you end up paying as much as twice (or more depending on the interest) what you borrowed.  Government subsidies only contribute to inflation when paid for with tax revenue.

Policy Suggestion

What I would suggest as a public policy for a solution is greater tax incentives for corporations and foundations to provide significantly more scholarship money based on financial need than we currently have.  Also, a public policy to cap tuition and fees for undergraduate degrees would go a long way.  The increase in population of the college educated would bring far more value to the economy, and our standard of living, than if we did it with tax revenue. 

The reason, I believe, that income data shows that college pays off in income, is that it has been a competitive advantage in the workplace in the past that gave graduates a head start.  Nowadays it no longer has the competitive edge it used to be.  It has become a requirement, unless you want to flip burgers, or sweep the floor for a living.  Those who can't afford it are left with no options, and this contributes to a growing lower class.  Some feel they must borrow their way through college to buy the ticket to participation in our society, no matter how risky it may seem.  This creates a tolerance for debt, and a belief that debt pays off.  That belief eventually leads back to poverty for the vast majority of people.  A policy that gives the education without the debt burden, allows college graduates the freedom to pursue their dreams and make a difference.  Isn't that supposed to be the American Dream that makes this country great?

The Real Investment

Intellectual capital is something that is vital to the future of our country's competitiveness in the world.  In fact, with the passing of the industrial age and those jobs disappearing, it is critical.  We no longer are the industrial leaders setting the standards on designing and manufacturing products.  Now we manage knowledge and use it to create value.  Intellectual capital is our country's greatest competitive weapon, and we should make an investment in it.  We need to learn how to account for the knowledge assets we have and how to use them for our competitive advantage.  It is now the hidden gold in our country, and it needs to be used or it will be lost.  The sooner our leading corporations realize this and invest in it, the sooner we'll stimulate new and authentic economic growth, versus growth determined by the state of the financial markets. 

Jim Anderson

www.lighthouseonline.net

The cost of college, when it includes debt, is too high for many in the lower and middle class.  Those who don't have parents or other resources to serve as a financial safety net are taking on a substantial risk if they assume educational debt.  If these students are unable to finish school for some reason (personal, family, pregnancy, etc.), they are still on the hook to repay the loans, without the benefit of the higher salaries that come from having a college education.

One of the statistics we discussed in the seminar indicated that on average it takes from age 18 to 33 to fully recoup the cost of a BA degree.  In other words, those who simply graduate from high school and start working will have more net income than those choosing the college route until about 15 years out, when the college graduates pull ahead.  Although college grads continue to make more and more money in the long run, those first fifteen years of lower income represent a very long period of forgone earnings.  The big picture promise of higher long term earnings is a tough sell to a student with limited resources contemplating taking on large amounts of debt today.   

Stacy Anderson

I always find it odd that the debate around paying for college revolves so much around the issues of helping parents pay for their children's college education, government subsidy, and repaying student loans, and doesn't focus more on how to hold students responsible for but also make it more practical for them to pay for part of their education before and while they're in school.

According to the College Board, at 4 year public colleges about 60% of students pay less than $6,000 in tutition and fees, and the total cost of attendance (including room, board, books, travel, etc) is, on average, a little over $12,000. Most students should be able to make enough, between summer and part-time jobs, to cover at least half of these costs.   National service is another strategy that helps students cover part of their own costs by working in lower-paid national service jobs for a few years.  Requiring college students who are future high earners and leaders to put in some time in voluntary and/or low-wage service jobs to pay part of their own way would make them more motivated to work hard in school and would also have long term benefits as it would increase future leaders' recognition of the plight of those trapped in lousy jobs for life. 

We have to keep in mind that more and more students are getting pushed out of four-year public colleges as more kids apply and public colleges increase their selectivity. Kids that are not accepted at state schools currently must choose between forgoing college education or attending a bottom rung private school--which will mean lots of debt and questionable payoff. Making sure public four-year colleges are affordable is only part of the solution; colleges must be given the resources needed to expand their student body as acquiring a college degree becomes increasingly crucial.

Actually I was thinking our country would benefit from improving both our high schools and colleges. We might start by teaching people how to do research. Maybe we could hire teachers who would instill a love of learning in their students.  I can dream can't I.

Ron Byers

Don't overlook community colleges. They provide basics at an affordable price. Lots and lots of middle class kids are starting at a junior college and actually transferring to a higher priced university or college after a couple of years. My son did and graduated with a degree in physics. He is now working on his masters.  He saved a bundle of money.  Nobody asks where he went to school his first two years. All they care about is where he graduated. Of course, he is a self starter, with high SATs.  Your student's results might vary.

Ron Byers

Don't get me started on launching a new business with debt, especially while you still have a student loan.  Entrepreneurs aren't "risk takers" like they are categorized.  They take educated risks, and avoid risk whenver possible.  The problem is that the banking and legal system has found ways to con entrepreneurs into risking everything for a business.  The risk, for those who really understand what it is, is too high to start a business in this country these days, because of the interdependence on other businesses who have poor or just plain bad ethics, the complexity of lending contracts, and the price of getting justice when you've been had. 

Take it from a former entrepreneur.  I'll never launch another business with a business loan, or use credit cards in any form.  I've learned some of the tricks and the lack of ethics in the lending community.  I know they are not to be trusted, and I can't do business with people I can't trust because contracts are often too expensive to enforce.  In the case of a lending contract, they are always unenforceable because you have signed away any enforcement rights anyway.  Read yours and see.  Before anyone starts a business, they need a good cash cushion, not financed with debt, but with cold hard cash that they own, so they can survive the downside of a business cycle.  That is needed at startup, because I can almost guarantee you won't meet your initial projections.  A college student, unless he/she has an angel investor that will risk all, or a business partner who will put up the cash, without borrowing from the bank, has no business starting a business.  Unless of course it has no fixed overhead, and the living expenses are minimal and covered for two years.

In short, our government is discouraging entrepreneurs of small business, and giving all the power to the big corporations.  The small business owner is getting squeezed out of the market by legal costs, increasingly complex regulations, and just larger barriers to competing with large corporations in general due to their congressional influence.  So college students either need to become independent contractors, or go to work for a growing public company.  Actually, government employee benefits are starting to look good because of the job security, retirement security, easy hours.  (what does that say about a country started on the idea of freedom from the oppression of taxation?)

Jim Anderson

www.lighthouseonline.net

I think the government should help out more for helping students obtain a college education.  In many countries in Europe, for European students, tuition depends on the income of the family and the government picks up the rest of the tab.  So when the student graduates, they are not overwhelmed in student loans like in the U.S. 

Ann

http://amborg.blogspot.com 

I don't understand why we're happy to subsidize with our tax dollars WalMart and other companies that often do more for foreign economies than our own, but when it comes to actually investing in the country by gambling that sending more Americans to college will improve our way of living and our standing in the world, we hem and haw.  When are we going to wake up to the fact that our best, most reliable resource is our people and that current policies are squandering that wealth like mad?

I'm automatically suspicious of any argument that makes access to higher education more difficult.  Sounds like class war to me.  But if we want to devote our economy to supplying service workers for the globalized world, then we should definitely keep our kids out of college.   I got mine. 

At the risk of revealing my serious West Wing addiction, I'll offer this: what about making college tuition fully tax deductible?  I know we get education credits and tax deductions on loan interest already, but I'm talking about the full amount - tuition, room, board, and books.  Seems like a better investment to me than cutting the taxes of the richest 1%,  you know?

If you're referring to this article with respect to college graduates' literacy, you may want to be cautious.

As Bob Somerby points out, it appears the author, Lois Romano, misread the NAAL test which had not reported the performance of graduate students. 

But what if that tax deduction enabled the child of a $50K family to attend the $40K school?  That would be the whole point - to open up the upper eschelon schools to the middle class and poor kids.

I hate being thought snarky but permit me to remind you that if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Elizabeth, do  you feel the same way about law school that you do about, ahem, lower schools.l  To charge $40,000 a year for future Skadden partners--that in itself doesn't bother me.  I'd be perfectly comfortable with coupling it with loan forgiveness programs whereby the students can work it off in the storefronts.

I'm even willing to concede that Skadden partners are a community resource.  But they internalize enough of the benefits that I don't have much trouble letting them bear the costs. 

Its amazing how much of a difference subsidized education can make.  Anyone reading the obit's in the NY Times over the past while most have been struck by how many people who went on the accomplish incredible things and make major contributions to society got their start in strong public high-schools and affordable universities of their era.  Seems both counter-productive and unfair form an inter-generational equity perspective to require current students to shoulder so much debt for their studies.  

The related point is that educational is really a social good, not just an individual good.  In this sense, economic analysis focusing on benefits to individual earnings misses the point.

One final point - where are we going to find workers for jobs with low compensation but high social utility if all the college grads are loaded up with debt?

My mom made about that much, and that's how much my college cost.  She had been saving since I was a baby, and I had been saving through high school; I was also one of those kids that worked all the way through college.  And let me tell you, her life would have been a lot easier with that extra $3,500 in her pocket during those years.  And now that I'm paying for grad school on my own, I can tell you that some money back at tax time would make my life an awful lot easier, too.   

Can you explain to me please why you think it is that my mother and I don't deserve help making one of life's most important investments?  Can you elucidate a few reasons why you think there is no value in getting more middle class kids into top-flight schools?  Show me, please, some data that say a poorly-educated workforce is in a country's interest.  While you're at it, show me some data that say that a country is best served when only the very richest get to go to good schools.  I think that middle class people are already working hard to provide all they can for their kids.  Tell me, please, why the richest country in the world can't give them a hand. 

First of all, people with college educations pay taxes into the public education system, the national defense, and the national highway system just like everybody else.  In fact, they pay more taxes than do people without college educations, so your point there is nonsense.

Secondly, the college grads earning more money will also pay more taxes for services that they DON'T consume, like medicaid, welfare, head start, worker retraining, agricultural subsidies, and so on.  The point of creating a welfare state is to a) socialize risk and b) provide for people who need help.  Society in general has an interest in helping all those with the ability become lawyers and doctors if they so choose, just as society has an interest in providing aid to those who cannot.

Finally, I'd just like to point out that your "solution" - simply maintaining the status quo, in which the wealthy are and always will be the best educated - does far more to benefit the wealthy than tax deductible college tuition would. 

The issue you raised, Lindsay I, was not whether society should or should not (it already does) support/subsidize higher education.  The issue was how should it do so.

My point was, and continues to be, that your call for tax deductions as a method for increasing that support is anti-progressive, favors the wealthy, and offers little to no help for those who need it the most.