2008 Woodie Awards
Should Alabama consider instituting a tuition cap?
Tuition cap is not solution to real issue
Jason Shepard
Opinion Editor
Issue date: 4/2/07 Section: Opinion
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Everyone wants to pay less. As prices go up, life gets harder, especially when it is the price of a necessity or some other "it" that is important to many people's goals in life or to their lifestyles. Food, housing, healthcare, energy and education are some of the "its" I have in mind.
As prices go up, it is not uncommon for people to look to the government for relief. Gas is above $3 a gallon; people want the government to punish the oil companies. Entry level housing skyrockets by 20 percent in a two-year period; people want to expand subsidies for homebuyer programs.
Healthcare is unaffordable; let's socialize it. College is becoming unattainable due to rising cost; our legislature should be debating tuition caps.
Many of these "solutions," however attractive they may sound, will more than likely make the situation worse in the long run. Price ceilings create inefficiencies in the market … blah, blah, blah.
But the case of education is a little different. A nation that is full of quality resources has the upper hand. A nation that makes efficient use out of these resources is destined to remain strong. Although we generally don't like to view human beings in this way, a country's population is indeed its greatest asset.
Education is vital in maintaining a valuable population. One of the ways a nation can make the most efficient use out of its population is making sure that everyone has the opportunity to receive an appropriate education according to his or her abilities - and with some consideration to the needs of the state and the natural marketplace. Of course, this presupposes that there is a quality educational structure in place that has the ability to breed a diverse and highly educated population.
However, tuition caps don't address this problem one bit. All tuition caps will do is keep college affordable for people that fall into a certain income bracket, while diminishing the ability of an institution of higher learning to collect the funds it needs to fully function.
As prices go up, it is not uncommon for people to look to the government for relief. Gas is above $3 a gallon; people want the government to punish the oil companies. Entry level housing skyrockets by 20 percent in a two-year period; people want to expand subsidies for homebuyer programs.
Healthcare is unaffordable; let's socialize it. College is becoming unattainable due to rising cost; our legislature should be debating tuition caps.
Many of these "solutions," however attractive they may sound, will more than likely make the situation worse in the long run. Price ceilings create inefficiencies in the market … blah, blah, blah.
But the case of education is a little different. A nation that is full of quality resources has the upper hand. A nation that makes efficient use out of these resources is destined to remain strong. Although we generally don't like to view human beings in this way, a country's population is indeed its greatest asset.
Education is vital in maintaining a valuable population. One of the ways a nation can make the most efficient use out of its population is making sure that everyone has the opportunity to receive an appropriate education according to his or her abilities - and with some consideration to the needs of the state and the natural marketplace. Of course, this presupposes that there is a quality educational structure in place that has the ability to breed a diverse and highly educated population.
However, tuition caps don't address this problem one bit. All tuition caps will do is keep college affordable for people that fall into a certain income bracket, while diminishing the ability of an institution of higher learning to collect the funds it needs to fully function.
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