THE KALAMAZOO PROMISE VS. THE LAKESHORE SHAKEDOWN

I learned from WOOD TV8 news yesterday that Bob Denooyer, owner of Denooyer Chevrolet, has an idea for replicating the "Kalamazoo Promise" college scholarship program in the Lakeshore region around Holland and Zeeland.  Now if you're thinking that means he wants to donate his wealth to fund college tuitions like the anonymous donor in Kalamazoo did, maybe "replicating" isn't quite the right word.  What Denooyer wants is to have you, the taxpayer, open your wallets to the tune of $40 million a year.

His idea is to levy a 1.5% tax on the income of every household in the Holland-Zeeland area to give the approximately 1,750 high school graduates in the region a full-ride tuition to college.  Apparently it has eluded Denooyer that forcing everyone under the penalty of law to cough up cash for a program like this is not a gift to make good on a promise, but a shakedown to cover a demand.  It is one thing for a generous soul to promise to pay the college tuition for any kid who wants a higher education.  It's another to demand that a community be taxed to pay for EVERY kid to go to college.

What is this delusion people like Denooyer and so many others suffer that it is an absolute must for kids to immediately go to four years of college after high school -- if at all?  What's wrong with getting a job, enlisting in the armed forces, or going to a community college?  Is giving an eighteen-year-old a free ride on the back of taxpayers, to whom he has no accountability (unlike other types of scholarships), really a good idea when as an adult he should start learning how to fend for himself?  And if this one-size-fits-all solution to starting out adult life is four years of college, why is it the burden of the taxpayers to pick up the tab?

Isn't it enough that the taxpayers must pay for a bloated, underperforming elementary and secondary public school system?  If kids aren't getting the skills they need to start out life from that elaborately expensive process, why shouldn't Denooyer and his cohorts demand improvements there instead of demanding that taxpayers put up the money for another four years of schooling?  Isn't this where the real scandal lies:  After thirteen years of public education, our kids apparently need another four years of schooling to be employable?

But what's easier?  Breaking the resistance of the teacher unions and adminstrator associations to real reform of public education, reforms that might cost them some of their perks and benefits and even sinecures?  Or persuading a group of politicians to not fight that fight and sock it to the taxpayers again?

Finally, whatever answers you may have to all of these questions, has Denooyer even identified a real problem in the Holland-Zeeland area?  Are there truly any kids not going to college because they, or their families, can't afford it?  According to TV8, Holland High School counselor Sue Sirotti says that 85% of the high school graduates go onto college.  So who isn't getting a college degree because the taxpayers aren't footing the bill?  And even if a kid can't put together the funds to pay for college immediately out of high school, what exactly is wrong with him working for awhile or serving in the army until he has the means to do so?

In fact, I think most of us know from our own experience or the experience of others how much more seriously a college education is taken when we do so at an older age -- especially if we have had to work hard to get it.  As a matter of public policy, there's something to be said for the school of hard knocks.  If nothing else, it doesn't cost the taxpayers anything.

Comments

[ed hawks]

Bill, I have an alternate idea/proposal. I as a parent responsible for the support and well being of my children started saving for my children's college education about 8 years ago. In two more years my daughter will graduate high school and have an nice account in her name in which to begin her college education from. Where she decides to go to school will dictate how far that money will get her and whether or not she will need to borrow money to finish but regardless it will get her off to a good start. It also is not a free ride on mom and dads back as she is going to have to work and make informed decisions as to what she has to spend and where she goes and how much her obligations are going to be. Oh, I forgot the best part about this plan. My child gets to grow up, learn to make finicially based informed decisions, establish priorities and get a college education and it does not cost the tax payers one iota.

[The Executive Director]

Hi, Ed.

Sounds sensible to me. I'm certainly not advocating that parents should through their kids to the wolves come eighteen (though it might do some of the little wonders a lot of good ;), so I like the way you're giving your daughter a leg up into the world but still making her accountable for the decisions she makes.

The "Lakeshore Shakedown" would ruin that dynamic. Four free years of college tuition becomes an entitlement. Kids don't have to learn about how to make important choices with limited resources. They get college only because they want it. Conversely, what about the kid that makes the choice to move on without college? Should he be pressured by family and friends to do otherwise because this freebie tuition is out there for the taking?

So I not only see the "Lakeshore Shakedown" as bad public policy. I'm dubious of the social benefits it would yield.

Regards, Bill

[Steve Smith]

A 1.5% income tax? I too blanched when I read that. Even the City of GR only levies 1.3%. I can't believe DeNooyer doesn't see, or ignores, the differnce between an endowment and a tax. You would also have to measure the negative effect that always comes with increased taxes- e.g. will the tax base and services suffer as the exodus of overtaxed citizens begins?

Meanwhile, your comments on entitlement beg the question: Was the Kalamazoo promise an altogtether good idea?

[Tommy Times]

I don't have an opinion on the specifics of the DeNooyer plan. On a more general level, I do think it would be good public policy to make college more affordable. It would be better addressed at the state level than on an adhoc local basis.

There was a time when a student could work in the summer and make enough money to pay for public university for a year. That is a very rare occurence now. To make enough to pay for a year of school, you would have to have a summer job that paid the equivalent of $45000 a year. There are not a lot of those jobs around for kids straight out of high school. Maybe there are a few, but not nearly enough for that to work for more than a small percentage of students.

As for working during the school year, that can help a little, but I have seen a lot of kids hurt their education by working too much during the school year.

The effect of college unaffordability on the public is to make it more difficult for poor and even middle class kids to get the same education as wealthier kids, thus creating a class-based society, not a merit based society.

Further, the trend in the economy is evolving to reward and require more education, and obstacles to higher ed do not help.

Finally, I believe that a program like the Promise can help, especially for kids whose parents did not attend college. Without it, they or their parents may feel that the resources to pay for college won't be there, so why bother with all the studying, etc.? With the promise, every kid and their parents know that if they are prepared for college, they can go.

[Tommy Times]

One more thing. Some statistics from the University of Wisconsin,
http://apa.wisc.edu/CLH/MedianFamilyIncomeandTuitionbyState.pdf,
show that yearly instate tuition as a percentage of median family income
has doubled over the last 20 years. In 2003, U-M tuition was 15% of
median family income.

[The Executive Director]

Hi, Steve.

You ask: >>Meanwhile, your comments on entitlement beg the question: Was the Kalamazoo promise an altogtether good idea?<<

Good question. Let me put it this way, because I think what the anonymous donor of the Kalamazoo Promise did was a good and charitable act. If I had a fortune to do good works, would I have endowed a Kalamazoo Promise? No.

First of all, I think the real problem in education is not a lack of access to college. It is a dysfunctional elementary and secondary system of education that has pushed off to higher education what it should be teaching. For example, effective vocational training should be re-introduced in high schools.

Second, much of what passes as college cirriculum is nothing more than a job-training program. Does a person really need a bachelor's in hospitality management when four years working the night shift at a motel would make him a better manager? Whatever happened to on-the-job training? It disappeared because people have been willing to pay for training at colleges, and businesses have been happy to pass on the costs of OJT that way. Time to turn this trend around.

Third, the effect of severing the consumer of a service from direct responsibility for payment of that service is to increase the price of the service, because the consumer's decisions to use the service are no longer predicated upon the cost. Inefficient spending results. A good example is payment for health care through a health insurance program that part of an employee benefit package. The cost of college education is already out of control because of the high demand for it because of the pursuit of "non-professional" degrees (see the previous paragraph) and a large measure of non-direct payment for it (such as deferring payment through loans or prepaying through savings programs, plus direct assistance from the government). A program like the Kalamazoo Promise does not help this problem.

Finally, I'm not persuaded that the best thing for a kid's future is to immediately enter college upon graduation from high school. Living a little life first might be a good idea.

Regards, Bill

[The Executive Director]

Hi, Tommy.

Thanks for the link.

You're right that a college education has gotten extremely expensive. Twenty-five years ago it was possible for me to pay my way through school by working. That has all changed.

Moreover, I don't think the quality of the education these days merits the huge cost of it. So why is it so expensive? As I mentioned to Steve, I think a large part of it is the increasing demand upon colleges to provide job training, which they are more than happy to do. The law of supply and demand are at work here.

To the extent that that demand is premised upon the faulty idea that colleges are needed to provide vocational training, subsidizing that demand through either a Kalamazoo Promise program or taxpayer-funded tuition grants will not correct the problem. Indeed, it will exacerbate it.

So what would be a good public policy to address the problem of out-of-control costs for higher education? I think the answer must lie in: [1] Getting people to re-consider the assumption that college is an absolute for success in life, and [2] getting the public schools to do a better job of preparing kids for emploument.

Regards, Bill