The latest free college tuition proposal

Paying for College
21

A significant part of the state budget crunch was the crime wave that started rising in the 1960 to a peak in the early 1990s resulted in more people getting put in prison. In addition, increased sentencing laws (e.g. Proposition 184 “three strikes”) increased the amount of time many criminals went to prison for, though this was often inefficient in terms of use of expensive prison space in relation to how dangerous criminals were to the general public (i.e. using expensive prison space for life terms for less dangerous criminals while more dangerous criminals get freed after shorter sentences).

More pieces of the budget crunch include future pension promises that were not adequately funded back when the promises were made. After a few decades of compound interest (exponential growth), the pension underfunding is a much larger problem.

Of course, voters everywhere resist tax increases, while they vote for expensive programs or expansions of existing programs (including increased prison sentences as noted above).

22

I don’t always agree with Hillary, but I respect her for her intelligence. She is smart enough to know free college would be a fiscal disaster.

I also respect her and Bill for their political acumen, most of the time. I wonder if this free tuition bill is in response to her unforced error on her private email server. Perhaps she hopes to gain back some of the votes lost due to the FBI review.

If my theory is correct, it is very much like Cameron and Brexit In that she wants credit for the idea, but really doesn’t want it to pass a vote.

23

Here’s how she’ll pay for it:

Isn’t that the same way Obama paid for everything?

24

yeah right

25

Which loopholes, and how is “high-income” defined?

26

Actual loopholes might be all of the complexity introduced into the tax laws since the simplification of 1986.

But actually eliminating them and simplifying the tax laws is politically unlikely.

27

There is no money for free anything anymore. People are being taxed to death as it is! It’s time we tightened our belts and paid down the national debt. All of this “free” stuff comes off the backs of people who already can’t save enough to retire…I know because I am one of them. You want an education? Great! EARN it! Work for it either through great grades or a job. Is it easy? No but the self worth and pride in actually earning what you get is priceless.

28

I was just quoting an article. It seems that all recent campaign promises will be paid for by ‘closing the tax loopholes’. There must be millions of tax loopholes, right, I order to solve all these problems.

I think there are plenty of ways students can attend college in their home states without going into dept. What happened to Obama’s free college program ? Didn’t Tennessee and Missouri take the fed money? Do we not see students turn down the full rides at their state schools and borrow to go to a top 20? Nothing will change. Even if tuition is free at state school we’ll still read stories about the student who didn’t want to go to a CSU but had always dreamed of USC.

I want to know if the feds will pay the same amount per student in every state. Not fair if we taxpayers have to pay $16-$17k per student in Vermont and Pennsylvania but SD and Wyoming only get $4-5k.

The way to solve the student debt problem is to stop lending. If people don’t have the option of borrowing to go to NYU or USC, they can’t go.

29

In terms of specific “loopholes” that favor the high income, the biggest one is probably the capital gain and dividend tax rate that is significantly lower than the regular income tax rate, since capital gains and dividends are heavily concentrated among the highest income people.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-top-1-percent-earns-a-lot-from-cashing-in-on-investments/
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2207372

Note that this is also likely the reason for many other complicating things in the tax laws which are intended to limit the ability to have gains from such things as employee stock-based compensation become capital gains with favorable tax rates.

30

One of the studied issues about the very colleges this might apply to is the low grad rates. Even without loans over their heads, will the right numbers go on to benefit from a degree? It’s more complex than making it free. You can’t trade one “win” for a constant on the loss side.

I have no answers, just doubts.

31

We’ll pay for stuff in any case. I’d rather have my tax money go for higher education, as long as there are conditions, because it benefits the students, the state’s economy, our universities 's standing, and thus ultimately there’s a big chance of a positive for most.
(BTW, whoever claims we’re taxed to death hasn’t lived abroad :P. Some states are pretty bad but federal taxes are rather low comparatively speaking, either geographically or historically.)

32

There are gas stations near the Orlando airport and Disney - where all the international tourists are driving about - that sell their gas for $5.99 a gallon. Drove by one just the other day. These gas station owners get away with it because, to those international tourists, that $5.99 a gallon price is a steal. Of course, if those tourists knew their way around town better, they could drive less than a mile further down the road and enjoy the $2.09 a gallon I pay to fill up my car.

So what does that have to do with any of this? Well, I often hear this argument that I should not feel “taxed to death” because, after all, people across the Atlantic pay a whole lot more in taxes than I do. Since when should an American citizen like myself, descended from many ancestors who arrived before the Revolution, and fought for freedom from such taxation (among other things), feel less oppressed by today’s taxation rates just because the citizens of those other countries are still willing to allow themselves to be overtaxed?

Should all of the international tourists who come to Orlando every year feel grateful that they are paying three times the going rate for gasoline here in Florida because, after all, $6 bucks a gallon is a whole lot less than they pay at home? I am very confident that, if I stood on the sidewalk spinning a sign, alerting those tourists that if they would just continue driving down the road a bit, they would get to buy gas at $2 bucks a gallon, they would not only be thrilled to be saving money, but they would be offended by the greed of those predatory gas station owners.

What happens as far as taxation in another country is really totally irrelevant to my life. What is relevant to my life is what I pay in taxes, and what my fellow hardworking neighbors pay in taxes. And as one of the 53% who pays a lot in federal income taxes, and who has only been punished by the tax system even as I worked harder to earn more money to pay my family’s way through life, I will continue to feel taxed to death, because it is the truth. I would rather my tax money went towards rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, and the well-paying jobs that would accompany that work.

The problem with Clinton’s empty promises regarding free college tuition for everyone - well, everyone who makes less than $85K - is that it is a total delusion and a cynical lie. Why is college tuition as high as it is today? The old supply and demand phenomenon, of course, but more so, the consequences of a market aggravated by the federal government’s manipulation via student financial aid - aid that was supposed to help students attend college, but has become the money that ends up building resort-style dorms and paying the salaries and pensions of far too many college administrators and other employees rather than ensuring the availability of high quality faculty and the actual needs of the classroom.

33

If you think college is expensive now, wait until its free.

34

NYU and USC are not the problem, despite miles of ink in various publications that tell the story of the Starbucks Barista with a BA in Gender Studies and 200K in student loans.

They are not the problem.

The low income students who max out on their Pell awards from predatory/low performing glorified trade schools- who then have to take out private loans in order to complete their “degree” are the problem. Some of these institutions are for profit. Their track record of graduating students with a worthwhile education leading to actual employment are deplorable. Some of them are not-for-profit- and their administrators are the ones raking in the dough while paying their adjuncts poorly and leaving their students with almost worthless degrees.

Don’t keep fostering the fiction that it’s the handful of outliers at the actual universities who are the problem. We’ve created a system which preys on the poor. Go to any nursing home-- you will meet LPN’s who have “degrees” in “Geriatric Studies” from “Olympia College” or some fake-o name. They thought they’d end up as nurses because that’s what the career counselors told them.

Sad.

35

I agree that putliers aren’t the problem. The real, big issue is public universities and their instate rates.

I’m not sure how the tale that college costs rose because of the federal aid program, but it’s false: when they were created, Pell grants covered tuition, room, and board at any public university, instate rates. Today they don’t cover tuition alone - no talking about r&b - at any instate university, even when maxed out. As for Stafford loans, they have remained within normal levels for graduates’ repayment but I doubt a middle class student can afford a public university, instate, for 5.5k.

36

“The low income students who max out on their Pell awards from predatory/low performing glorified trade schools- who then have to take out private loans in order to complete their “degree” are the problem. Some of these institutions are for profit. Their track record of graduating students with a worthwhile education leading to actual employment are deplorable. Some of them are not-for-profit- and their administrators are the ones raking in the dough while paying their adjuncts poorly and leaving their students with almost worthless degrees.”

I’ve heard tell that the presumptive Republican nominee is familiar with such programs.

37

Moderator’s Note: Please try to keep your inner politician leashed. Let’s give the thread a chance.

38

Nowhere Community College or Somewhere State, with their poor records of educating in worthwhile ways and graduating kids, won’t solve the opportunity problem just for being free.

And there are a lot of schools in the vast middle which do a poor job graduating ready kids, if they do graduate. What does free do for kids who are at risk? Other than keep tuition cost/loans down.

There’s myth that just getting a degree, any degree, is the trick.

39

What happens if a student drops out of school (whether willingly, due to illness, or because they can’t cut it) – do they have to pay back the money already spent on their behalf by the American taxpayers? Or is that money just wasted?

40

At least, it means they won’t be college drop outs with tons of debt.
As I said, though, I hope there’ll be conditions