Posted on 11/28/2005 4:05:17 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Neal McCluskey is an education policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
American higher education is getting dangerously fat. Unfortunately, the federal government's idea of a diet is to feed colleges more and cut back on their exercise.
The signs of bloat are clear. According to a recent report from the College Board, between 2004 and 2005 — what seems like the hundredth straight year — the average price of tuition grew faster than inflation. Consider some of the recent binges the money went to pay for: American University president Benjamin Ladner, whose $633,000 salary and substantial university-owned house apparently weren't enough to satisfy him, used school funds to pay for a personal chef he occasionally sent for training in Europe, an engagement fete for his son that ran hundreds of dollars per person, and a garden-club party that cost over $5,000. His punishment? A $3.75 million payoff to leave the school.
Even more alarming are reports of extravagances being built throughout the ivory tower. A 2003 New York Times article, for instance, detailed the proliferation of mammoth Jacuzzis, climbing walls, and other indulgences. This September, Sports Illustrated.com profiled the University of Missouri's new $50-million recreation complex that features "the indoor Tiger grotto" that "takes on a South Beach vibe: Students chill in the hot tub or splash in a lazy river surrounded by palm trees and a rocky waterfall while waiters serve poolside wraps, smoothies and protein shakes."
These things, of course, just show how plump academia is now. The most ominous signs for higher education's future health are federal plans to fix academia.
Congress, for instance, is finalizing the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Many lawmakers have trumpeted the legislation's efforts to save a few bucks by cutting federal subsidies to lending companies, but it also expands student aid considerably. That's a recipe for disaster because student aid is higher education's favorite meal. The same College Board data that showed tuition growth outpacing inflation also revealed that federal student aid, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled over the last ten years, increasing from $44.5 billion to a whopping $90.1 billion. Moreover, while the inflation-adjusted cost of tuition, fees, and room and board increased 42 percent at four-year public colleges and 32 percent at four-year private schools, at almost the same time aid per full-time-equivalent student increased 62 percent.
No wonder students and colleges keep getting fatter. More and more of what they're consuming is being furnished by taxpayers. And Bush administration officials want to see that higher-education revenue keep on growing. In September, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced the formation of a commission tasked with designing a "national strategy for higher education" to prepare us for the 21st century.
The commission is composed entirely of people in academia, government or big business, all of whom benefit when taxpayer money is shoveled into higher education. Its recommendations are therefore almost a foregone conclusion: The federal government should spend more on student aid supposedly to ensure, as Spellings demands, that we have a workforce for the 21st century, and on "basic" research that businesses want done but on which they would rather not risk their own money.
Of course, with a unified national strategy two more things will come: federal control of academia and an end to the competition for students that has driven innovation in American higher education and made it the envy of the world. It's the worst thing we could do according to a recent analysis by The Economist, which concluded that for a higher education system to succeed, it must "first: diversify [its] sources of income" and "second: let a thousand academic flowers bloom. Universities… should have to compete for customers."
Unfortunately, we are heading in the opposite direction. Think No Child Left Behind for the Ivy League. "Many people don't realize that federal dollars… make up about one-third of our nation's total annual investment in higher education," Secretary Spellings declared as she announced the formation of her commission. "By comparison, the federal government's investment in K-12 education represents less than 10 percent of total spending. But unlike K-12 education, we don't really ask many questions about what we're getting for our investment in higher education."
The federal government continues to serve colleges and universities the free money that has made them dangerously fat, and is now planning to keep them from doing the one thing that has helped them stay at least marginally fit: competing with one another. American higher education, it appears, is heading for a coronary.
This article appeared on NationalReview.com on November 21, 2005.
And this wonderful piece of statism is being brought to you by people in the BUSH administration. What happened to the Party of Smaller Government?
PING!
The point of the article can be generalized:
Money given as subsidy to help people purchase something they can't normally afford (health care, housing, etc) often only serves to raise prices as the seller absorb the subsidy.
In this case, giving students $X more dollars for education means the price for and education goes up $X.
They're now the party of Religious socialists.
I hope they remember "thou shalt now steal". Isn't that what the government does when it takes money from one person and gives it to another?
Apparently the Republicans read your typo. They DO seem to remember "Thou shalt NOW steal."
I do agree about the US becoming excessively statist. It was refreshing to watch the interviews with Thomas Sowell in which he asked--
Why are other people bound to do for you what you won't do for yourself?"
Incorrect.
Student Aid subsidy goes up $X dollars, Tution goes up $X + 500 dollars, and book prices go up 10%
The Republicans haven't been that party for a long time, unfortunately. Remember Gillespie telling the Manchester Union Leader that limited government views were no longer welcome in the GOP?
For a smaller government, traditional values, border-protection party you'll have to try the Constitution Party.
Well, at least your children won't grow up to be pampered @$$holes. America, I'm sure, has too many of those already (they're usually addressed as Senator, Representative, or Your Honor).
Right who wouldn't be happier with the <1% party.
BTW Gillespie does NOT speak for the GOP which continues to have a very diverse population.
However the idea of a "small" government today cannot deal with the real world nor with the actual wishes of the electorate. Representative government reflects the wishes of the voters whether you like those wishes or not.
Well, what alternative do you propose? Electing more Big Government RINOs? The only way we will advance our principles is to vote for people who intend to mvoe the ball in our direction. The Republicans have a record of moving it in the other direction.
BTW Gillespie does NOT speak for the GOP which continues to have a very diverse population.
When he was chairman he was a spokesman for the party.
However the idea of a "small" government today cannot deal with the real world
Actually, it would deal with them much better if it were limited to its enumerated powers. A government whihc tries to do too much, as ours does, does nothing well, especially its core functions for which it was set up.
Handout programs and extreme regulations, Federalizing every problem, just make everything worse.
I suspect few conservatives actually believed, when they voted the Republicans in in 2000, 2002, and 2004, that we'd have completely constitutional government. However, I doubt that few anticipated the sheer and utter shamelessness with which these Republicans, in general, have broken away from their small-government roots. Aren't you at all dismayed by these people?
If you can't recognize the vast difference between the GOP and the Party of Treason you are beyond mortal help. Same is true if you cannot recognize the difference between a real political party which must appeal to an electorate that is NOT very conservative and one which consists of empty vaporing based upon misunderstood theory again divine help is required.
Those who believe that all federal action are only those directly and specifically deliniated simply do not understand the meaning of the Constitution nor its genesis.
Even Jefferson recognized the existence of implied powers.
Before any actions can be taken to reduce the size of the fedgov the electorate must be completely re-educated.
No I am not I understand that this electorate must be bribed even to support National Defense. You must be under the misimpression that this is a Conservative nation and that most believe as do FReepers. They most assuredly do not.
What I am dismayed about is the persistent power of the Treason media to undermine the President at every opportunity and the willingness of many "conservatives" to join in that undermining.
Right now every consideration is subordinate to fighting those who would kill every one of us.
After the destruction of the Party of Treason a time will come to reform the GOP at this point it would only assist the enemies of humanity and freedom.
Despite their differences, there are even greatre similarities. No matter which party is in power, the government continues to grow bigger, more intrusive, more expensive, and more centtralized every day. It's Republicans who gave us Affirmative Action, the EPA, new Cabinet deaprtmetns for Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security (not that either was bad, but there was no concomitant reduction in any other departments), McCain-Feingold, the largest entitlement program in 40 years, the recent massive Federalization of education, and so many other Big Government programs that ought to be anathema to conservatives. The GOP is quite comfortable with open bordres. uet unfortunately, to folks liek you, these programs seem to be OK because they were enacted by Republicans. That's what is meant by a Republibot: support for anything as long as it's done by people with Rs after their names.
Same is true if you cannot recognize the difference between a real political party which must appeal to an electorate that is NOT very conservative and one which consists of empty vaporing based upon misunderstood theory again divine help is required.
The COnstitution Party and the Libertarian Party (which has some weird views on social issues) ar ethe only ones who are working for limited government. We need someone to do that. The basic principle of the two-party system is that the parties stand for meaningful alternative programs, which the two major parties have not been doing. There are some differences of emphasis and some differences on foreign policy, but both are Big Government parties. The Constitution Party and to some extent the Libertarians would pretty much evaporate if the Republicans would make the effort to reduce government somewhere. But they don't even try.
I understand that you can't get rid of all the socialism overnight and some compromises will be made along the way, but let's at least make the effort to move the ball in the right direction. The minor parties serve a useful prupose in trying to hold the major parties' feet to the fire. With more support from those who agree with them, they might actually have the strength to make a real wave. Instead, conservatives let tehmselves be used by the GOP in the same way that the raicst liberal Dimmycraps use blacks.
Those who believe that all federal action are only those directly and specifically deliniated simply do not understand the meaning of the Constitution nor its genesis. Even Jefferson recognized the existence of implied powers.
The idea of enumerated powers and a Federal government limited to those few powers is exactly what the Founders intended, what they designed, what they wrote:
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." ---Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817
"the true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best . . . (for) when all government . . . shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as . . . oppressive as the government from which we separated." --Thomas Jefferson
"We must confine ourselves to the powers described in the Constitution, and the moment we pass it, we take an arbitrary stride towards a despotic Government." -- James Jackson, First Congress, 1st Annals of Congress, 489
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." -- James Madison, Federal No. 45, January 26, 1788
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition." -- Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, February 15, 1791 "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions." James Madison, "Letter to Edmund Pendleton," -- James Madison, January 21, 1792, in The Papers of James Madison, vol. 14, Robert A Rutland et. al., ed (Charlottesvile: University Press of Virginia,1984).
"Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." -- Thomas Jefferson, Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, ME 17:380
"[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, ME 2:178
[T]he powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction. -- James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 6, 1788, Elliot's Debates (in the American Memory collection of the Library of Congress)
" The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." -- James Madison, speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794
"With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the "Articles of Confederation," and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted." -- James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, in a letter to James Robertson
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." -- James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)
"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." -- James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788
So I guess the Founders, including the Father of the Constitution "didn't understand the meaning of the Constitution or its genesis."
And there is another good reason to keep the Federal government to its enmumerated powers: when the Federal government gets into so many different areas of our lives, it renders itself unable to do anything, especially its central functions, even minimally effectively. The border situation is a good example of this. As Savage always says, the things that define a country are borders, language, culture, yet we will not do anything to protect any of the three. Instead, we're more concerned with getting money from the government.
Before any actions can be taken to reduce the size of the fedgov the electorate must be completely re-educated.
There is some truth to that, and talk radio, FR, the news sites on teh Net, Fox News, Rush, Sean, Savage, and others are important in doing that. But you undo a lot of it when you then turn around and blindly support a Big Government party because it's "better than the other guys."
Are you saying that the mission statement of Free Republic is futile?
FR is an educational endeavor. Only when the electorate becomes convinced that government cannot do everything for everybody will there be any real cutbacks. That is not the way things stand now. That is what FR must change.
Government grows with the demand of the people and to accomodate and increasingly complex and dangerous world. FR is an attempt to reduce that demand but it can do nothing about the second reason. Even the smallest governments of today will be much larger than those of the past. Now there is room for dispute as to what level of government can most effectively address particular problems. This is not just an American phenomenon since governments have grown greatly across the globe and under every ideology.
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