2 posts tagged “education funding”
In an Education Week article regarding McCain and Obama's likely different approaches to education funding, I came across these quotes regarding federal spending on education, which induced a moderate degree of mental constipation. I believe the quoted individuals are referring to the same federal government, and the same educational system, so I'm having a bit of trouble reconciling the two. I'll bold the source of my confusion.
- "Dan Lips, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, based in Washington, said that federal education spending has risen by more than 40 percent since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind law more than six years ago, and that the boost hasn’t led to a significant increase in student achievement."
- "Mr. Kealy of the Committee for Education Funding said, though, that Sen. Obama’s proposal could represent a 'turning point for education funding, which has seen only modest increases in recent years.' "
- Bodybuilder increases lean mass by 40%. (a modest gain).
- Patient loses 40% of blood (a modest flesh wound).
- Diet increases risk of heart attack by 40% (modest risk).
- School suffers from 40% dropout rate (a modest lack of success).
- Man spends 40% of salary on gambling (a modest lapse in judgment. Wife should not be upset).
I read an article recently about how
increasing student debt is keeping teachers from entering the
profession, since teachers earn modest incomes (at least in the face of
the amount of debt that they are incurring). Upon first read, I was
wondering why some of these folks (almost all of the individuals
highlighted in the article owed egregious sums) were racking up 30-100K
in debt in order to become a teacher. As far as I know, the institution
of higher learning doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of difference
when it comes to getting hired as a teacher (so long as you have the
bachelor's degree) so I have a hard time feeling bad for someone
shelling out 20-40K a year when they easily could have knocked out
general ed. at a community college, and then transferred to a local
state university for the wrap-up and credentialing. roughly
the cost of a modestly priced automobile, and no one thinks that the
debt incurred in buying an automobile is so crushing that taxpayers
must subsidize the purchase of cars. Moreover, the debt from a college
education is paid just once, while most Americans buy more than one
automobile in a lifetime. Finally, it is by no means certain that the
average taxpayer makes more money than the average college graduate, so
the case for forcing taxpayers to subsidize people with better economic
prospects than themselves cannot invok the usual arguments about
helping the less fortunate.
So
what, exactly, is the rationale to lower the cost of tuition by
providing more grants? Especially when people are unwisely allocating
their funds? If people are spending 100K of their own money on
an education in order to land a job where the employer is ambivalent as
to where their employees graduate from, won't an increase in grants be
an incentive to continue making unwise, and unnecessary
expenditures?
