I’ve received quite a bit of commentary about my article on the demands by students that taxpayers should give them more support. Not all of the comments were posted on my blog, many came in the form of direct messages on Twitter and some were public tweets. I can’t address them properly in 140 characters so I will address them here.
The comments can be broken down into three categories. The majority were quite supportive of what I wrote which tends to illustrate just how tired taxpayers are becoming at always having to cough up more cash for one group or another.
The second group were actually venting their frustration about how ineffective their education has proven to be in finding a meaningful job after spending all that money and I can empathize with that but it is not the responsibility of taxpayers.
The third group were exactly who I wrote about; "It’s expensive therefore someone else should pay for it."
The second group were actually venting their frustration about how ineffective their education has proven to be in finding a meaningful job after spending all that money and I can empathize with that but it is not the responsibility of taxpayers.
The third group were exactly who I wrote about; "It’s expensive therefore someone else should pay for it."
One conversation started with this comment from a student.
“Hissy fits? You are aware that tuition alone now would have paid for an entire year at university 30 years ago right?”
I am more than aware of it. I worked as a senior exxecutive for a large post-secondary institution for a number of years and have seen first-hand what drives the cost.
I have paid tuition for myself more than 40 years ago and again for my daughter 18 years ago. My wife and I now have her daughter in university and are well-versed in the current cost of a college education. I’ve experienced the increase in the cost of post-secondary over forty years, not as an impartial observer but as a participant.
Thirty years ago, the cost of university was considerably lower when measured against today’s dollars but that is an absurd measurement. Average incomes were about 30% of what they are today. A new Toyota Corolla cost less than $4,000 and a new single family home cost less than $60,000 in most Canadian cities. Condominiums were selling in the $35,000 or less range. Mortgage interest rates hovered between 10 and 12%. Government debt was starting to rise and along with it taxes.
Up to that poiint, about 25% of the average taxpayer’s real income was chewed up in taxes. Now, fully 50% of the average income goes to taxes for one level of government or another in one form of taxes or another.
it is true that tuition was cheaper back then but it is equally true that there was a lot less personal income as well.
It wasn’t any easier back then than it is now and the reason it hasn’t improved is because nobody ever addresses the root causes.
The cost of education is ridiculously high but that doesn’t mean that the solution is demanding taxpayers pay even more than they are currently paying. The problem has nothing to do with taxpayers and attacking people who are tired of watching their....let me repeat that....their hard earned income being whittled away to pay for what others want is wearing thin.. Students aren't asking for help to sort out the problem, they are demanding money that was earned by others to pay for them.
The simple fact is that the high cost of education is found in the six-figure salaries being paid to professors and administrators including seven figure salaries to some American University football coaches.
The simple fact is that the high cost of education is found in the six-figure salaries being paid to professors and administrators including seven figure salaries to some American University football coaches.
It’s found in the absurd text book publishing rip offs that as far as I am concerned border on criminal. Academic text books are sold far above normal market values for books and are amended every year, usually insignificantly, in order to cut down on students selling their books to the next year’s crop of students.
Publishers are aided in this by professors and institutions that sometimes get inducements to require specific texts or one publisher or another. Some professors write their own textbook which they then have printed cheaply and sell to students.
University meal plans, parking, locker rentals and a wide range of other costs are implemented to generate income for the institution without much regard for cheaper ways to provide those services.
The cost of maintaining bricks and mortar institutions is expensive and the post-secondary industry, and for all its fancy rhetoric it is an industry, was slow to take advantage of the cost savings to be found in digital online education.
The cost of maintaining bricks and mortar institutions is expensive and the post-secondary industry, and for all its fancy rhetoric it is an industry, was slow to take advantage of the cost savings to be found in digital online education.
In the end, it drives the cost of attending university through the roof and it is a serious problem but it is not the taxpayer’s problem!
Demanding that taxpayers cough up more cash does two things. First it simply transfers the expense to someone else and that is unfair. Secondly, it does nothing to address the real problem, it merely perpetuates it and that won’t work for anybody.
In Canada, taxpayers are already picking up the tab for 75% of the cost of post-secondary education including tuition, facilities maintenance, academic and administrative staff salaries. In other words, taxpayers are paying the lion's share of what a university education actually costs.
I appreciate that the cost of education is difficult and frustrating. I understand why it makes people angry but that doesn’t excuse the same tired old demand that somebody else needs to pay because the costs are too high. Nor does it excuse the even more tired protests in the streets that disrupt our cities, induce unnecessary conflict with the police and endanger the safety of people on all sides of this issue.
That has become the preferred method of dealing with problems now. Get a mob together, go out into the street and stir things up. What has it accomplished lately?
Well, if you look at Occupy, it resulted in eight people dead, countless criminal charges for rape, assault, criminal trespass, an incredible number of injuries and more than $50 million in property damage across North America. What did all of that accomplish? Nothing! The problems remain and have only been exacerbated by ludicrous bills for repairs and ancillary services now being paid out of tax dollars.
How often do we have to keep reliving the failed mistakes of the past before somebody finally stands up and says, “Hey, this doesn’t work! We need to find a way to fix our problem rather than throw a hissy-fit over it and demand others pay for it!”
Canada and the United States are already living beyond their means. There isn’t enough tax revenue to pay for the programs already in place let alone add new ones. Both countries have borrowed significantly just to meet the bills and guess what? Programs are being cut because of it.
Canada\s richest province, Ontario, has gone from being a have to a have-not province in less than eight years and the draconian service cuts are already starting just to try and balance the books.
Canada\s richest province, Ontario, has gone from being a have to a have-not province in less than eight years and the draconian service cuts are already starting just to try and balance the books.
Suggesting that borrowed money can be moved from one entitlement to another in an attempt to justify support for a particular entitlement is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It won’t matter how nicely those chairs were arranged, the ship is going down. Greece is the perfect metaphor for what happens when you lie to yourself like that.
Greece is the poster nation for where a country living beyond its ability to pay leads. If you thought trying to struggle through the high cost of post secondary education in Canada was a challenge, try to imagine what it will be under the conditions that now exist in Greece.
The simple reality is that there are thousands of students across North America who are dealing with the exorbitant cost of going to college and I don’t dismiss that challenge lightly. But I find it insulting that students who live in a province that has the lowest tuition in North America by thousands of dollars annually feel hard done by because they are facing what amounts to $175 per semester increase.
It offends me to see those students marching in the streets demanding more from taxpayers, the same streets where the homeless try to find shelter. Their demands are not for a better society, the demands are for more for themselves at the expense of others. It is selfish and nothing less than an unwarranted sense of entitlement by those who have not earned that right.
It especially offends me that those students demand more while we have children going to bed hungry at night and can't successfully deal with poverty because we don’t have the tax money to properly address the issue, Too much money is being paid out in entitlements to too many who think life is unfair and who continue to demand more.
It especially offends me that those students demand more while we have children going to bed hungry at night and can't successfully deal with poverty because we don’t have the tax money to properly address the issue, Too much money is being paid out in entitlements to too many who think life is unfair and who continue to demand more.
It’s a big world and it isn’t always easy. It's just the way life is and it doesn’t mean someone else is suddenly responsible for paying your way because things are difficult. That merely leads to where we are now, stupidly trying to build a successful society on borrowed money. That is nothing less than the road to perdition. If students who are demanding more haven’t figured that out by now, they’re in for a rude awakening when they graduate and discover how little their degrees are really worth in the workplace.
Even taxpayer dollars won’t help them then.
I'm Tired Of Student Hissy-Fits Over Tuition And The Greed Behind Them!
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/04/there-is-greed-in-more-places-than-just.html
|Entitlement Addiction
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/04/entitlement-addiction.html
The Drummond Report - The Liberal Gravy Train Exposed As An Economic Train Wreck
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/02/drummond-report-dalton-mcguiintys.html
© 2012 Maggie's Bear
all rights reserved
The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar