Gingrich’s Gas Attack. He And The GOP Need Some Higher Education On Higher Education Instead
GOPers far and wide have lately noticed, and noticed, and n.o.t.i.c.e.d rising gas prices. They didn’t squawk much about it when Dubya was president, but then they weren’t trying to oust a president. Context has ch-ch-changed, and they’re turning to face the strain – at the gas pump where they hope to refuel the GOP’s faltering electoral strength. Their concern over rising prices, however, is highly selective. For example, health care cost inflation bothers them, but they prescribe solutions that will worsen it. And college cost inflation, well, Newt Gingrich noted in a November 2011 GOP Debate while discussing Pell Grants:
“It’s an absurdity. What does it do? It expands the ability of students to stay in college longer because they don’t see the cost. It actually means they take fewer semester hours on average, it takes longer on average or them to get through school. It allows them to tolerate tuition costs going up absurdly . . .”
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So Newt doesn’t think too kindly about free money, even if it does advance the nation’s higher education goals. Pell Grants spend $36 billion per year assisting nearly 10 million students; that’s one half of all undergraduate college students. Would he rather spend the same sum on moon-shuttling federal prisoners – I mean “colonists.”? Please, don’t ask him.
Also, he derides those pesky Pells on a principle that would make the unreformed Scrooge grin. Is it better for Pell students to finance those grants with loans? Ought the country abandon a program that supports college students? Yes. Recall that Gingo and the GOP disdain government “meddling,” particularly if it supports the income strata that needs Pell Grants. For them, Pell Grants are simply another form of welfare – not food stamps, but education stamps.
So, yes, he and his party believe it far better for young graduates to be stuck with high cost private loans to cover what they would have received in Pell Grants, not to mention the many thousands who would be unable to attend college at all, even community colleges. This helps render them student loan slaves, persons not likely to get all that uppity with the boss.
Also, although Gingo doesn’t seem to have gotten the word, absent Pell many more students would have to work their way through college, increasing competition and lowering pay for already low-paying jobs near campus. This results in what he averts he deplores: “. . . they take fewer semester hours on average, it takes longer on average or them to get through school.” Has Gingrich ever really worked a full day in his life? Who attended college for him? Who did his homework? I need answers!
Even the heinous Paul Ryan (R-WI) has stories to tell, and he intends to kill Pell Grants come Hell or high tuition bills:
Look, I worked three jobs to pay off my student loans after college. I didn’t get grants, I got loans, and we need to have a system of viable student loans to be able to do this. [Article here]
“Viable student loans” is Republi-Speak for “high cost private sector loans.” Indeed, that works for GOP interest groups. Scads of money is made when people default on their loans, and the default rate is now around 13% for debt issued in 2008, for example. Student loan debt is a windfall for collections; debtors are virtually unprotected: they cannot discharge the debt in bankruptcy, wages and tax refunds can be garnished, employment terminated in some cases, and professional certifications withheld. So, how is the country served by this? In short, Pell Grants – tax supported aid to education – helps many avoid going deeper into debtor’s hell.
Here’s a little breather, the trailer to the student loan system movie, Default: The Student Loan Documentary.
So, Gingo and the GOP maintain that Pell Grants (actually any free money for tuition) causes tuition inflation, by increasing the number of college students. This, in turn, permits colleges to raise tuition. It’s simple, more students mean higher tuition. The number of students is the only variable they consider here. I think – I hope – they know more is involved. I think they are doing what they usually do, lying in the service of destroying or crippling another federal program. But perhaps they do not know at all. Well, regardless, it turns out that their claim about student-driven tuition increases is another fact-free tidbit emergent from their Rube Goldberg propaganda machine.
College tuition inflation is primarily related to rising costs at universities as they adapt to the technological revolution affecting our society. Tuition costs do not rise because more students attend a college. Evidence indicates the opposite. Why? Generally, the cost of an additional full-time student does not add to an institution’s costs, in fact, in smaller colleges the cost per student drops. Economically, this result is due to general elasticity, and a flat supply curve.[For a good and accessible discussion of this phenomenon, see an extensive preview at Google Books of Why Does College Cost So Much? by College of William & Mary Professors Robert B. Archibald, David Henry Feldman.]
Furthermore, during times like these, ushered in by the likes of Gingrich, state tax revenues have fallen and higher education has suffered, particularly among state universities. Many private university endowments are still under water after the collapse begun in 2008. As a result, colleges and universities have far less resources available to meet their costs. This is especially true during times of recession.Principally, it is cost that drives the tuition price per student, it is not the number of students attending. The cost per student has remained essentially flat for colleges. Costs? Quite the opposite. The costs of doing business, and upgrading, maintaining, physical plant, marketing, etc. has risen markedly. These are items and functions that a university must purchase and perform, they must meet the market price, now with less state and federal assistance. Thanks to whom, I wonder.
Yes, inflationary college tuition increases comprise a major challenge for our nation. Republicans, I believe, accept the increases as a part of their intention to, over decades, in effect, withhold college education from the property-less class. How they believe this will help America I do not know, but they are anything but rational at this state, and rely on discredited supply side economics and Ayn Randian social theory instead. So, keep this in mind when you hear more Gingo Lingo, and when you hear all the other GOP linguistic pseudo-experts on college costs.
As a footnote to the chart above, let’s not fail to understand that a rise in 50 cents per gallon in fuel costs affects those in the lower income quintiles the most, far more than those with higher incomes. Why? It’s regressive in its effect. That 50 cent per gallon increase takes up a higher percentage of a low income family’s total income than they can afford without foregoing other necessities like food and rent. Gasoline prices disproportionately affects the poor, and worsens their ability to find work, to feed their children, to pay the rent.
As with the GOP balderdash about college tuition, their contention that the cause of rising gasoline prices is the lack of U.S. production is wrong. More on that soon.
