Originally posted by groundhog
I've touched on this one before, but it seems to be a recurring topic.
Bottom line is this: Many state university professional schools are considering huge increases in tuition rates. Logic is as follows. The primary purpose of state universities is to provide state residents an inexpensive education up to the bachelors degree level. Beyond that, tax payers should not be expected to subsidize the education of professionals who will go on to earn much more in life time income than the average tax payer. I find it hard to argue with that logic. Anyone care to try? Please spare me the old saw about society needing to attract the best in as much as the higher cost private professional schools sure don't have to go slumming in order to fill all of their openings.
The trouble with that justification isn't so much the logic itself, as the arbitrary place the government choose to cut it off. Sure, it sounds nice to say "people shouldn't have to pay for public services they're not ever going to get to use," except that doesn't wash.
A few reasons I can pop out off the top of my head: first, the reduction in cost isn't just some sort of charitable subsidy for graduate students; they're getting a discount because they've (usually) been paying into the system for several years, and the whole point and philosophy of public service is that anyone who pays taxes and is qualified receives the benefit of those services. It might be a dumb philosophy or it might be a good one, but regardless, it's currently the rule of the road.
Second, it's to the advantage of the government to entice these people to stay in-state to practice after graduation. Suppose the government pays 1/3 of the cost of my DDS, call it $50,000. Over the course of my career, I'm going to expend exponentially more in taxes and disposable income than if I'd gone directly to work with my bachelor's, and so the government is going to recoup that $50,000 probably several times over by the time I stop working. To that end, I think it'd be a smart move on the part of state governments to allow for after-the-fact residency establishment for dental/medical/whatever school students; that is, the student is granted immediate residency status for purposes of paying tuition and fees, in exchange for a one-to-one agreement for the student to live and practice in the state after graduation. For those that agree, after spending four years establishing a career and laying down roots, I think the states would notice a substantial uptick in the number of nonresident students staying for the long haul after graduation. Doing that would not only bring an influx of nonresident "immigrants," but the distribution would be skewed in the direction of the most educated and highly paid individuals.
In a nutshell, groundhog, that's what I'd like to see happen, and why I think treating resident students like out-of-staters is an exquisitely bad idea
😉
