No. Instead, you use the budget that the huge amount of taxes leaves for education and let students study for free (or close to free).
Really, the headline makes me cringe, the idea that some people consider this a good idea makes me cry and the domain name ("marginalrevolution") is a joke in this setup.
What a sad idea..
Edit: The state/the country already HAS equity (Ignoring the bullshit and that I think that this link only made HN because of this trigger word). It's called 'taxes'. If you flip burgers, the state gets little money. If you work for Google, FB, Apple, MS (yeah, all not in Oregon. But stay with me) the state makes quite a nice sum, every year, for ~40 years that you're supposed to work (k, feel free to reduce that number).
I haven't seen so many bullshit alarms related to a HN story going off for for quite some time. I would love to sit down and talk to someone that seriously considers this 'cool' and 'a nice idea' and try to understand how that is even possible.
Cowen, the post's author, considers many possible angles and outcomes of such a policy, and specifically addresses its relationship to your preferred model: a free, taxes-paid higher education.
He's willing to see the Oregon proposal tried to observe the results, but seems doubtful it will work well, for reasons nearly opposite to your objections: he sees it as likely subsidizing student and educator errors via adverse selection and other malincentives.
Against that, you provide a series of emotional poses – "cringe" "cry" "joke" "bullshit" "bullshit alarms" – and total confidence that this isn't even worth trying. That doesn't add any new information other than, "darklajid doesn't like the headline". (Is darklajid a name I should recognize on educational and public policy issues?)
The problem with "taxes" as the solution is if the grad leaves the state, they wouldn't get the money. "Taxes" is not a solution.
The only way "taxes" would work if this was a national plan since the number of people that leave the country is small enough to be safely accounted for.
But isn't that just a re-hash of the age-old, and fairly weak, argument against all taxes? We all pay for things we don't use, and we all use things that other people pay for. The point of taxes is to make large, long-term investments that the private sector won't make on its own, and university education falls squarely into that niche.
And just to head it off before it starts, no, the private sector won't fund universities, not the kind we need. The private sector will pay for job training, yes, but not real education (the kind that teaches the sorts of literacy necessary for a successful free and democratic society). Look up the difference between specific and general human capital to see why (at least partially) this is the case.
If you think some kind of tuition requirement, whether it is paying up front or a long term tax of 3% on income, is a bad idea...I'm really lost at what to tell you.
1) There is a cost to go to college, someone has to pay.
2) That cost needs to be borne by those people whose incomes are enhanced by going to college.
3) Simply producing "more college graduates" isn't a net positive when 60% can't find jobs in their field.
If you think any of these shouldn't be true, we aren't going to agree on anything and you should stop trying.
It isn't like I'm saying to cut state funding to the school. I'm saying if you want to raise state funding, the college graduates should pay for it. They utilize the service.
Really, the headline makes me cringe, the idea that some people consider this a good idea makes me cry and the domain name ("marginalrevolution") is a joke in this setup.
What a sad idea..
Edit: The state/the country already HAS equity (Ignoring the bullshit and that I think that this link only made HN because of this trigger word). It's called 'taxes'. If you flip burgers, the state gets little money. If you work for Google, FB, Apple, MS (yeah, all not in Oregon. But stay with me) the state makes quite a nice sum, every year, for ~40 years that you're supposed to work (k, feel free to reduce that number).
I haven't seen so many bullshit alarms related to a HN story going off for for quite some time. I would love to sit down and talk to someone that seriously considers this 'cool' and 'a nice idea' and try to understand how that is even possible.