In the U.S. Congress, the passage of the 2 major infrastructure bills has been halted as internal debates inside the Democratic party continue. A major concern by one of the senators is the enormous price tag of the larger bill of $3.5 trillion. In these debates, there are concessions being made to substantially lower the spending in this bill to make it more palpable for more fiscally conservative members.
One of the major pieces of this bill that has now been taken out is the spending allocated for free community college. This section would have guaranteed paid community college for people of color and low income to have a chance at higher education. However, this piece of legislation will be cut out to ensure that the rest of the bill can pass with all Democrats on board.
In my opinion, this was one of the most important pieces of this bill as higher education is extremely important for future prosperity of the United States. More well educated workers can encourage more businesses to keep their operations in the US as they can better guarantee the quality of their products. This can also lead to more innovative products to be invented domestically to give US companies an advantage in the global market. There are societal issues that could have been addressed as well. Income discrimination is a fundamental problem in the United States as systems in place make it harder for people of color to climb up in the social hierarchy. One of those systems is in our education as it is one of the best ways to climb out of poverty. Higher levels of education ensures better employment and higher wages to provide for their families. But the extremely high price for higher education has only raised the barrier to entry. Without free community college, there will be no incentive for the free markets to correct this market failure as there is no economic benefit in doing so.
4 comments:
Despite the U.S. Government not being able to bring free community college at the hands of every, American people, I feel that firms (especially large ones) should take partner with universities to give free college to their employers. I think that if enough businesses offer that, maybe over time government officials can come together to offer free college. Especially during this time where people are leaving the labor force, firms offering free college assistance could be a great incentive for people.
I agree education is vital in lowering unemployment and rising earnings. I think it would be extremely hard to implement free college education because for it to be "free" we would have to increase taxes and politicians do not want to put their reputation on the line because generally, people in the U.S are not in favor of paying more in taxes. I also wonder if community college became free how many more people would take advantage of it. Furthermore, if more people opted to go to CC would that lower the rate of return of going to CC because more people would have that on their resume.
You mentioned there are concessions being made to substantially lower the spending in this bill to make it more palpable for more fiscally conservative members, but I think regardless this price tag needs to drastically decrease. As the debt ceiling controversy was just present, we can't put ourselves right back into it with newly created price heavy bills, regardless of the benefits.
Yes, the amount of money that is proposed to put into education might seem large nominally, but keep in mind that it is nothing compared to other government expenses such as social security or national defense. The United States does not have a history of investing heavily in education. Education spending accounted for less than 3 percent of the $3.8 trillion in federal spending for 2015. Now try to make sense of the $1.25 trillion national security state budget.
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