A policy of shifting the financial burden of running institutions of higher learning onto the backs of students has been justified as a retreat from thinking of college as a public good, which the whole of society benefits from, to thinking of a college education more as a private good that should be purchased by decision makers and the public at large. This reasoning serves to explain the shifts in financial responsibilities that have occurred around this country with regard to who pays for the costs of post secondary public education. In this document, we analyze the goals of a policy that reverses this trend back to what the financial relationship between the individual and the government was more like thirty years ago when government paid more of the proportional costs of education. What would be the implications of adopting a policy of increased state subsidies of the costs of public university education? What would be the outcomes of a system that did not rely so heavily on subsidizing the credit of college students for loans, which have to be paid back over the course of a person's life? The goal of lowering the opportunity costs for a high quality education that encourages new generations of college graduates to enrich our community will take a lot of work and cooperation in our pluralist system of public university `` governance," not to mention money.

In order accomplish such a goal of dramatic financial change in public university financing, Congress and the states would have to redirect public funds or come up with new sources of public revenue to support the costs of running our many public universities nationally. An unintended although plausible outcome of raising taxes to achieve our policy goals would be the possibilities of decreases in business activities because of the increased tax burden. We assert that this trade off of the costs of education, from the student to the private sector, is both in the long-term interest of the economy, our society and in the long-term best interest of business as well. Good indicators of this could be new economic activity that springs from university campuses, university's share of GDP and companies that choose to locate to the US because of our educated workforce. As we will explore, shifting the costs of education off of the backs of college students has many benefits that outweigh the short-term concerns of the private sector. In a world where the global volume of information doubles at an ever-increasing rate, a college education becomes more a necessity than private good for today's public university student however normative a judgment this may seem. In a global free trade market, those countries whose citizens take advantage of opportunities to capture markets will be better off financially and be more able to pay for public services such as education. Investing in education is a cyclical concept where returns recycle back into a country's ability to pay for government programs and services.

Increased state subsidies of public colleges and universities [both federally and on the state level] will increase the ability of public colleges and universities to teach greater numbers of students and lower the out-of-pocket costs of going to school. It should be noted in such a strategy, policy makers must make this decision within the context of the `` education pipeline" and consider community college enrollment and funding and well as high school graduation rates. For the purposes of this paper, all other levels of education have had adjustments that would allow such institutions to mitigate any negative effects that would result from a dramatic increase in the numbers of college degree holders. Increased state subsidies of public colleges and universities means students will be less reliant on other sources of income to subsidize their education. Students will presumably have to work fewer hours outside of the classroom and have more time to focus on their studies and the many extracurricular opportunities available on college campuses. Parents of students will have more disposable income themselves having to pay less of their children's education. Increased state subsidies could translate in stagnant, decreasing tuition rates, or tuition that rises more slowly. Lower costs mean it will be less likely that a student will be forced to take out loans and accumulate debt. This, means at the same time while there will less money being streamed into the lending community students will be less likely to accumulate high levels of debt. The same amount of money will still `` flow" it will just be in a different direction. Less debt, means more choice and freedom to peruse life goals though academic disciplines that are not going to help you pay off loans when you graduate but will help the world in some other way, such as becoming a nurse or a teacher or a poet, or politician. This academic freedom gives students the choice to peruse disciplines that offer society a greater understanding of the world and ourselves, but that don't always make many dollars, or at least at first don't make dollars. Less debt also will help deal with a social phenomena called a `` reverse endowment" where literally, people considering marriage most take into account each others level of college debt. For the purposes of this paper, we will assume that a liberal education is both a private and public good. More specifically, it is good that universities give citizens the opportunity to explore more than just what the job market of the moment demands. That is, there is a long term public good to be reaped for a society that focuses on educating its citizens with a broad liberal curriculum.

Less debt also means a greater ability to accumulate wealth through the course of one's life because of the magic of compounding interest. A young person's ability to achieve early investments into their future and that of the lives of their families is greatly inhibited by student loan debt. Getting a mortgage, buying a car or paying for health care costs, like for starting a family, all suffer for a student who graduates with a lot of debt. This is a freedom (financial independence) that when inhibited creates a whole set of negative attitudes and beliefs and discourages innovation, creativity, financial security, self-esteem and hope, among other things. In an admittedly extreme but still analogous situation, indentured servants did not control their own destiny and as such, felt oppressed.

Lowered out-of-pocket costs means that enrollment demand will increase. On top of a projected `` ripple effect of the Baby Boom," which college and universities are predicting over the next 10-15 years, this increased demand can be responded to in many different ways that either inhibit, facilitate or mitigate increased enrollment. Costs will go up and in an environment of pluralism, it is impossible to predict how campuses will react nationally to this challenge but it seems many if not all are increasing costs to the student while the government backs out financially, with enrollment increases on the horizon. This has been coined `` the double whammy" effect in academia; enrollment projections are up while state appropriations are projected down. So it is safe to assume that lowered opportunity costs for college will increase demand on top of a predicted surge in demand anyway. Evidence of this is being felt today. We are experiencing an economic downturn and more working Americans are choosing to back to school; the job market demands more highly educated citizens to fill spots in our society and over a lifetime a person who holds a B.A. or a B.S. will make a million dollars more than a high school graduate. This figure could be influenced by larger and larger pools of graduates entering the job market when demand for highly educated labor is low but for the purposes of this paper, we will assume that more highly educated citizens is a good worth pursuing regardless of current economic situations. Schools with good reputations and/or satisfied alumnus will encourage their children to attend college, and if college is made more affordable and/or given a greater capacity to teach more students, all of these things will contribute to increases in enrollment.

Lowered out-of-pocket costs would put greater pressure on universities to increase teaching capacity through capital construction and virtual learning or to limit enrollment financially, academically, and structurally or in some other way. There is a possible unintended consequence where universities will take on higher enrollment numbers and spend less per student to educate them. This, `` thinning the soup" approach could harm the value of a given college diploma [and the education of the person holding the diploma] because the resulting effect is presumably a decreased quality of education received [bigger class sizes, fewer classes offered, poor student services and extracurricular opportunities].

If more colleges and universities elect to increase enrollment and have more state dollars to educate each student, and are conscious of quality considerations, the result could be more knowledge and learning being infused into our culture and the percentage of the world population with college degrees [approximately 1% currently] could increase as well. In addition, the USA could get a larger portion of college graduates living within its boarders relative to the rest of the world. However, if more degrees are awarded, the value of each will decrease relative to everyone else with a similar degree. This will at the same time encourage more people to see more advanced degrees, increasing enrollment demand in doctoral and masters degree programs. This means more people will be encourage to spend more time in school that will produce the unintended consequence that the labor of those individuals could be at the same time be used in the economy directly. At the point of doctoral studies a student, and policy makers, may decide that at this level of education it is appropriate to take out subsidized student loans if the borrower feels his or her ability to pay them off will not hinder other financial responsibilities. In other words, this is when people should be taking out student loans and not $30,000 for an undergraduate degree. Arguably this temporary loss to the economy in terms of man-hours could be justified by the increase in added quality to those man-hours because of the increased levels of education received by the `` worker" and the fact that many graduate students are often employed. The added value of increased education on a macro sociological level could produce great, great things that mankind has been proving over and over that we are capable of. The alternative is arguing that we need fewer people in school for shorter amounts of time because of the demand for workers in the economy. This doesn't even take into account fluctuations in demand for labor, right now unemployment is high and those people who are out of work and maybe collecting unemployment, could be going back to school. Conversely, when family wage jobs are more available in the economy people self-select themselves to leave school and get into the job market anyway. When considering these factors, the loss of labor available in the market, because of the increased time citizens would spend in school that would result from lowering the opportunity costs of education and thus increasing the demand for higher and higher levels of education, does not outweigh the education benefit of such an endeavor nor in reality ever actually help to create a labor shortage. Greater learning by greater numbers of people increases the chances that in some classroom in anywhere, America a spark will flash in the eye of a young student who will go on to become the next Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, or Hillary Clinton if given the chance. They will have that chance, and equity in high quality educational opportunities means more than the hope for economic prosperity. It is the hope for innovation; compassion, understanding, awareness, sustainability, safety, livability and all of the amazing outcomes that universities produce that society takes for granted, everyday. Higher education is not the silver bullet for all of ills of society, but if we literally put more heads together in an environment of high quality educational opportunities, we got a better shot statistically at figuring it out.

Unfortunately, an unintended outcome of more college degrees being awarded is a decrease in the `` value" of lower academic degrees, such as associates and high school diplomas or a G.E.D. An overall decrease in value in degrees, because more and more people have them, could possible lead to dissatisfaction for degree holders; instead of encouraging them to pursue greater levels of education as we discussed above. When doing a personal cost/benefit analysis later in life, a degree holder may or may not feel like it was worth it to get the degree that they have in the first place. This might lead that degree holder to actually discourage his or her children to aspire to higher and higher levels of education. We argue that the quality of educational opportunities and personal commitment to learning as well as the personal costs paid for an education all are factors that influence the satisfaction of a degree holder. Job opportunities available for a degree holder influences their satisfaction.

We could measure the student to state cost of education ratio, that is, we could determine the total cost of education and find out how much students are paying relative to the state and federal government or other sources. State universities have four main sources of revenue, the state in which they are located, the federal government, student tuition and fees and private donations. Whether or not to compare student to individual state contributions or student to (some combination of private/federal/state appropriations) ratios needs further consideration. In terms of funding the operational expenses associated with educating in-state undergraduate students, a most direct indicator would be state support not federal or even private donations included. Of the 4 main sources of revenue and although debatable, student tuition and state contributions have the most direct influence over `` seat time with your professor," but cannot be sufficiently extrapolated from the need for capital constructions that come from private donations. Private donations also endow department chairs and the like, which contribute to the educational experience directly or indirectly. Federal dollars support research and student grants and loans, which have bearing over the quality and accessibility of educational opportunities. For the purposes of this paper we will examine the following to determine if our policy will lower the opportunity costs for a high quality education so that we encourages new generations of college graduates to enrich our community.

Enrichment of community:

• Degree holders to population worldwide: Where are the highly educated living and raising their kids? How many degree holding families [mothers and fathers] successfully encourage their children to go to college verses those that don't?
• Numbers of degree holders in prison, in dependency programs or on public assistance versus non degree holders in a community.
• Number of degree holder in volunteer positions, civic organizations, or volunteering with schools.
• Quality of life issues: cultural activities, art, and community `` connectedness" among communities with high populations of degree holders.

• Comparison of State appropriations (General Fund Dollars) to student contributions (Other Funds Limited) when considering the full costs of education (tuition, books, rent, living expenses, childcare). Example: 50%-50% split of the cost of education between the state and the student or more or less altruistic arrangements, 20% state 70% student or vise versa.
• Number of Pell Grant Recipients and how much of the costs of education do those awards cover.
• Comparison of state student aid programs and #Õs of students receiving those dollars, relative availability of merit and need based aid for students, who is receiving that aid.
• Levels of debt and numbers of student loan recipients over time as compared to non debt students and their ability to accumulate wealth.
• Time to graduate for students who have their costs covered and students with jobs and/or student loans.

• Number of student to dollars available to teach them, adjusted for inflation when considering State General Fund dollars and Other Funds Limited (tuition and fees) only. How much are we spending per student in comparison to our peer universities as determined, by the Oregon State Board of Higher Education? The Quality Index, is in current practice within the OUS System and serves to guide legislative and gubernatorial decision making.
• What are students choosing to study in a debt free environment? Are there more academic choices and thus more opportunity to explore new, even interdisciplinary and emerging areas of study that aren't established in the marketplace yet and thus have no market incentive to produce graduates for? Are there increases in enrollment in the arts and humanities, English and history, political science and other less market driven disciplines or are we funneling more and more students into engineering, business, computer science and biotechnology (examples of market driven disciplines) at the expense of the wider opportunities in academia? Would this in aggregate produce what we could agree is a higher quality educational system?
• Comparisons of career choices of similar demographic of students, some with debt and some without.
• Rate retrospective satisfaction of degree holder.

There are many other factors besides student debt load that influence career or degree choice and where a person wants to live and raise their children. Education is just one factor and a study of just this may produce useless results. Economic cycles influence the ability and willingness of Congress and the states to pay for public education and would have great influence over investments in the Pell Grant, state aid programs and state general fund commitments to public colleges and universities.

If students drop out of school this will complicate the study. There are high numbers of people with some college, but no degree. It is important to find some way to track this group for the purposes of our study.

Students who choose to go to college are statistically on the right track for success anyway and this has an influence on our study.

By testing over and over for something, we may actually be encouraging the behavior and this needs to be accounted for.

Measuring the outcomes of this policy may be difficult and data collection for indicators of outcomes could be costly, time-consuming and may require more precise measurements.

This project could help to better illuminate the value of higher education and the influence of student debt loads over a lifetime. Further, this study cold help us better understand what influences state subsidies of higher education have on those students receiving those subsidies. Even more so, what is the relationship between the willingness of a state to invest along with the student into the costs of education and the quality of education that student receives? A rough determination of this will be degree holder satisfaction and career path choices and income.

Web page spun on 26 March 2004 by Peter B Gilkey 202 Deady Hall, Department of Mathematics at the University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1222, U.S.A. Phone 1-541-346-4717 Email:peter.gilkey.cc.67@aya.yale.edu of Deady Spider Enterprises