Flagship state university expensive for you? Calling middle class caught in middle

<p>I wouldnt judge anyone who has one parent stay home. There are many reasons why a family needs to do this. Some still have young kids, some have a special needs child at home, some have a spouse who must work long hours or travel a lot and therefore is unable to "do their share" around the house (that is my situation -- if I worked outside the home, I'd have to take care of ALL the home responsibilities because my H is just not here to do any of them.). Sure, if he cut back, I could go to work BUT then he'd earn less money and he can earn more per hour than I can so........ what would be the point!!!</p>

<p>Also, if someone thinks that once kids are in middle or high school that they don't need someone at home when they get home, I've got news for them......</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Prop 13 is certainly a big factor in CA--enacted in 1978.</p>

<p>Prop. 13 was certainly a big factor in California - but the fees started to go up in the other western states then as well. All part of the same phenomenon, just different details. Prop. 13 was billed as saving poor seniors from losing their homes - but the major benficiaries have been big business and wealthier landowners. Go figure...</p>

<p>The people spoke on Prop 13. They can change it if they wish. Start passing the petitions.</p>

<p>At least you moved the focus where it belongs--the states. Many states have expanded higher ed in the same period. California had a system it could not afford. Look at the overpaid and numerous admins in the UC system as recently exposed by the papers. They still have a lot of fat.</p>

<p>As the main benefits of higher ed flow to the student they should pay more than a pittance.</p>

<p>Which (many) states have increased expenditures for higher education in the last twenty years? Somehow I've missed hearing about them.</p>

<p>(I agree with your last remark. DH was a grad student at a UC in the early 80s and I couldn't believe the protests when fees were increased slightly to what seemed to me a very reasonable level.)</p>

<p>O.K. Barrons, then I'll ask you whether or not George W. Bush (or any President) is correct to propose additional tax expenditures for education and educational achievement in the sciences? The premise of my question is, why should the public subsidize [or reduce the cost] for training in Biotechnology, Physics, Earth Sciences etc.? To use your statement, shouldn't college students looking to enter those fields "expect to pay more than a pittance for their education?"</p>

<p>My own answer is that the quantifiable needs [present and future] of the nation/pubic at large will be furthered by such subsidies. The nation can't import all of its human resources needs. The nation must produce creative and skilled people. At some point the best and brightest from the less developed world, i.e. India, China are going to stop immigrating to the U.S. because their own countries are closing the economic development/technology/consumer economy gap.</p>

<p>Perhaps because the best students are looking to other fields with a quicker payback. By subsidizing them you can up the output of peopel in these majors. It has been done with nursing and teaching from time to time. Back in the day it was done to compete in the space race with Russia. So if it's a natonal priority go ahead and make it more attractive. Right now every other smart kid wants to go to Wall St or some top consulting firm. I personally question the value to society of these jobs but it is where the money is. ($100k to start inc bonus-$500k in five years). The pay in science jobs at the entry level is pretty low. Even a PhD makes less than a second year guy on Wall St.</p>

<p>States with strong spending growth-2001-2005</p>

<p>Nebraska, New Mexico, Wyoming, South Carolina, Nevada, Tenn.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.sheeo.org/finance/shef_sv06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sheeo.org/finance/shef_sv06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I'm not sure if you have done this or not, but look into SMALLER state schools for your other children. For example, in maryland they have the university of maryland- college park and baltimore county. However, many parents do not know about schools like Salisbury, Frostburg, etc. because they assume that there is just one big state school. Frostburg, for example, is $11,000/year and is much cheaper than many fees that occur at the university of maryland.</p>

<p>Thanks for the link, Barrons:
[quote]

Historically, net tuition has grown as a percentage of total educational revenues4 in public institutions when constant dollar state support per student has declined. Nationally, net tuition accounted for just over one-fifth of total educational revenues in 1981. It then increased to about 25 percent after the recession of 1981-82, remaining near that level through the rest of the 1980s. Following the recession of 1990-91 tuition's share of educational revenues grew rapidly to 31 percent, then stabilized through the 1990s. After 2001 tuition resumed growing as a share of total revenues to its current level of 36.7 percent.

[/quote]
That's nationwide. Anyone question the shift in values since 1980 now?</p>

<p>The rising cost of medical programs, aid to K-12 education due to equal fusnding lawsuits, and to a smaller extent prisons have really trapped the states into the old rock and a hard place. The level of medical care was raised for the poor at great cost. Soon it will be the largest item in most state budgets.</p>

<p>So given a choice between maintaining the previous level of funding for college education and cutting taxes, the choice was to cut taxes. I know we're philosophically at odds on the advisability of which decision is right, but I think we can agree on the fact that numerous decisions were made, nationwide, the net result of which was to increase the financial burden on college students while lowering that of taxpayers in general. I credit that to the success of a very well crafted anti-tax crusade, which benefits the wealthiest members of society the most. </p>

<p>Yeah, your side won. The thing is, I'm not sure that if the majority of the public understood the ultimate consequences of each of the numerous baby steps which got us to this point that they would support your money-first agenda.</p>

<p>The per capita total state taxes went up 3.6% per year according to the chart. That seems neither large nor small but slightly above inflation over that period. One could argue that the poor have benefited most from increased K-12 spending and health care funding over the period and were hurt less by declining higher ed funding as they use that less.</p>

<p>I don't see any reference to the change in per capita total state taxes since 1980, but since 1993 the conclusion is that financing of public colleges has maintained its relative priority in state budgeting, but as taxes have declined over that decade tuition had to grow significantly to fill the gap:
[quote]
State efforts to fund higher education occur within a broader context of national and individual state economic conditions.Each state's unique combination of policy choices and prevailing conditions - such as state wealth, the rate at which each state taxes its wealth, and funding demands for other public services - sets the stage for the higher education funding outcomes summarized above. The national trends in state wealth, tax revenues, and the allocation of those revenues to higher education are as follows:
1. Effective tax rates decreased over the last decade, resulting in increases in actual tax revenues per capita that grew more slowly than state wealth (Table 2). According to data from the Bureaus of Economic Analysis and the Census:
• State wealth (total taxable resources) per capita increased 62.3 percent, from $25,421 in 1993 to
$41,263 in 2003.
• The national aggregate effective state and local tax rate – tax revenues as a percentage of state wealth –decreased from 9.0 percent to 7.8 percent.
2. The allocation to higher education has remained relatively consistent since 1993 (Table 2). Of total revenues 7.3 percent was allocated to higher education in 2003; the allocation to higher education fluctuated between 6.8 percent and 7.6 percent from 1993 to 2003.
3. State and local support for higher education per $1,000 of personal income fell 1.6 percent, from $7.91 to $7.79, from 1993 to 2003, and has continued to fall, to $7.59 in 2004 and $7.42 in 2005. ...
These data indicate funding for higher education has not decreased dramatically as a state priority, but that total state revenues (and the effective state tax rate) have decreased as a percentage of wealth.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Table 2 has the per capita total state and local taxes over 10 years. Yes the rate declined but total taxes per capita grew steadily. Wealth just grew much faster than inflation (62% v 42%). (thanks Bill and W.)</p>

<p>I see your point. Since 1993, while the nation's per capita wealth increased faster than inflation (higher per capita productivity) the increase in per capita tax revenues also increased, although only at the same rate as inflation - i.e., did not actually decline in inflation adjusted dollars, but rather was flat in constant dollars, and therefore merely declined as a percent of overall income.
So, my question: given that fact, and given that the cost of education has increased faster than inflation, resulting in a need for an ever higher percent of that cost being met through tuition, is why have we, as a nation, elected not to funnel some of that increase in national wealth into education, instead of into our pockets? (Which means, if you've read my numerous posts addressing the IRS statistics linked to from the rushlimbaugh.com website, into the pockets of the top 1% of all income recipients in the nation, since the increase in national wealth since 1980 has skewed dramatically to the top, altering the historic trend of rising economic tides "lifting all boats.")</p>

<p>Still comes to the same thing: there's a national economic pie. The very top has been getting a bigger and bigger piece every year for the past 25 years. The bottom 50% are actually getting poorer in absolute dollars. And those of us in between? We're paying ever higher tuition bills for our kids. The only people who are actually seeing a significant benefit from the overall increase in national wealth are the very wealthy. It's a historic anomaly. Why is it happening?</p>

<p>Global warming--just kidding. If I were that smart I would not be here.</p>

<p>Blaming prop 13 is hogwash. Very few homeowners still own the homes that are the true beneficiaries of it and other homeowners are protected from having their taxes raised to match a home's "paper value" which would be unaffordable for MOST. Imagine buying a 200K home several years ago which would bring about a 2200K prop tax bill and then be told today that since your home is now "worth" 1 million dollars so now you have to pay $11 K a year in prop taxes. It was this kind of unaffordable tax burden in the 1970's that caused people to rise up and pass Prop 13. </p>

<p>At it is, most homeowners are paying many thousands of dollars each year for their prop taxes since the prices of homes have been so high in Calif for so long. Right now, a "normal" sized home sells in OC sells for over half a million dollars -- that is over 5K a year in prop taxes..... </p>

<p>So I ask..... Those who oppose prop 13, just how much do you think that family should pay for their prop taxes since you obviously don't think 5K(or more) a year is enough!!!</p>

<p>If you want to "blame" something, blame Prop 99 ( I believe that is the number) that was passed that required that at least 50% of the state's budget be spent on K-12 education -- which left the UC system and the Cal State system having to fight for what is left over after all other state's needs are met.</p>

<p>jlauer - you've built a major false assumption into your argument. If we didn't have the Prop. 13 "freeze" on property taxes at the purchase price we wouldn't have to have a 1+% property tax rate - we could raise the same amount of tax dollars with a much lower rate. It just wouldn't be distributed in the goofy, "new guy pays more" way that it is now. In fact, the main beneficiary of Prop 13 is big business - because those factories and warehouses rarely change hands. People voted for Prop. 13 because they fell for the kind of slick argument you just made. That's my point. It's been a very good piece of marketing which has led to our current redistribution of income and wealth - and you've demonstrated that. There are some legitimate argument to be made both for and against Prop. 13, but you haven't made one of them.</p>

<p>Basically you're just making my point: It is so easy just to appeal to people's pocketbooks, by telling them that we can pay less taxes and still have everything be just dandy, by blaming some other tax expenditure that may be less appealing to the individual, or making a lazy generalized appeal to the old standbys of waste, graft and governmental inefficiency - usually coupled with some emotional anti-government rant. In fact, as set forth in the study, what's happened is that we have been paying a smaller and smaller share of the national wealth in taxes for years now, to the primary benefit of a very small portion of society.</p>

<p>There's no free lunch. We're paying the price now.</p>

<p>Kluge, I agree with some of what you said, but the idea that property taxes are based on what a person pays for a property, and not what his neighbor pays for his property many years later, is fairer in my opinion.</p>

<p>The fact that prop 13 got tied up with business property taxes...well nothing is perfect.</p>

<p>There is a lot of waste in the state government. </p>

<p>The pension system is a mess.</p>

<p>I think the question that should be asked is "Since the tax receipts have kept up with inflation and population growth, why hasn't that been enough to keep our public education system strong?" Why have education costs gone up so much?</p>

<p>Kluge, you said, "jlauer - you've built a major false assumption into your argument. If we didn't have the Prop. 13 "freeze" on property taxes at the purchase price we wouldn't have to have a 1+% property tax rate - we could raise the same amount of tax dollars with a much lower rate." </p>

<p>That's not what happened before Prop 13.</p>