Yes, the regressivity of state and local taxes certainly contributes to the regressivity of higher ed funding. But the other side of it is that participation in higher ed is positively correlated with income. Higher income students are more likely to go to college, more likely to go to flagship universities that get much larger subsidies than e.g. community colleges where low-income students go, more likely to persist to graduation. So they get much larger shares of the subsidy.
So in fact I would not actually support very low tuition with a progressive tax structure. Even if it's free low-income students can't afford it. Public two year tuition is about $2000, but that's just tuition. Add living costs and it's much more. Add the opportunity cost of taking time out of the labor force and it becomes a real problem. There should certainly be generous public subsidy of higher education - but more of the money should go into need-based grants to students and less of it into keeping tuition low for affluent students. I'm not familiar with Edgar Litt's work. >===== Original Message From PEN-L list <PEN-L@sus.csuchico.edu> ===== >On Saturday, February 26, 2005 at 21:48:32 (-0500) sbaum writes: >>... >>One important issue is that keeping tuition at public colleges low through >>general subsidies is not necessarily the best social policy. Income levels of >>students at public universities are actually quite high and the general >>subsidies can be quite regressive. Higher tuition levels accompanied by >>generous need-based grant aid are a better way of targeting the subsidies at >>low-income students. > >I read your article and this post. Both are very useful, sober, and >thoughtful --- refreshingly so. Thank you for taking the time. > >I don't quite understand the context of this last paragraph. Is it >because general subsidies are primarily from regressive (state and >local?) taxes? Can we presume that you would agree that the optimal >solution would be to have a broadly progressive taxation system and >lower tuition levels? > >Out of mere curiosity, have you ever read any of the work of Edgar >Litt? > > >Bill
