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I spoke with the Dean of Letters and Science one time (he was my freshman seminar professor) and I asked him his personal opinion. He said only Harvard, Oxford, and Berkeley had what he liked to call and "exciting academic environment."
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<p>Well, I have to imagine that there are more schools than that that offer an 'exciting academic environment'. At the very least, I would think that you would have to nominate MIT and Caltech. After all, if MIT's and Caltech's environments aren't exciting & academic, then it's hard to think of an environment that is. </p>
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He said that people recognized this when they heard the name Berkeley. I think this is why we feel slighted when Berkeley is #20 or so in the rankings.
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<p>I would say that this is just a simple reflection of the fact that the Berkeley undergrad program has some flaws that can (and should) be fixed. After all, Berkeley's graduate programs are quite impressive. Why can't the undergrad program be as good as the graduate programs? </p>
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A few points here. At least until recently, private college students were also subsidized by the state indirectly to the tune of several thousand dollars per student as well, in fact at levels higher than the state students (in terms of just aid, not the whole package).
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But should CA state taxpayers have been paying that high tax for that ends up subsidizing the likes of Stanford and Pomona at levels higher than if the students went to state schools?
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<p>This is precisely a point that I have made in other threads. For example, I would argue that a school like Caltech actually takes in * more * taxpayer dollars on a per-capita basis than any public school does. Granted, most of it is in the form of government research money, but so what? Those research dollars go towards providing Caltech undergrads with stellar research opportunities which are, frankly, better than the research opportunies available at most public schools. Hence, in some sense, you could say that Caltech is a de-facto "public" school. </p>
<p>Hence, if these private schools are in a certain sense, actually 'public' schools, than why shouldn't taxpayers receive a tuition subsidy to attend them? </p>
<p>Of course one could argue the extreme opposite stance by saying that the private schools should receive absolutely no public dollars * at all*. But to that, I would say, again, that the government made funding decisions because it believed it would help the public good. For example, the public research dollars that went to Stanford helped to foster Silicon Valley, which like I said has been an immense boon to the economy. Public dollars went to Berkeley, but Berkeley did not create anything economically comparable to Silicon Valley. Hence, at least in this case, a 'private' school was able to generate public benefits better than the 'public' school could. </p>
<p>Hence, if that is the case, then why not directly subsidize the tuition for people to go to Stanford? </p>
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Regarding the portable vouchers vs. the funding of particular institutions in California, the UC's in particular but the college system as a whole provide benefits to our society that far exceed the training given to undergrads. In this respect, it makes sense to tie the support to particular institutions and not let it roam freely, IMO.
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<p>Uh, I'm afraid I don't see that. I agree that the college system provides great benefits to society. But I don't see any benefits that * public * colleges provide that aren't also provided by private colleges. As a case in point, from an educational standpoint, Stanford created Silicon Valley. Berkeley did not. True, Berkeley had an auxiliary role in developing Silicon Valley. But the prime educational driving force is and has always been Stanford. Hence, Stanford, through the creation of Silicon Valley, has created immense economic and social benefits for the state of California, and for the country as a whole.</p>
<p>Yet students don't get any public taxpayer tuition support to attend Stanford. Why not? Taxpayers put money into the system but get a tuition subsidy back only by going to a public school. Why? </p>
<p>Think of it this way. There are no 'public' supermarkets or 'public' restaurants. The entire foodstuffs industry is private, despite the fact that everybody has to eat. Yet the US is the most well-fed nation on Earth (in fact, TOO well-fed if obesity ratings are any indication). Private industry is very very effective and efficient at delivering goods/services - in fact, usually more efficient than the government is. Restaurants that don't provide customers what they want will quickly go bankrupt. Private colleges that don't provide a desired service will quickly go bankrupt (and many have). But public universities that fall on hard times can always invoke the government as their sugar daddy.</p>
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And on the other side of things, people make really stupid decisions with the kind of money that goes to voucher support. For instance, an acquaintance received money in a legal settlement and she went to attend cooking school to become a chef. But she never confronted the issue of how tough it is to actually succeed in that field. In essence, she threw away a lot of money, she now feels. </p>
<p>Schools will grow up and take money to teach anything, whether or not it has any usefulness to the person or society; vouchers or not, this problem's not going away, but with vouchers that aren't tied to the support of particular institutions, the chances of this waste are exacerbated. Mere accreditation is not an ample screen, I think.
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<p>Oh come now. You don't think this happens at public schools? Even at Berkeley, there are plenty of students who are studying topics that, frankly, have no value to the person or society. And that's just Berkeley. You can take useless courses at community college. Or you can take useful courses at community college, and put in no effort to passing them. I know a guy who once got straight F's in a semester at community college (because he never showed up to class). Yet he did so on the taxpayer's dime. That is clearly of taxpayer resources. </p>
<p>The virtue of the voucher is that it is * limited *. You want to blow off a bunch of community classes and not learn anything? Fine. But you will have burned up some of your voucher money by doing so, and once it's all gone, that's it. In contrast, the current system allows you to keep taking community college classes over and over again for the rest of your life, all on the taxpayer's dime. </p>
<p>Secondly, there are some people who just don't want to go to college. For whatever reason, they just don't want it. They don't like it, they don't have the temperament for it - whatever it is. Yet these people are paying taxes into the system in return for a service that they just don't want. So in effect, these people have, in some sense, "wasted" their tax dollars. I believe these people should be allowed to sell or give away the educational voucher that they don't want to use anyway. </p>
<p>Just think of it from a public finance perspective. You are forcing taxpayers to pay for a service that some of them don't really want. That's not particularly equitable. Granted, there are plenty of other examples of governments forcing some taxpayers to pay for policy decisions that they don't really want. But that doesn't mean that we should be perpetuating this practice.</p>