They need to repeal the tax cut for the 2% fat cats, repeal the the loop holes where the fat cats hide their money and keep the tax cut for couples who make less than 250,000/yr.

When the government creates a program that enables students to pay a reduced portion of their educational expenses (Pell Grants) the colleges don’t just sit there and say “that’s nice” — they JACK UP THEIR TUITION so they make EVEN MORE. Thus, the Pell Grant is simply a funnel moving taxpayer money into institutional cash balances.

What we’ve reached in this country with education is another state of nonsense, like we have with health care and housing, where the govt causes an inflationary spiral by “helping” people afford something they otherwise would have to scrimp to afford.

FOR EXAMPLE, in Canada, their FLAGSHIP UNIVERSITY, the University of Toronto, rated just a tad below places like Harvard and Yale, costs only SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS for Canadian resident students.

Like housing, and like healthcare, you’d think we;d look north of the border for solutions, wouldn’t you? But NOOOOOO—- we just keep on making things worse.

And people like you., who don’t understand economic cycles, are part of the problem..

(This idea that prosperity is a zero-sum game, where other classes suffer BECAUSE one class prospers, is not only antihistorical, it’s antirational, exposing those who believe it the intellectual equivalents of Neanderthals (no offense to the Neanderthals).

So you have chosen to argue that the position of a few people in no particular position to affect outcomes represents the thinking of everyone who advocates higher education being available to those who want it and can do it.

This nation has a stake in the education of its youth. The question may be do you want it to be available to as many as possible regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds. The counter may be to argue it should only be available to those whose parents can afford to send them or those with some special talent which allows them to qualify for a scholarship, or those who have special friends. Maybe the question is should we continue to narrow the life opportunities for some based, on their or their parents incomes.

It makes no sense to me to underfund public schools and then complain about outcomes. It makes no sense to say well we have much better test results in Westlake than we do in Reagan and ignore the amount available to spend on one set of students and the wealth of the parents in one area as compared to the other. You can continue to pretend, if you wish, that outcomes in this society aren’t sharply influenced by money, position, color, or culture and a lot of other things the individual has no control over, but it is pretending.

We live in a very wealthy nation with a high standard of living and high cost of living. You are comparing apples and oranges when you compare our costs per pupil with the costs per pupil spent by other nations not as wealthy as us. You run into similar problems comparing small nations and small populations with larger populations and nations. Generally speaking valid statistical comparisons need to hold pretty much everything else which can effect outcomes constant while it compares two things at issue. Failure to do so means you ignore all the other factors which may affect your outcomes.

Oh, by the by, you aren’t the only person who works.