Higher Ed: Can the Government “Fix” it?

When people suggest that “government is responsible for fixing such-and-such,” implicit in their position is the belief that government is “capable” of fixing such-and-such. If you believe that government is responsible for “fixing health care,” it follows first and foremost that they believe government can fix it. Once it is established that government can, and then must, fix the broken system, it follows that no amount of meddling is too much, when used towards the attainment of the ends sought. And it doesn’t matter if it’s health care, insurance, hunger, poverty, or education.

Barbara Jackson of Troy suggests that higher taxes are the solution to funding the failing higher-education system here, I’ll bet politicians love her! Barbara, I’ll gladly put you in touch with the proper IRS form in order that you can pay more in taxes.

But the greatest problem is that our government does not support an affordable education for all students. People do not understand that taxes are necessary to support the things we deem important. Higher education is good for society.

More importanly, an “affordable education for all students” is a non sequitir, just like affordable health care for all, or jobs for all, or wealth for all. It’s a socialist fantasy; and it is economically impossible. We have gotten to this point precisely because the government has tried to make affordable education for the masses. The result has been more expensive degrees which are worth less, or worthless. By removing the costs from those who receive the direct benefits, government has created a situation in which everyone wants the benefits. Note that this effect has only marginally been countered in Europe, where they resort to a highly selective rationing system in order to allocate higher education. Pity the day when the same happens in the United States.

As we know, economic calculation is impossible under socialism, and likewise in bureaucracy, Neil and Dorothy Strefling came oh-so-close to hitting the nail on the head:

However, the story failed to mention an underlying cause of the higher education funding problem — the political and irrational formula that dictates how state universities are funded with taxpayer dollars…

That is, until they present their be-all-end-all solution: “The frustration of Michigan’s students and their parents should be directed to the Legislature, so they can fix a broken system.”

Politicians cannot legislate solutions, they can only create laws that discourage or proscribe certain behavior. But more importainly, the University system in the US is by and large a system of publicly funded schools, and to an extent, they are publicly mismanaged. The government is already interfering, it is failing miserably and has been doing so for years – therefore, the only solution these people can come up with is more government?

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This is precisely the sort of tortured logic libertarians are referring to when we say things like “The incentives of bureaucracy are skewed towards failure, and they encourage graft and incompetence.”