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Congress wants unfunded state mandate for universities
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2008 - Posted by Kevin Fanning [Note from Rich: This is Kevin’s daily post.] * The U.S. House and Senate have both passed versions of a bill that would increase federal grants for students and crack down on problems in the college loan industry. Making college more affordable sounds great to taxpayers and state officials, until you get to this little caveat:
With a possible recession looming over state budgets, and concern that higher education is out of reach for a growing number of students, the spat highlights the relationship between state funding and public-college affordability. Congress argues that when state budgets are very tight, higher education is usually not funded fully funded. State policymakers can just place the burden on the institution who in turn can place the burden on tuition payers. SIUC President Glenn Poshard had this to say in regards to funding at a hearing on the state budget:
*The provision in the bill would withhold federal dollars if a state failed to provide at least as much as its average spending for higher education over the past five years (not counting expenditures for capital projects and research and development).
* Both the National Governor’s Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures are in a frenzy over this. They believe that it is an unfunded mandate on their sovereign states. Although I think the bill sounds great, I happen to side with the NGA and the NCSL on this one. The federal government really has no business telling the states what to do with their institutions. Discuss.
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- Dan Vock - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 9:18 am:
More here… http://www.stateline.org/
live/details/story?contentId=279728
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 9:23 am:
I may be misunderstanding this one Kevin, but isn’t the Federal government saying - we aren’t willing to increase our support for higher ed if you states just turn around and reduce your support. If we’re going to put our money in, we want you to leave your money in. That seems like a fair position - otherwise this isn’t assistance to higher ed, it’s just assistance to state budgetmakers.
- Kevin Fanning - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 9:28 am:
Yeah it’s tricky, and admittedly I have a tough time on the whole point. I agree with the premise of the bill, and think that higher ed funding shouldn’t be continually shifted to the tuition payer, but this bill also ties the hands of state officials. Some times budgets need to be reduced, why should they continually be increased? It really should be up to the individual states to asses. Ever increasing budgets can create a lot of bureaucratic waste, as seen at many state institutions.
- Cassandra - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 9:37 am:
Interesting that at a time when many elite private schools are very substantially reducing tuition
costs for middle as well as lower income students,
public schools are becoming more expensive for attendees. Another reason for elites to cheer; another reason for the middle class to feel even less well served by federal and state governments, since far more students are likely to end up in public institutions.
Anon points out one of the chronic problems with giving any money to Illinois state government.
Our pols, legislative and executive, take out huge chunks for themselves (pork, state government patronage, overpriced state contracts, really badly run agencis like DCFS and DHS, and so on)
so the intended recipients gets only a fraction
of the funds intended to fund this or that social good. Happens with individual taxes too.
- Ghost - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 9:56 am:
I have to side with Kevin on this one. There has been slighltty incireasing attenion brought to bear on the budgets and inflated salaries exisiting at Illinois Universities. Administartive 9-5 workers bringing home more then Directors of State agencies etc. The State and taxpayers need the freedom to poke through these budgets and demand that Universities stop paying exhorbant salaries, expense accounts etc. The first way to reign in out of control spending is to slice thier budgets. (although we really need elected officials in charge who are responsible to the voters as well). The Feds need to respect State soveriengty and stop trying to put in place blanket rules for all 50 States that fail to account for what is happening in individual States. All these things do is take the power awae from the State and its voters to control State operatrions. They are usurping State soveriengty. Beside the rule is a bad fit, notice that it would require continuing spending regardless of waste or corruption within the school based only on the falure of the State to correct the problem before the new law went into effect. Stop locking out the futures ability to fix the problems of today.
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 10:24 am:
Close the public universities when necessary. We have these humongous sacred cows that eat up the budget of our state governments. How can an economically struggling state be both a nanny state and pay for these universities?
I know, I know, we have all these excuses why we don’t dare touch public universities. We need to train, educate, blah, blah blah - but who says we need ALL of them? In this day and age of mass transportation you don’t have to set up a public university everywhere. The entire system itself is a massive public works project, isn’t it?
We have lots of community college, private schools and too many public universities. Time to start winnowing them down to a manageable size so that we can still pay for the social programs the Democrats love to promote!
As our state continues to tank economically, we need to have ugly discussions about the possibility that we don’t need to spend as many billions on public universities as we do now. Instead of expanding public universities, it is time we start shrinking them and customizing their mission so that we eliminate overlapping. Affordable college choices doesn’t mean we have to shovel billions to these sacred cows.
A future with smaller public universities? SURE! What do you think happens when you suck taxpayers dry for Grandma’s and Grandpa’s health care needs? Either you drive even more taxpayers away from Illinois by raising taxes for these boondoggles or start cutting back. What’ll it be?
- downstate hack - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 10:46 am:
State support for higher education has been decreasing for the past several years in both real terms and especially in inflated dollars. While I hate federal unfunded mandates this one is funded ie the feds offer an increase in aid, but add a requirement that seems very fair, that the States don’t use the federal money as a means to reduce their own higher education committments.
- Johnny USA - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 10:57 am:
Too bad you southerners gave up all your leverage when you voted to bail out the CTA.
Now you get scraps.
- Snidely Whiplash - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 11:39 am:
Unfunded Federal mandates are probably the single biggest factor in creating states’ financial woes (except in Illinois, where greed, patronage in both the employment sense and of the “pinstripe” variety, etc. are bigger). It’s easy for congress to make itself look good voting for this, when Congressmen don’t have to chop up their own budget to pay for it.
A bit off topic (and I’m speaking as a person who believes strongly that every American has an absolute right to quality medical care and that one person who dies for lack of money or insurance is one too many), but either D frontrunner’s healthcare plan will shape up to be the mother all of unfunded mandates, likely rendering half of our states bankrupt.
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 1:02 pm:
I think the core problem is that many politicians continue to promote the idea that government services can continue on forever (and we can add more new programs) AND that we are all paying too much in taxes.
The Feds have been pulling back on funding in many areas, the state’s backfill often by pulling money from higher ed. Neither is blameless here.
The real answer is that our “leaders” need to lead and tell us that if we want nice things (like higher ed) we have to pay for them. Businesses want to dodge taxes and still want well-educated employees & the benefits of open research, Joe and Mary Taxpayer want lower taxes, lower tuition, and a high quality education.
Congress is just trying to pass the buck. I would rather see someone step up and admit that we need to focus resources from all levels on Higher Ed because therein lies the future of our country in terms of new industries and the employees to work in them.
- Cassandra - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 2:30 pm:
I don’t believe many of us, even those of us in the middle and lower middle class, would object to paying more for education and health care except that we don’t believe that most of the money which
would be gathered through a tax increase would actually go to education and healht. Because of the very high Illinois corruption tax, a huge chunk of that money will go to support the pols and their cronies and contributors, one way or another. And we are tired of being told, effectively, that the corruption tax is simply something we have to put up with, and there is
therefore something wrong with those of us who
object to this state of affairs.
- butter pecan - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 3:25 pm:
Kevin, I agree that the Fed’s shouldn’t tie the state’s hands, but they should be able to set qualifiers for a state to receive certain funds.
Vanilla man… Where’s this “expansion” you’re talking about? State funding for higher Ed. is decreasing and is at FY 02 levels. Universities have had to make cuts and the only thing expanding is tuition. Last time I checked, I don’t think the state Universities had enrollment problems, so I’m not sure where the students will go when we create these smaller schools you’re talking about.
I know.. I know…education, training, american dream… blah blah blah. Let’s just throw grandma and grandpa in the street too.
I love compassionate conservatives….
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 3:31 pm:
VM, where are all the people leaving Illinois going? I have 15 recent (last four years) college grads in my office. Ten of them are from out of state — Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota.
No one’s leaving Illinois because of taxes.
- Sango Dem - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 3:35 pm:
It would be nice if this stopped Rod’s continued assault on higher education in Illinois. Maybe he wants to keep more people stupid enough to vote for him.
- Fan of the Game - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 4:06 pm:
Illinois has a horrendous record in the past five years of funding higher education. Something needs to change.
However, we now see how the federal government “forces” states to do its bidding. Nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government the authority to levy taxes for education, yet it does so anyway. Then it gives that money “back” to the states. The states (and colleges, universities, and public schools) become dependent upon that funding. Then the government can simply say, “Do what we want, or we’ll withhold your funds.” It worked with NCLB, and it will work in this case.
Illinois needs to better fund higher education, and it shouldn’t take federal blackmail to get it done.
- Skirmisher - Tuesday, Mar 11, 08 @ 4:38 pm:
The simple truth is that the federal government has no business at all in the funding universities, public or private, or providing “grants” to students or any other individuals. By the same token, the federal government has no business telling states how to manage, or in the case of Illinois, mismanage its institutions of higher learning. I personally deplore the failure of Illinois both to control costs and adequately fund its state university system, but the Washington government should have no say in the matter.