Investing in higher education for all pays off
California can be an annoyingly trendy state. Think avocado
toast, In-N-Out Burger, Hollywood fashion, even legal pot.
But Californians are now in the vanguard to fix the serious
problem of how to pay for public higher education.
Over 44 million households in the U.S. are saddled with college
debt — $37,000 on average. Together they owe over $1.4 trillion,
surpassing credit card debt and auto loans.
In the 1970s, California led the world with its famously accessible public universities and community colleges. Millions of Californians received a virtually debt-free college education.
A friend of mine attended both undergraduate and grad school at
the University of California in the 1970s and covered all of
his tuition and expenses by painting houses during two months of the summer.
That’s not possible anymore. Decades of tax cuts for the
wealthy, state budget cuts, and rising tuition and fees have pushed costs much
higher — and right onto students and their families.
Between 2011 and 2017, in-state tuition and fees at the
University of California rose by nearly a quarter,
from $10,940 to $13,509. Out-of-state costs grew to over $40,000.
San Francisco voters took a bold step in 2016 to push back on
that trend.
They voted to tax luxury real estate tax transfers, generating over
$44 million a year from property sales over $5 million. The city allocated a
portion of this revenue to provide free tuition and stipends to San Francisco
Community College, boosting enrollment by 16 percent.
“I jumped at the chance,” said Cynthia Diaz, a San Francisco
resident studying early childhood education. “I have less stress juggling work,
family, and school.”
Diaz has joined an effort to expand the concept beyond San
Francisco. She’s collecting signatures for the California
College for All initiative to
expand college access for over 2.5 million California students.
If successful, the effort will generate an estimated $4 billion
a year to invest in public higher education — and greatly reduce tuition and
fees. Over 80 percent of the funds will be targeted to students based on need.
Funds will come from restoring a state inheritance tax on
Californians with wealth over $3.5 million and couples with over $7 million.
These same households just got a massive tax cut at the federal level, as
Congress voted to double the family wealth exempted by the federal estate tax
from $11 million to $22 million.
At a time of extraordinary wealth inequality, taxing wealth to
pay for higher education is a powerful idea. If the California initiative
passes in November, it will serve as a model to the nation for how to both
reduce concentrated wealth and expand college opportunity.
It may sound radical. But the idea basically restores the
formula for college access from the post-World War Two era. In the decades
between 1945 and 1980, we taxed high incomes and wealth at much more
progressive rates and invested in expanding public higher education.
Other states are addressing this problem too.
Tennessee created the
Tennessee Promise, a scholarship and
mentoring program that provides two years of “last dollar” assistance to
college students to fill any gap not provided by Pell Grants. In Michigan, a
group of anonymous donors started the
Kalamazoo Promise, guaranteeing free
tuition to students who graduate from that city’s high schools.
Other states, such as New York and Massachusetts, are moving
toward free community college.
But the California solution would be the most comprehensive
initiative yet, covering millions more students at all levels of the public
education system.
That’s the best idea since beach volleyball and Mickey Mouse.
Chuck
Collins directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute
for Policy Studies. He’s the author of the recent book Born on Third Base.
Distributed by OtherWords.org.
