Department of Politics and Government - Illinois State



Joseph ElmoreProfessor Haq (Monmouth College)15 April 2017Why the “College for All Act” is not for AllElmore 2AbstractIn the 2016 presidential primary election, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders proposed making four-year college tuition free for all. Bernie Saunders named this plan “the College for All Act”, which would eliminate tuitions and put more spending on the federal government. Which begs the question, where will the government get this money from? According to Bernie Sanders campaign website, the College for All Act draws money from a tax imposed on Wall Street. Senator Sanders dubbed this tax, the “Robin Hood Tax”. Funding for higher education is an important issue for my generation. But the growing government debt is also a highly significant issue for my generation. Germany is presented for Americans to emulate because it has a fully funded public higher education system. In this paper I examine the practicality of implementing the German system in the United States. Is the concept and application of a fully federally funded public higher education system feasible in the United States? My answer to this question is no because U.S. is a much larger country with a diverse higher education system that may need some reform but generally works well. The Germans are not entirely satisfied with their system and some of them want to move to American style of financing for higher education.IntroductionIn the 2016 presidential primary election, Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders proposed an idea to make all 4-year public higher education institutions tuition free. Bernie Saunders named this plan “the College for All Act”, which would eliminate tuitions and put more spending on the federal government. Which begs the question, where will the government get this money from? According to Bernie Sanders campaign website, the College for All Act Elmore 3draws money from a tax imposed on Wall Street. Senator Sanders dubbed this tax, the “Robin Hood Tax”. This tax was named the Robin Hood tax by Senator Sanders because in theory, we are taxing the rich to give to poor college students. The way the tax works is all based on speculation. There is a 0.5% tax on investment houses, hedge funds, and other stock trades. This is because Senator Sanders believes that majority of these people on Wall Street have off shore accounts where their money is not taxed. But aside from this portion of the Robin Hood tax, there is also a 0.1% fee on all bonds, as well as a 0.005% fee charged on all derivatives. Senator Sanders believes that the accumulation of all of these taxes will lead to a yearly income between 70 and 75 billion for the government to put back into higher education, the restructuring of previous student loans, as well as drastically reducing student loan rates for future students. But, not all of the money will be coming from just the federal government. The financial burden will be split between the state and federal governments 2/3rds paid for by the federal government whereas 1/3 will have to be provided by the state. The point of the College for All Act is to ease the burden of college debt in America. Which begs the question of, why is the price of college so high? Well according to, from, college tuitions have skyrocketed since the 80’s because the private institutions realized that getting a college degree was invaluable. Therefore colleges were able to keep raising tuition knowing students were going to pay. But, it was for a reason. Argues that the funds were used to make campuses more appealing to students so they were spending money on new non-academic buildings such as student centers and athletic complexes. This is just a portion however; most Elmore 4money was going to the ever expanding college administrators. This all has led to the ever inflating college costs. The Bernie Sanders campaign firmly believes this is the way our current education system needs to move to be competitive with the rest of the globe. Not just in terms of education but to manufacture the best educated generation possible to produce the best workforce. Being a world power the United States has a responsibility to maintain a certain level of education and some may argue that the United States has fallen below this threshold. The plan Senator Sanders has proposed seems in theory to be reasonable.Research QuestionOne of the many hot button issues in the 2016 presidential primary as well as the presidential elections was higher education. More specifically, how should the United States handle higher education funding? Funding from the state and federal levels has seen cuts over the past couple of years, and as a direct result tuition fees have inflated. The inflation of college tuitions has concerned many, but none more than Vermont senator and former democratic presidential candidate Bernie Saunders. The self-proclaimed democratic socialist proposed in the democratic primary election to change the current state of our higher education funding from small federal grants and loans as well as state support, to fully federally funded public higher education institutions. Similar to that of the current German system. Germany has a fully funded public higher education system that has just recently abolished every public higher education institutions tuition fees. Therefore he question being asked is about the practicality of a system like this in the United States. Is the Elmore 5concept and application of a fully federally funded public higher education system feasible in the United States? The relevance of this question can be broken down into serval overarching factors; such as: the current budget crisis at the state level (ie.) Illinois), the current political and social rift happening, student debt, the government profiting off of loans, and the fact Germany is debating on whether or not to implement tuition fees. Therefore, the system that the United States would be trying to emulate, may be moving towards more of a system similar to the United States. FinancingThe financing of public higher education is split three ways. Majority of funding comes from money made by the school (tuition fees and donations mainly from alumni), followed by state government funding, and finally funding from the federal government. This is how the United States appropriates money for higher education, most of the support however comes from the state rather than the federal government. The numbers given are 63 billion spent by the states, 9 billion granted to low income students from the federal government, and 38 billion in loans from the federal government. Kane discusses how the states funding has gradually fallen off which has directly contributed to the inflation of public higher education tuition. These numbers include 16 states increasing tuition by more than ten percent in one year. Not only this but the widening gap of expenditures per student. But Jennifer Delaney argues that states spending falling off is acceptable. Delaney believes firmly that government spending at the state and federal level may fluxuate depending on economic upturns and downturns. This is because schools can rely on gifts and tuition. Higher education institutions do not need to be dependent upon the government since there are so many other channels of funding to pull from. But many of the authors agree Elmore 6that both United States and German funding should not be dependent completely upon the government, there is no need, when there are other institutions that do have to rely mainly upon government funding such as Medicaid. Many of the authors and articles tend to lean towards the idea of Delaney, or that of Dominic Orr. Orr believes that funding coming from the government should partly be based upon performance. United StatesJohnstone believes that the United States needs to shift from funding higher education to more of a privatization of higher education. He argues that Students need to carry the burden if they would like to continue to get an education. He also says that high school completion rates are sky rocketing therefore putting more of a stress on funding which contributes to his belief that studetns need to shoulder the burden. We do not have the resources to keep funding these kids who are going to get a higher education. Not only do we have an abundance of new kids going to institutions of higher education but also people who were not able to go prior. This is argued also by Caboni, who believes that the United States needs to focus funds on K-12 schooling rather than higher education. The preparation for higher education is much more important, according to Caboni. Which in turn will help to make higher education more affordable because instead of the inflation from lowering standards to get into these institutions of higher education, they can raise their demands and the United States will be more successful. In turn we will be able to become more competitive driving up the value of our degrees and education system. Then we have other articles such as the one by Daniel Layzell and Thomas Kane that argues there will always be state spending. Layzell discusses how he believes there will always be state spending it will just move up and down depending on the deficit and the overall economic Elmore 7outlook. Layzell argues that states will always try to find a way to allocate some sort of money, but it will depend largely on how our economy is doing and what is happening with the other spending pressures such as Medicaid, and corrections. Mark Smith sees things happening the same way. Smith does in fact believe that United States should be funding higher education, he believes it is valuable to go on and get a degree. But, Smith also acknowledges there are many other outside pressures when it comes to making the budget and allocating money. He believes that institutions of higher education are more than capable of funding themselves and being sustainable. Finally Jane Wellman, believes there is a major problem with the way we fund institutions of higher education today and something needs to be done. Wellman argues that students are paying too much money and not seeing any of it in return. This meaning money within the college is being spent elsewhere and the students are not seeing the value in their education. Meaning that the money instead of being put back into research or instruments for the students other renovations may be made around campuses or back into the pockets of the staff. She also argues that there is a problem when these institutions are raising tuition up three to four percent above inflation. These arguments are clear that Wellman believes that we need to do a better job of funding our institutions of higher education. The inflation is coming from the ever increasing lack of funding, therefore Wellman argues that students are paying more, but getting less in return. German FundingWhen it comes to German funding there is not very much of a difference in opinion. We know that Germany has been toying with the idea of moving to a system that is similar to the one the Elmore 8United States has, where there is help from the government and money is allocated for institutions of higher education, but it is not fully funded by the government. Germany currently has a system that is fully funded by the government but they are trying their best to move away from this system. There just seems to be a lot of ambivalence in the process. The ambivalence in this process is what is discussed in Hans Weiler’s article. Weiler likes the idea of moving the system, he believes it is time for a change, although he does not see anything happening in the near future because of this ambivalence. No one is quite sure how to go about the change or what is right, because many of the German people feel as if free higher education is a basic human right. Because of this divide and lack of knowledge on the topic and how to handle this situation Weiler feels as if a change is not possible in Germany. It is important to note the ambivalence of the German people because this could be the United States if we were to actually try to change our system. As Weiler discusses the divide in Germany, there is already a divide in the United States without too much to argue over, our view points in this country are so off center from one another that doing a major overhaul like Germany is trying to do would never work in the United States. Gudrun Biffl writes about the European Union while looking at Germany along with several other European Union Nations. He discusses education because of the dramatic jump in people going to institutions of higher education. Just as we seen happen in the United States. Because of all these reasons we see Biffl argue for tuition fees. Then we have Susanne Warning, who again shares a lot of similar beliefs with the authors from the previous sub topic. Warning is a fan of reimplimenting a tuition fee in German Elmore 9higher education, but she also understands that to be successful and keep costs as low as possible to avoid inflation, and driving up the national student debt, there needs to be some sort of government aid. This is where Warning spends most of her time talking about a performance based aid. Just as many of the American scholars believe, Warning shares many of the same arguments. She believes that performance based funding will foster competition among institutions to bring out the best while helping decide which schools will receive the surplus of money in the budget.Finally we have Helga Welsh. Welsh believes that major change is under way in Germany but is unsure of when we will actually see it take hold. Like Weiler, Welsh is very hesitant because of the ambivalence of the German people. Not only is there an ambivalence, but she also cites other scholars who believe that the changes that we are seeing right now is nothing but aimless “face-lifting”. This is all part of the problem because there is an agreement upon goals, but everyone is differing in how they would like to achieve these goals. We have seen several attempts to try to do a reform in Germany but nothing is ever accomplished according to Welsh. The main points Welsh tries to hit home with are that the application of a tuition fee is not only a struggle within the institution itself, but the government on both the state and federal level. Why will it work?From all the research that I have conducted, there have been little to no evidence supporting a claim that the removal of tuition fees will work. The only evidence of any sort of funding for institutions of higher education is that of a system which we already have. That the state and federal governments should help to foot the bill a little bit, but there is no way that a government Elmore 10can take it on completely. The reasoning for this is that, there are just too many other factors at play. We see interest groups getting a say in where money goes, we have wars and other sorts of federal problems to deal with. Whereas on the state level of government there is just simply not enough room in the budget to be able to afford the price. There are so many more institutions that would need funding, and too many students to completely fund. This was one of the main reasons Germany’s fully funded higher education system has failed them, and they are trying to move away. Germany had really hurt themselves because by the state governments paying for higher education, there is not as much of an incentive to get done with school, there is no money of your own that you are risking, which is partly why we see Germany rank so low in the OECD in terms of graduation rate (thirty-six percent), and time. Which was just leading to more and more spending from the German government that they did not have the proper appropriations for. This is why so many of the German scholars believe there needs to be some sort of tuition at stake for the students to pay. Not only tuition but there still needs to be appropriations from the government, but to go along with the appropriations they would like to see the performance based funding as well to try and make their higher education institutions a little more competitive.Theoretical UnderpinningsI wanted to look at these questions comparatively, to get a better understanding of the arguments on both sides. From what I was able to gather with my initial research is that no matter what a free form of higher education does not, and will not work. I had a strong feeling when I began research that there was no way a form of completely free higher education would be feasible, in Elmore 11the United States or anywhere else. So far my feelings have been correct. We see one of the most successful European Union nations having some difficulties and wanting to change to a form of funding similar to the United States. Upon seeing this in the earliest stages of my research that immediately threw up a red flag and I was able to try to unwind and figure out why they would be wanting to do this when we have so many people in the United States who are begging to move away from the current system we have. With all of this rhetoric about changing our current system, I began to wonder if it was even possible, the things Senator Saunders wanted to accomplish and the strong support he had to do this. I am not one of his followers, but I believe he did make many interesting points. Just like the people of Germany many here believe that education is a right, and we should not be charged for our rights. Although I do believe what we have now is currently the best we can do. Now I am not saying we should be graduating every kid into mountains of debt to try and fend for themselves when we get out of school, and have so many defaulting on their loans. No, this kills our economy and all of that money loaned that is never paid back is just lost money that could have been managed better by the government. With that being said this research is not to sit here and brag about how a free form of higher education is failing or how capitalism is right. But it is a comparative piece that I believe may be important in helping to shape our government spending, and higher education down the road. The more we can learn and understand will help to move forward and avoid putting our future generations behind the eight-ball in terms of student loans and graduating with debt. Let’s set up a system to where we can be successful and competitive.Elmore 12What other works missedOther works have missed quite a bit, from not looking at the problems in Germany, to several others. But the biggest is not realizing why Germany has been struggling and trying to move to a system that we currently have in the United States. All of these works look at one side or the other. No work has yet to look fully at the problems America is facing in terms of higher education and the budget, and compare it to the current German system, and their flaws. We have just looked at one side and thought that their system was the right way. This is what my research has tried to look into, I am examining why Germany is trying to shift to a system that is like ours, what is wrong and why is it not working over there. How can we use this information to make our situation better? As people we need to learn and take in other ideas, but we cannot just rush to the finish like most citizens want us to do right now. By looking comparatively at what Germany has done and where they are going and looking at our current situation I believe that we will find that a free public higher education system is not entirely feasible, but we can find a happy medium to try and help with the current problems we face with our economy, budget, and higher education price inflation.HypothesisI believe that free public higher education is not a feasible goal to obtain in the United States. I expect to find and have found a lot of scholarly articles supporting my hypothesis. I have found several things throughout my analysis, I have started to get an idea of why Germany has begun to try to move away from a fully government funded higher education program. I have also found that there are a lot of other outside factors at play when discussing the federal and state budgets that are much more important than funding higher education. Not to say that higher education is not important by any means, but because these institutions of higher learning have ways outside Elmore 13of the government to raise money. The subtopics that I have focused on primarily through my research includes: United States higher education funding, German higher education funding, and why scholars believe in a tuition fee. These are important to pick out from the articles because they all give insight into not only my research question, but they also help to support my hypothesis.Discussion Germany and America share a lot of commonalities, from their top tier economies built on the shoulders of the working class, to their federal and state style governance. But there are several differences from their socialized health care to their free higher education system. Many people in America believe that America should be following in Germany’s footsteps toward a fully federally funded higher education system. Though the numbers from the OECD prove that the United States current system is, just as effective, if not more effective than Germany’s style of free higher education. Though my research I was tasked with finding out graduation percentages, enrolment percentages, as well as percent of the population that has received the different levels of education from below secondary, all the way up to higher education. Looking at this information, we see both nations’ education systems are exceeding the averages for the world, but for the economies and powers they seem to not be as impressive as one may think. In Germany we see four different ranges of enrolment measured by the OECD that is men form ages 15-19 and 20-29 and then the same age ranges for women. When it comes to Germany we see these rates very high. Men 15-19 are enrolling at 90.5% men 20-29 lower, but for a higher age, still very high at 35.7%. Women have a little bit lower enrolment percentage. Women ages 15-19 enroll at 88.9% Elmore 14where as women 20-29 enroll at 33.7%. Okay, we now can see Germany’s rate of enrollment, but what are their graduation rates at. Germany graduates men at a rate of 36.1% and women at a rate of 39.5% for a total graduation rate of 37.8%. This is not that bad, but American rates are much stronger. In the United States we see men ages 15-19 enrolling at 79.7%, and 20-29 enrolling at 22.6%. Whereas, we see women enrolling at a respectable 83.5% for ages 15-19, and for women ages 20-29 enrolling at 28.4%. These numbers make sense because you would expect students to take advantage of a free higher education, and students who do not have that luxury tend to not enroll at rates as high, as most Americans who get a college education find themselves in a heap of debt. But this is the truly interesting aspect of my research. Men are graduating American institutions at 44.3%, women at 64.6%, for a total graduation rate of 54.2%. This is no surprise to me, as I had previously mentioned students in America have a higher sense of urgency to graduate since there is so much money on the line, it is the ultimate incentive. Whereas there is not as much pressure in Germany, they receive a free education and if higher education is not cut out for them, they can leave and join a very strong work force that makes a comfortable living. Even if it was a possibility to eliminate tuition fees and make higher education free, we should not. Money is the ultimate incentive, this is why the United States has a higher graduation rate then Germany. I also believe this may be part of the reason Germany may be attempting a reapplication of a tuition. But, I do not know this for a fact. Money truly is the ultimate incentive for anyone doing anything.If the United States were to fully fund higher education, there are several things that I believe would happen. First, there will be a higher percentage of students who will be going to public higher education institutions he flood of students will lower the quality of education Elmore 15making college more and more impersonal, and crippling private colleges as students will chose a free institution opposed to an incredibly expensive private institution. Funding higher education will also lead to an increase in the deficit because I do not believe there will be enough money appropriated for the massive influx of students, including those who decide they want to go back to get a higher education, who could not afford to get an education previously. But, there will also be a strong presence of students who go to higher education institutions who drop out. This is will be attributed to the lack of preparation because the money spend on higher education should be spent on the preparation for higher education. Conclusion Future research for this particular question will continue to be relevant as our society and government moves forward. There will always be people who believe that the United States should eliminate tuition for public higher education institutions. These people believe that higher education is a right just like health care. But as society and education advances so will the cost, so there will always be a debate in terms of tuition fees. In the 2016 primary presidential election seen Bernie Saunders campaign against Hillary Clinton as a self-proclaimed socialist democrat. Meaning that he believes in human rights should not be something you pay for such as education, and health care. But, one of Bernie’s key platforms he was running on was the elimination of higher education tuition. This was to appeal to the younger voters which seemed to work. Elmore 16However it is a very good thing that at this point tuition free higher education in the United States is not feasible. The elimination of a tuition fee due to the government is not feasible because the United States because our population is just too large and diverse. Elmore 17Bibliography Biffl, Gudrun, and Joe Issac. "Should Higher Education Students Pay Tuition Fees?" European Journal of Education 37.4 (2002): 433-55. Web.Caboni, Timothy C., and Mitiku Adisu. "A Nation at Risk After 20 Years: Continuing Implications for Higher Education." Peabody Journal of Education 79.1 (2004): 164-76. Web.Delaney, Jennifer A. "Introduction to the Special Issue on Higher Education." Journal of Education Finance 36.4 (2011): 339-41. Web."Education Attainment." Education Attainment. OECD, 2016. Web. 6 Mar. 2017.Johnstone, D. Bruce. "Cost Sharing in Higher Education: Tuition, Financial Assistance, and Accessibility in a Comparative Perspective." Sociologick? ?asopis / Czech Sociological Review 39.3 (2003): 351-74. Web.Kane, Thomas J., Peter R. Orszag, and Emil Apostolov. "Higher Education Appropriations and Public Universities: Role of Medicaid and the Business Cycle." Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs 2005.1 (2005): 99-145. Web.Layzell, Daniel T. "State Higher Education Funding Models: An Assessment of Current and Emerging Approaches." Journal of Education Finance 33.1 (2007): 1-19. Web.Mclendon, Michael K., James C. Hearn, and Christine G. Mokher. "Partisans, Professionals, and Power: The Role of Political Factors in State Higher Education Funding." The Journal of Higher Education 80.6 (2009): 686-713. Web.Mclendon, Michael K. "State Governance Reform of Higher Education: Patterns, Trends, and Theories of the Public Policy Process." Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research (2003): 57-143. Web."Number of U.S. Colleges and Universities and Degrees Awarded, 2005." Infoplease. Infoplease, 2006. Web. 9 Mar. 2017."On the Issues: It's Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free." Bernie Sanders. N.p., n.d. 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