> My tax dollars shouldn’t be an ATM for student tuition.
In theory tuition is a great way to spend tax dollars because it creates better educated citizens who will earn more money (and pay more taxes). In practice it does seem to be more like monopoly money that props up sub-par schools and provides even worse education to those who could benefit from it the most.
Depends on the theory. If you believe that college education is a positional good - that it allows people to be classified as middle-class and be prioritized for white collar work at the expense of non-college-educated competitors - then tax subsidies is the last thing you'd want to do.
Wow. That's a really good point... subsidies lead to overconsumption and overconsumption of education leads to "degree inflation" which leads to... even more overconsumption of education.
Would you say that in countries like Germany, where there is no tuition fee and university is funded with tax money, schools are sub-par because of that?
Definitely not but I think Germany puts forth considerable effort to make that happen. It's my understanding the the German equivalent of K-12 is much more uniform in the quality of education than what the 50 states provide. They also cap school fees that the government will cover so tuition doesn't increase at ridiculous rates. Since they're so diligent in the quality of K-12 education they can then set pretty high standards for admissions & administration of universities without disenfranchising lower-income students. Although a German friend of mine was recently telling me there's been a push to "ban" private K-12 schools (that charge tuition beyond what the government will cover) because many people find it distasteful that someone could "purchase" access to a better education. I would love the German education system but it would take a miracle to implement something similar in the U.S.
In theory tuition is a great way to spend tax dollars because it creates better educated citizens who will earn more money (and pay more taxes). In practice it does seem to be more like monopoly money that props up sub-par schools and provides even worse education to those who could benefit from it the most.