BCT Editorial – 10/13/04

This page was last updated on October 13, 2004.

Money talks; Editorial; Beaver County Times; October 13, 2004.

I’m not sure which Times trait this editorial exposes more, flagrant socialism or economic ignorance. I know the editorial board is not stupid, so I lean toward flagrant socialism as the exposed trait.

Just as it does for government K-12 schools, the Times believes more money is a leading answer for community colleges. The editorial couldn’t be further from the truth.

If so-called community colleges were truly community colleges, any funding above tuition would be and should be a local responsibility. For example, any government funding for CCBC would come solely from Beaver County taxpayers. Even then I believe government-funded colleges would be wrong.

I believe government schools, colleges, et cetera are wrong because they drive up the price of education for everyone. It’s the same problem we have with healthcare. When a third party pays a significant portion of the price for a good or service, the consumer becomes price insensitive. That is, the consumer doesn’t care how much the good or service costs because someone else pays for most of it. In government education, the government is the third party because it takes taxpayer dollars to directly and indirectly subsidize the schools. Government directly subsidizes schools by direct transfers of taxpayer dollars to the school budgets. Government indirectly subsidizes the schools by using taxpayer dollars to fund below market student loans and outright student grants/scholarships. Therefore, the true cost of education is hidden from the consumer (student) while the taxpayer gets stuck with the “premium” caused by market meddling. The premium is the difference between what the education would cost in a free market and what the education costs because of government meddling in the market.

Don’t get me wrong. Education is a key part of the foundation on which our republic grows and most of us recognize that fact. Unfortunately, what most of us don’t recognize is that in our zeal to make education accessible to the most people, we’re going down a road that will eventually have the reverse effect. Taxpayers are already saying “enough” or “too much.”

This is exactly the same problem we have with the price of healthcare. We need to wake up and face reality.