All right, let’s talk about the agenda I outlined in my book. As I noted, the idea is to create an agenda that appeals to the public at large, who are not ideologues. The purpose is to spot the things that matter to average Americans and address them in ways that fit with conservative principles so they will see a reason to vote for us. Let’s start with the issue of the cost of college.Education is one of the top priorities for most Americans, and any successful agenda must deal with this issue and must address both K-12 and college. Today we start with college. College is vitally important to people’s success and to the success of the country as a whole. As I pointed out a couple weeks ago, people with college degrees will do much, much better than the “I never needs no skooling” crowd by as much as $5.3 million over the course of their careers, depending on the degrees they choose. They are also better off in recessions and they recover quicker. Anyone who tells you we shouldn’t be encouraging people to go to college is a fool.
But there is a problem with college: cost. I first outlined this for you back in 2009. Under the current system, students are being weighed down with the equivalent of a mortgage in student loan debt just to get through college. In 1981, the average yearly cost of attending a four-year college program was $3,499 (that’s in 2011 dollars). Today, it’s up to $22,092! That means college is 6.3 times more expensive in real terms today than it was in 1980. Consequently, today’s students will pay around $89,000 for an undergraduate degree and most of that will be debt. Government figures say that students currently owe more than one trillion dollars in student loan debt.
What this means is that these students, the best and brightest among us, are saddled with a debt that will take 10-15 years to pay off. So rather than starting families, buying homes, starting retirement plans, investing, building businesses, etc., they will spend their most productive years paying off debt. That is a huge disservice to them and to our economy. It’s bad for the interior of the country too (red states) because it means the smarter kids need to stay on the coasts where they earn more to pay back their loans.
More importantly, this is an issue that resonates with the public. Parents worry that their kids can’t afford college or will be weighed down forever by this... or they dread becoming co-signers. College kids despise the debt they are being saddled with. And young professionals struggle to pay off their debts for years. Each of those groups are groups the GOP lost in a big way. Why did the GOP lose them? Well, for one thing, because the GOP response to this issue has been offensive and stupid: basically, conservatives have groused that people shouldn’t go to college. Talk about a response that’s guaranteed to lose the public!
So what should conservatives offer? Three things come to mind, each of which is designed to make college more affordable and more accessible:
(1) Free State College for the Top 15%. Conservatives should advocate letting the Top 15% of high school graduates go to any state college anywhere in the United States for free, provided they maintain a 3.2 GPA or higher.Think about what this agenda does. First, it promises the people most concerned about education that their kids can get a good college education for free (or very cheaply). It slashes the subsidy that has been ensconced in the law to support ultra-rich schools. It cuts the cost of college probably by a factor of 3 or 4, which will help current and future students. By all but eliminating interest rates, it helps the young professionals who are struggling with college debt. And its costs can be absorbed within the present system. Offering this will go a long way toward winning over the college students, the young families, and the minority families we have lost in record numbers.
The purpose here is to make sure that the brightest kids can always afford to go to college. It also frees these kids up from student loan debt when they get out so they can act freely within the economy. It also provides an incentive for high school kids and their parents to make sure they do their best to get into that Top 15%. And it will help state colleges attract the kids they normally lose to places like Harvard.
But what about cost? You might be surprised. In 2012, 3.4 million students graduated from high school, so 510,000 students would be eligible for this program. The average in-state tuition at the moment is around $8,000 a year. Thus, the cost of this program would be $4.08 billion if they all participate – which they won’t. This is less than 10% of the Federal Government’s current $41 billion financial aid budget, which we can probably slash in half with our next idea.
(2) Maximum Pricing Provisions. The primary reason college costs have shot up is because student loans act like a pricing mechanism which lets colleges coordinate their rates. The result is that as loan availability has gone up, so have prices because schools know students can afford it. To counter this, we would ideally drop the student loan program entirely and watch colleges dramatically slash their prices to attract the students. But that’s politically impossible and suggesting it would only hurt us. So, instead, we should advocate the government using its market power to set maximum prices. Specifically, we should propose that any institution that wants its students to be eligible to receive federal loans cannot charge those students more than the average in-state tuition charged by state schools nationwide. Further, if the students are required to live on campus, then room and board must be provided at cost to those students. This will slash the cost of college dramatically and immediately.
But wait, how can a conservative argue for a price control? Because this isn’t a price control. An actual price control is an attempt to control a free market. This is not that. This is simply a condition on the receipt of a subsidy, and if a particular school believes this is unfair, then they are free to forgo the subsidy and charge market prices instead. Moreover, keep in mind that this is hardly a novel idea. The government already does this when it issues fixed-fee contracts to contractors, when it imposes “most-favored customer” clauses or unilaterally sets prices under Medicare, and conservatives are more than happy to argue that things like welfare should come with strings attached. It’s disingenuous to say we can dictate terms to poor people but not to rich schools.
And make no mistake, these schools are stinking rich. Harvard’s endowment is more than $34 billion dollars. Sixty-nine colleges have endowments larger than one billion dollars each. All told, colleges hold $410 billion in investments. These schools do not need taxpayer dollars to survive. If they don’t like this change, then they can hope students will keep paying their outrageous prices or they can dig into those endowments to make schools cheaper for students... they can finally face the free market.
(3) Fed Discount Rate Interest Rates. Finally, we need a solution for the people who are already saddled with these debts. The Democrats talk about forgiving student loan debt, but there’s too much to forgive at a trillion dollars. A better plan would be to convert all debts to a repayment schedule of 20 years and charge students the Federal Funds Discount Rate which the federal government charges to the nation’s biggest banks (about 0.75%). Seriously, if it’s good enough for banks, it should be good enough for taxpayers as well.
Thoughts?
37 comments:
One thing I would add at the college level would be a "Student (and Faculty) Rights Act" that outlines the rights of students as well as faculty at colleges.
It would include the following provisions. Note: This is an early draft. There may be revisions needed.
(1) Due Process: All disciplinary hearings, or at least ones involving serious offenses, must prove guilt beyond at least a clear and convincing standard of evidence. There should be some other protections as well.
(2) Free Speech: Adequate and broad protections for legitimate free speech as defined under previous Supreme Court rulings.
(3) Harassment: It must be "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive" with the intent to cause severe emotional harm.
(4) Punishment: Colleges have until the next school year to comply. Those that fail to do this risk losing federal funding.
The phrase "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive" comes from a Supreme Court ruling on the matter.
Kit, That is technically something to deal with on another day, but fits in this discussion too. As I understand it, there is a lot of nastiness going on on college campuses right now, and not only should that be fixed, but it presents a huge opportunity for conservatives to start winning that crowd. I think you've outlined an excellent "Students' Rights Act."
I listed the 3 provisions because they are the most real concerns. Due Process, Free Speech, and, harassment -which is used to justify crackdowns on the first two.
Provide more than adequate protections for the first two and strong penalties for the 3rd.
And if it is true harassment then its probably a legal matter as well.
Kit, Those seem to be the biggest problems right now, especially with this zero tolerance garbage and with the heavy push for speech codes.
"it presents a huge opportunity for conservatives to start winning that crowd."
Oh, yeah.
Interestingly, cracking down on this stuff could put a dent in tuition because a bunch of petty and tyrannical administrators would be out of a job.
Kit, This is a no-lose for us. First, we currently lose students by around 70%. Any change in that would be significant. Secondly, we can put some serious restraints on liberal administrators and make them live by their rhetoric -- and liberalism should always be harassed wherever it is. Third, this would simultaneously expose the Democrats as the anti-free speech party that they are.
This was one of the solutions that caught my attention when I was reading the book, and I think it's a good one. With both this and the health care chapter you broke things down, showed exactly where the out of control prices were coming from and how to deal with them. I can see one and three selling easily, while two will take some skillful work given that at least a notable number on the right will erupt just over the first paragraph.
I know I'd welcome that kind of relief and reform. A big part of the reason why finishing this last leg of college feels so daunting is because of how ridiculous the costs and loans are, especially with the economic conditions making getting a job where I can manage any debts a shaky prospect given my circumstances. I hope this and your other ideas start getting traction soon. It's way past time to clear away all the BS and work on real solutions.
- Daniel
By the way, if any of you ant a good book on the subject I would recommend Unlearning Liberty by Greg Lukianoff.
Amazon Link
Now, I do not think that every case he highlights is legitimately protected free speech but most of them are. And there are a few creepy, almost Orwellian, cases of attempted thought reform as well.
Interesting thing, the guy who wrote the book considers himself a liberal Democrat. But he, like Harvey Silverglate, is also a true advocate for civil liberties. In other words, a true liberal.
Thanks Daniel! This is an easy one to me. Education is vital to success, so we want to encourage people to go to college. Yet, we've set up a system that basically allows an oligopoly market coordinated by the government's student loan program. It's ridiculous to me. And since that's the case, the solutions strike me as rather obvious. If they won't play in the free market, then we make them lower their prices as if they were. And if they don't like it, then they can stop taking the subsidy. Either way we are better off as taxpayers and as a country, and college students are better off.
Sadly, I think you're right that some will object. Some will simply knee jerk this with "I hate college kids 'cause they're all whiners, why help them?!" That is of course rather stupid as it chooses rich liberal subsidy-receiving universities over average Americans, but no one ever accused that group of being all that bright. Others will scream that we should cut the whole program, which is basically a do-nothing plan because it's impossible. Others will simply ignore it because this doesn't involve screaming about RINOs and that's all they care about. But those people are few in number. So let's hope that everyone else sees the value in this, in helping people, and in winning back the public.
Kit, There are occasionally liberal Democrats who suddenly realize that things have gone wrong. It's too bad there aren't more. In fact, the fact there are so few speaks very poorly of liberalism.
That does seem to be all we can do, hope that ideas like this will catch on. One of the things that's been gnawing at me is the thought that even if the fringe falls, that there aren't enough Republicans who understand the need for an agenda like this, resulting in inept flailing with poor ideas (like the competing across state lines idea for health care) which still ends up handing the Democrats victory after victory. Maybe it's just me being in a rut, though, since I do try to think back on the articles here about how people like Rubio and Rand Paul sre providing the energy and ideas needed to rebuild the party while the Democrats have the structural dysfunctionality you mentioned in your articles about them. It's just painful watching this kind of transition, I suppose.
- Daniel
Daniel, That is the other problem. Even if the fringe vanished tomorrow, the Republicans themselves simply don't have much in the way of ideas, nor do they understand the need. In fact, it was their failure to have an agenda in the first place which let the fringe step into the vacuum to try to redefine conservatism.
As an aside, there was an interesting article this weekend (though I can't find the link at the moment) which discussed how our fringe consists mainly of converts to conservatism who simply don't have a grasp of conservatism and, rather than learning about it, they instead seek to redefine it. And the way they've defined it is essentially through opposition to whatever the Democrats propose. Thus, conservatism ends up drifting ideologically to wherever the Democrats take them, with the end result being that (1) they end up in some very strange non-conservative places, (2) the Democrats are playing the fringe like a fiddle, and (3) you can find yourself being denounced as a RINO simply by holding the views you've always held as the fringe shifts away from your views.
In any event, we need an agenda. An agenda gives people a reason to vote for us. It gives the party a purpose. It stops this assault of opportunists who want to redefine conservatism to fit them. Right now, no one is offering a real agenda. Rubio, Ryan and Paul have each offered parts of one, and that is encouraging, but it's still just the tip of the iceberg. We need a lot more.
Finally, I couldn't agree more that watching politics has become painful. Our system has become a battleground of the insane, the amazingly stupid, and an army of opportunists who couldn't find their butts with a map... and in some cases all three at once. This applies to both parties.
The good news is that the country seems content to move on without them.
It has always amazed me at how easy to see the tuition issue actually is. Schools have NEVER been under fire to control their own expenses. They operate much like the federal government {sic} automatic inflationary increases. What would happen is that Harvard, et al. would become the playground of the rich.
"Springfield University can use an international airport." :-)
Funnily enough, in one of my classes yesterday, the teacher said we had to watch how much paper we use in the printer because there isn't enough money to buy more paper all the time.
My unspoken thought was "Go f--- yourself. I'm sure the president of FAU can spare a few bucks."
Incidentally, the printer never works so I don't use it anyway.
It sounds like a good plan but I imagine some folks who work in the higher education industry will complain but... whatever.
Andrew, points 1 and 3 are virtually impossible to oppose in my mind--at least not with anything that won't seem hypocritical. Opponents could say that #1 is unaffordable while #3 isn't as good as debt-forgiveness and then promptly implode.
But it goes without saying that schools will resist dipping into their endowments. What I can't anticipate is what tact they might take to convince the public that it is a bad idea. I think that is the one area where there is enough that the public doesn't understand that they could use confusion to their advantage. Any good plan needs to anticipate the opposition maneuver. Any ideas on what it might be in that regard and how to put it down?
Though I agree that everyone in the top 15% should get a break, but here is the pitfall of that. In Texas under Gov. Bush, the legislature voted to give all HS students who gradutate in the top 10 in their class an automatic enrollment in any state school of their choice. (BTW, Texas in-state tuition is relatively low) Here is the problem it created - not all student graduates who graduate the Top 10 in their class are created equal and not necessarily do they all come with the skills to meet the demands of a college curriculum. For the students who graduated at the top of their class in a marginal school, it was found that they wash out in the first semester because they are not prepared for college. And because there were not enough spaces for ALL top ten graduates, it left many of the top tier HS top ten without a place to go.
Because there is so much free money coming from government sponsored loans, we all know that college/universities and not been very discriminating in their choice of students as long as they fill the seats. To make it open enrollment and give tuition breaks to the top 15% of all students work, we need to make the schools more responsible for the loans that they approve. If a student declines to pay back these loans either after dropping out or after graduation (which is happening at an alarming rate thanks to Obama), the schools themselves should be held responsible for paying back the loans through their vast endowments.
Bev, I just looked into that. It seems that was a problem specific to UT-Austin, which isn't surprising. There has since been legislation limiting the percentage of incoming freshmen under that program to 75% of the enrolling class (specific to UT-Austin). I can see the need for such a clause that applies to all state schools to ensure a minimum number of tuition-paying students. But at the same time, there was still room for everyone graduating in the top 10%, just not necessarily at their first choice school.
One possible argument against #1 would be that it would primarily benefit rich white kids.
Jed, It is interesting how obvious this problem is and yet our political class acts like this is some sort of intractable mystery. To me, this issue more than any other shows that our political class is not serious about fixing problems that affect average people.
Scott, LOL! Springfield University could use an international airport! ;-)
Some schools are definitely hurting for cash, but most are more than flush. Moreover, most are wasting vast amounts of money on new buildings, expensive offices, a million VPs, and "the lifestyle."
I'm sure that schools would scream bloody murder about this because they would be faced with having to actually become competitive, tapping into their endowments, cutting some programs (like American Studies), and treating students like customers rather than inputs to get federal money. They would be very upset about that... like a rich kid cut off from an allowance.
tryanmax, Money is always key. That's why when you explain these things, you state the cost saving right away for the taxpayer and for students. Then, when the universities come along, you throw statistics at them using their endowment figures: "Your endowment would pay the tuition charged by your school for X-hundred-15 years before it ran out. Why should you get federal money that has to be taken from coal miners and factory workers who live paycheck to paycheck?" Play the class warfare game right back at them.
You should also gather a series of stupid expenditures to use as a whipping boy: "You claim to need taxpayer money to survive, yet you just spent $100,000 on a 'get to know the Dean' party for rich donors. You are building a new football stadium for $320 million. You own a fricken yacht!"
At the same time, I think your biggest ally will be the public, most of whom have student loans and/or have kids who have them or are about to incur them. They know that college costs have become obscene and they will be happy to see anything that cuts those costs.
Also, since number 3 in particular doesn't involve loan forgiveness, few people will see it as a giveaway.
Andrew, your last comment puts me in mind of something else. Despite the slander that X-ers and Millennials take, they would be very receptive to cutting college costs even though many of them are already through. For one, they already anticipate their own kids going to college. But beyond that, as a generation they are actually rather receptive to messages about improving things for the ones who come after. Heck, that practically the last remaining defense of the Obamacare apologists, that even if you're getting worked over, at least someone else is being helped. :-/ That attitude cuts both ways, so it should be steered to the conservative advantage.
Bev, Thanks! That's good information. It's always important to see how things work and adjust them accordingly. That said, I don't think that's a problem honestly.
First, I would open this to all schools nationwide. So I don't think there will be a problem of anyone not finding a place -- especially if this gets expanded to private schools too, as I mention in the book.
Secondly, I think the 3.2 GPA requirement will likely be key in helping the students make sure they don't overstep themselves by trying to pick something like UT when they should be going to 3/4UT. If they doubt that they can be competitive, they are more likely to pick a lesser school, where they will do better. At the same time, they have a real incentive to make sure they keep that GPA up because it's a $40,000 difference to them. So I think you will see them try harder.
Third, I have a TON of faith in my K-12 reform and it's ability to get almost all kids up to speed very, very quickly, so I think this problem would go away within a couple years of the reform.
Fourth, once students understand how the 15% thing works, I think you will see kids who might be capable but are 20-25th% in a great school shifting to other high schools just to get into that top 15%. That should spread out the talent across the school systems and should reduce this problem.
tryanmax, Thanks for the update on that! I agree with the idea that they don't have a right to get into the school of their choice. The idea would be to let them go for free to whatever school they can get into, not any school they want.
And if this becomes a national bill, then I think there will be more than enough places for these kids to get into a school they will like, even if it's not their first or second school of choice, without squeezing out other deserving kids. That said, it might make sense to add percentages to the bill if this is a problem (should be studied before we say yes). Maybe something like: no more than 50% from out of state, no more than 60% from this program total. Something like that might be needed to make sure state schools leave room for other students.
Kit, Ironically, they actually advocate this to help minority kids because it automatically allows 15% of kids at minority schools to go to college whether they are capable or not.
Hm.
tryanmax, I think this plan can be sold on many levels to those groups. First, as you note, they do seem to have an "improve for the future" spirit.
Secondly, this will help those who are still in school, who are looking at grad school, or who have kids slowly working their way toward college.
Third, this helps those who are saddled with six-figure student loans, which is the Millennials -- Xers will probably miss out as most of us are nearing the end of our loans or have already paid them off.
Fourth, this is a huge shift away from an agenda of ridicule and toward seeming like a responsibly party with constructive plans to make things better. That's the kind of thing that gets you a second look.
Kit, I'm serious. This idea originally came up after the collapse of affirmative action as a way to make sure that colleges would still let in minority kids. Essentially, it began as a substitute for affirmative action (granted admission, not paid admission). But the idea is much more sound than that. Essentially, what they wanted from it is just a side-effect of an idea that makes a whole heck of a lot of sense in many other ways.
So you could actually use this to sell black and Hispanic parents on this reform as well.
I was just reading earlier this week that there are some states that are offering certain undergraduate degree programs for under $10K total tuition/fees. I was reading where Florida was signing on to this Texas has been very aggressive which already has a very good tuition rate for in-state students (though not as good as when I went to UT-Austin for $600 per year full tuition and fees...don't be jealous) -
Link
Tryanmax - It was a huge problem for a while at my alma mater. So many well qualified HS top graduates from top tier schools were frozen out because of affirmative action programs that were coupled with the legislation. And a very high percentage of these lesser prepared to just outright unprepared students washed out at UT-Austin in the first semester because they did not have the opportunities for higher learning college prep programs and did not know how ill-prepared they were for the rigors of university level work.
And why wouldn't they opt for going to UT-Austin over others? UT-Austin is one the top 25 public universities in the country (the UT Theatre Dept is ranked one of the top ten in the world...cough, cough...gratuitious plug...cough, cough) This is why there are so many affirmative action lawsuits stemming from Texas schools...
Bev, This issue is a big issue. It resonates with tens of millions of people. And states that are starting to offer solutions are going to do well. I just wish that our party would climb on board and start offering solutions.
All they offer today is grumbling followed by a vote to increase the amount available for loans -- the exact wrong solution.
Bev, UT Austin and U Michigan are routinely ranked among the top schools in the county, not just public schools but all schools.
Also, in terms of kids failing out, I put that on the colleges too. They need to be more careful in who they take and they need to work harder to make sure those kids succeed. Maybe a good solution would be to reduce the money they get from this program based on how well the kids do once they get there?
Bev, I'm not disputing that it was a problem for UT-Austin. It's clearly the result of not adding additional stipulations as came later. Of course, in Texas the issue was merely admittance, no tuition on the table, so the kids really had nothing to lose by trying to get in there. If the choice of school carried some risk--like maintaining a GPA to keep the full ride--most would make sure not to bite off more than they could chew.
Andrew and Tryanmax - Don't get me wrong, I think that it is a positive idea, if implemented fairly, that all students in the top 15% of their class should be able to choose from a variety of state colleges across the country and compete for free tuition. We need to invest in our future, but it should be limited to meaningful degrees in certain fields like math/science/engineering/medical /education etc. and not anything that has gender, race, or general in front of "studies"? I don't think that it should be a blanket free education.
Of course there should be an "rethink" on what degrees should be given in colleges and universities like say a BFA in Theatre. There are just some degrees that need to be given from specialty and/or trade schools, not universities or colleges. But this is a topic for another time.
Bev, I agree in principle. I would like to see this limited to the types of degrees that result in decent jobs because there's no point in paying people to waste time with an "____ Studies" degree.
That said, we would need to tread carefully in terms of adding a limitation like that so that we don't bring out the "college is just liberals ahhhhhh" crowd, which will defeat the point of trying to win these people over and so we don't end up killing a good reform just to try to get a perfect reform. I would rather get the program and then "tighten" it administratively at some point when no one is looking to limit the types of degrees that qualify.
Also, the free market side of me says that while these things are obviously worthless, I don't have a huge problem with people picking them. It might be better just to make them publish income statistics for each degree so students know what they are getting into.
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