> the total lifetime cost of the program is now estimated at 1.3 trillion dollars
But the would-be US presidential candidate suggesting free higher education is the fiscally irrespomsible fantasist, apparently.
But the would-be US presidential candidate suggesting free higher education is the fiscally irrespomsible fantasist, apparently.
I've seen estimations of about 1.7 trillion for the wars since 9/11. That'd be another 24 years.
Peter Dale Scott wrote a book about something he calls "The Deep State" which at least, to me helps explain how seemingly regardless of who gets elected, such unpopular expensive programs continue without elected officials people having any discussion of legislation to stop it.
What has increased is the share of that cost that is being fronted by the student, instead of the government. You want to be mad, be mad. But at least point it in the right direction.
For example - at the 'state funded' institution I was previously employed by, only 11% of our annual funding came from the state. Compare that to the 1970's, when around 60% came from the same source.
The cost of tuition didn't increase (outside of annual inflation adjustments) overall. The cost to the student increased because the state cut back so hard on their payments. Meanwhile, students demand the same, or better services every year. You can have cheap, you can have good, but you can't have both.
The fact that people going to college in the 1970's were able to pay for college on part-time summer jobs wasn't because it was miraculously cheap. It was heavily subsidized.
These aren't secrets.
For instance, there's occasional debate about defunding public broadcasting, which costs 0.013% of F35 + wars. Planned Parenthood is 0.018% of this. Even the often hotly contested NASA is 0.62% of this.
A few years ago, congress was in heated budget debates - trying to knock off PBS to save a buck - but a plane that cost 48,743 times that was never brought up for discussion.
Even if you span these budgets over the 20 years of the F35 program, something like planned parenthood cost 0.4% as much.
If we can find the time to talk about X as a huge waste of tax payer dollars and have legislation to defund it, surely we can find time to talk about something that costs 25,000% more than X.
However, other than an occasional news article and grumble of discontent, nothing actually happens. It moves forward unabated. That's a problem.
It seems such a terrible mis-allocations of resources since those same brilliant people could help the next generation learn and progress.
Or the simpler explanation is that Americans do not value public higher education as much as they value their global hegemonic position.
Secondly, teaching jobs in the US are extremely hard to come by and have such poor pay that most people in manufacturing would do better in the same communities by looking for factory work.
As it stands, most of the "brilliant" people that are motivated enough simply leave these areas for bigger metro areas and the typically rural communities that make up a very large portion of the US's population and area suffer brain drain. Over generations, this flight becomes culturalized resentment for those trying to better themselves and there is strong pressure against people from leaving. Hence, one of the strongest values among rural people here is "nobody is better than anyone else" and any hint whatsoever of arrogance is extremely chastized. The irony that this is surprisingly close to what liberals fight for in the US politically never seems to register (much of politics in this country is really strange but primarily racially divided or based purely upon economic standing at this point rather than upon actual political views - most black voters are actually conservative and most poor rural whites would vote Democrat if gun control was relaxed, for example).
Anti-intellectualism is very strong in the US compared to most countries in the world and needs to be examined much more closely than other factors IMO.