<p>
I think it’s always worth noting that while students don’t pay money to attend the service academies, I would not call them “free.”</p>
<p>I’ll bet there are kids that would trade free tuition at a public school for some kind of non military public service commitment after graduation.</p>
<p>The quote from the original post on this thread:
</p>
<p>I am impressed by the generosity and civic-mindedness of some of the middle-class posters on this thread. So I pose to them, how much more in tuition costs are YOU willing to pay to fund FA for low income students:</p>
<p>$1000 more per year?<br>
$2000?<br>
$3000?</p>
<p>We paid 50% over in-state rates so I’d say $5,000.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not sure this answers your question, but I will answer it from the perspective of a parent who can afford to pay any currently charged tuition. I am willing to pay any OOS tuition currently charged for a “reach” college for my child. I won’t allow my child (yes, controlling full-pay parent here) to enroll, at my expense, in a college that I think is over-priced for the product; meaning, a college that I do not think will challenge him or provide him with an education that is valued highly enough in the workplace (by my standards). While this doesn’t directly answer your question, it may provide some insight into the thought processes of those who have the means to choose.</p>
<p>Re: #125</p>
<p>You will pay in one of three ways:</p>
<p>a. More tuition to the university to fund its financial aid programs.</p>
<p>b. Higher taxes to the state to fund the university’s financial aid programs.</p>
<p>c. Lower long term economic output when academically capable students are denied a chance to become educated to their capabilities and become greater contributors to the economy (including increased tax revenue to the government, increased spending, savings, and investment that helps your business or employer and therefore your pay and investment income, and lower chance of costing money in welfare, police/jail/prison, and the like).</p>
<p>It is in the economic self-interest of the upper middle and upper income people to ensure that the each generation of lower middle and lower income people has a chance to contribute to the economy based on their abilities, rather than wasting their potential, or using it for “negative” purposes (e.g. crime, gaming the welfare systems, or inciting extremist politics).</p>
<p>The wasteful parts of the pentagon budget aren’t that huge.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If it ever comes to pass that Congress shrinks the pentagon budget, then it would be more fiscally prudent to pay off our national debt than to start another expensive entitlement program</p>
<p>If the expensive entitlement program pays off, then concerns about financial prudence would be unfounded.</p>
<p>But that’d be the wrong program to invest in.</p>
<p>Not sure if this has been said already–I didn’t read through the whole thread–but the cost per full-pay student to “subsidize” those of lesser means is not that significant. OOS and international students at public flagships subsidize everyone in a much bigger way–as they should. At least in my state, the flagship has a mission to offer broad, affordable higher-education opportunities to students in every corner (literally and figuratively) of the state. I don’t think the majority of our residents would support a mission that said “you can only come here if you can afford it.”</p>
<p>
Both of my kids are at public schools. I estimate I will spend upwards of $100K on just the tuition portion.</p>
<p>If 20% of this is being spent subsidizing other students, that’s $20,000 out of my pocket. That is not a small pile of money. It would do a lot of good in my pocket - I don’t have a job right now, I have to fund my retirement, I have up-coming medical expenses, etc.</p>
<p>My kids will be lucky - they will graduate without any debt, because I can afford the cost, including the forced charity. Other kids will not be this lucky - is it fair to force them to take on extra loans so that others can attend?</p>
<p>I would say, no, it is not fair.</p>
<p>If we as a society decide there is a collective benefit in having low-income students attend college, then we as a society should pay for it, not just the people who happen to be attending the college at that time.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If the politicians do nothing, the pre-set “fiscal cliff” will cut military (and other) spending and come pretty close to balancing the budget.</p>
<p>Well Norich–part of that OOS tuition is going to fund the instate kids one way or another. It might be fin aid or paying profs. You will never know. It all goes to one big pot along with alumni donations, research $$$ etc .</p>
<p>@ucb,
Falling off the “fiscal cliff” is not something to wish for…</p>
<p>You raise a valid point but it isn’t particularly pragmatic in general. Those that vote for the tax increase get pilloried and it’s not popular to raise taxes that benefits the minority giving them something that the half of more that don’t go to college won’t get a direct benefit on.</p>
<p>The thing that they did in California though was interesting. They apparently put a set of tax increases to a vote and it was approved. It’s a combination of a broad-based sales tax and an income tax on high-earners. You probably had more high earners vote for it because there’s true shared pain.</p>
<p>If the college education truly results in increased income over a lifetime to more than cover the cost of the education, why should there even be a subsidy? The ones benefiting from the education ought to be the ones paying for it over time. If the job secured because of the education does not pay for the cost of education, why do it in the first place?</p>
<p>The main problem in making money easily available is that the most natural tendency is to fritter it away.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with this. Even if it isn’t required, those receiving FA at public universities ought to pay it back in the form of donations over their lifetimes.</p>
<p>
When a school explicitly says “x% of your tuition is used for financial aid”, then, no, it is not going into one big pot.</p>
<p>'If the college education truly results in increased income over a lifetime to more than cover the cost of the education, why should there even be a subsidy? The ones benefiting from the education ought to be the ones paying for it over time. If the job secured because of the education does not pay for the cost of education, why do it in the first place?"</p>
<p>Why don’t we just adopt the British custom of keeping everyone in their “station”. That way our pesky poor kids won’t compete against your upper middleclass students for places in colleges. I’ll be a lowlevel office worker like my parents instead of possessing my master’s degree, and my kids would follow suit. After all, my younger one had to beat out 100’s of people for her spot in the grad school, which she’s paying for with a government grant. How rude of her to accept a helping hand and deprive some full-pay person from getting in!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Where did you go to college?</p>