Higher education in America–or at least access to it–has been on a downward slide. According to this depressing New York Times article, state and local financing for higher education has dropped 7 percent since last year, just as costs are rising and students are having to pay more. And if you want to get even gloomier, look at the trend over the past 25 years–the percentage of higher education costs coming from tuition and fees has increased to 47 percent from 23 percent in 1987. So yes, more of the cost of college is being shifted onto the family and the student. Good thing our wages have been going up over the same time period…oh, wait.
And now, the sequester–here to make things even worse. Remember, it was supposed to be dumb and arbitrary, and it is. Work-study programs and grants are going to sustain serious cuts. Also, origination fees on college loans are expected to increase. All in all, about 70,000 college students are likely to be affected, and they are low income students–the ones who can least afford it.
Until recently, some financial support for universities was provided by that evil, evil stimulus bill, but that funding has now run out. There is a Higher Education Act coming up for a vote in the future, but considering that this is the Congress which for the longest time couldn’t get its act together on violence against women, I’m starting to suspect this bill will get blocked, like everything else these days.
We are doing this to ourselves–and have been for a while–just as our international rivals such as China are looking for ways to offer their educational institutions more subsidies and support, and thus give themselves an edge in global competition.
But hey, these student moochers, right? Why are they expecting government support? Never mind that a good education gives them a better chance at being productive citizens–and not needing social services–after they graduate. On the other hand, if our education system goes down the tubes, that dreaded 47% will turn into an even larger and more impoverished underclass–is that really what we want?
03/09/2013 at 5:23 pm
Yeah hell, our culture wars means we end up shooting ourselves in the foot (head) as we invariably fall behind in the world smarts department. We’ve grown fat on native brains, good luck and generations of Americans who at one point valued education – and voted for it.
Our weirdo identity schism has to be a breath of fresh air to Asia and Europe in regards to letting them slowly dictate the market and what comes next in the new wave of inventions, education, anything requiring serious collective cognitive discipline.
Funding education at ANY level is so much cheaper than war, which is where we’ll end up, fighting for resources we might otherwise manage or buy had we not been so short-sighted in terms of funding education and child services from day 1.
In short, we’ll be forced to become an even bigger bully to maintain the standard of living we’ve come to expect. Worse yet, the next war (the next non-nuclear war, that is) will be again funded at the expense of those who could most otherwise use the education and services that will most certainly be lost – entitlement programs anyone? Since when is education an entitlement?
So go ahead and vote Tea Pary again you assholes. Your kids will pay for it over and over again. And so would mine, if I had any, but I’m not that crazy. Why birth another soldier? Literal or economic; it’s all the same in this country.
03/10/2013 at 4:59 pm
Exactly–it is a stupid culture war and it’s going to cost us dearly. God forbid some of these students get “Gubmint” help. Never mind that not giving them that chance at an education will actually put all of us in a much worse situation, whereas allowing them to become educated productive citizens would benefit us all. It’s so short-sighted and insane. And yeah, it gives the rest of the world a nice breath of fresh air–as in, they see an opportunity to get ahead of us. Which, if it happens, fine–it’s our own fault, anyway.
Thankfully I’ve never wanted to have kids for my own personal reasons. If I was like most normal people and desired to have them, I would be very torn about their future and putting them into this world right now.
03/11/2013 at 10:47 pm
Ha, you got spammed! I get it too but it rarely makes it thru. A Russian spam company has keyed in on one of my blog posts, a-holes, and it gets hit daily. Feh!
03/12/2013 at 5:56 pm
Ugh, oh no! I’ve had the same problem in the past–I used to get a spam comment every single day on one of my blog posts. I actually thought about deleting that blog just to make it stop.
03/12/2013 at 7:38 pm
And to add insult to injury, I got spammed with spices? WTF