Task force advises higher ed tax fund (Denver, Pueblo: how much, neighborhood)

[Josseppie]

The task force came out with its recommendation for higher education in Colorado. I have a feeling this will be a major issue in Colorado for the 2011 ellection so I thought I would start a thread on it. In fact it reaches the highest level of business leaders and politicians as Jane Rawlings who is the assistant publisher of The Pueblo Chieftain was on the task force and said "This is really important not just for the economic development, but the economic maintenance of our state."

My own opinion is education is the back bone of any advanced society so I believe Colorado needs to raise taxes to get the funding level up to $1.5 billion dollars a year. Enough to move Colorado from second-last in the nation in its investment in higher education to the top one-third of the nation. This will keep Colorado as one of the best places in the country and top rated for companies so we can continue to improve this state for the next generation.

This is from the Pueblo Chieftain:

GOLDEN — A group tasked with identifying the challenges facing Colorado’s colleges and proposing solutions on Thursday recommended a statewide ballot question in November 2011 for a tax to fund higher education.

The link: http://www.chieftain.com/article_b97da472-e8ab-11df-a7b5-001cc4c002e0.html

[Katarina Witt]

Thanks for starting this thread. As the parent of two CU grads at Boulder and the HSC, and aunt of three others (another one from Boulder, one from Denver and one from UCCS), I am very concerned about higher ed in this state. I'll have to read your link before I cast my vote for higher taxes.

[Vision67]

This will certainly ignite the classic right vs left controversy of redistribution. I also think we should fund higher education, indeed provide full ride scholarships for students that demonstrate merit.

How to fund it? Tax the other guy.

[parfleche]

just what we need everybody in the state with a college degree while illegals steal all the real jobs that create things. The trades built this country not cubicles , oh yeah .we built the cubicles not the fools sitting in them.Raise my taxes anymore and all my work will be off the books.what idiots we have in charge

[Bob from down south]

Originally Posted by Vision67

This will certainly ignite the classic right vs left controversy of redistribution. I also think we should fund higher education, indeed provide full ride scholarships for students that demonstrate merit.

How to fund it? Tax the other guy.

I too think we should fund higher education...for fewer but high-quality students that can actually contribute to society as a result of their educations. I don't support funding every functionally illiterate kid that managed to squeak through Pueblo HS (which doesn't take much since giving them the diploma seems far more important than actually having them meet standards).

So full rides make sense for those in useful courses of study like hard sciences, nursing, pre-med, engineering etc. If you want a music, art, or law degree, go for it--but pay for it yourself. And if you do get a scholarship, you lose it if your grades drop below a 3.5 GPA.

We already send enough of our money for those that would truly benefit from and contribute as a result of college. The real answer--and what we used to do--is to reserve college for the brightest, instead of the new norm that every kid needs to go to college regardless of his/her aptitude or degree of preparedness. We should send the rest to trade school--REAL trade schools like the Germans have. Better to graduate an employable mechanic or even hairdresser, than a functionally superfluous masters degree holder with a mountain of student debt and a long minimum-wage career at Border's bookstore ahead.

[tfox]

A number of states provide a lottery funded scholarship program for in-state residents to study at in-state schools. Examples are New Mexico, Georgia, and Tennessee. (The latter two are called HOPE scholarships). The deal usually works like this: you graduate from high school, and if you have a reasonably high GPA and SAT/ACT scores (usually about 3.0 and 50th percentile on the latter), then you get your tuition mostly covered at the local state u, provided you gain admission of course. Usually doesn't cover books, room and board, and that sort of thing -- other scholarships or financial aid can cover those. You also usually have to maintain a reasonable GPA while in college (2.5 is typical).

As far as I'm concerned, if New Mexico can afford to do this, with their dramatically lower tax revenues than ours, then we can afford it. Again, in all cases it's lottery funded.

For this to happen for us, sadly, we'd probably have to raid money from our primary lottery beneficiary GOCO (Great Outdoors Colorado) -- whose mission is to preserve and provide conservation easements and state park land. As important as this latter goal is, frankly I think higher ed is more important. I would support re-prioritizing this in way. For those who say we should fund both -- our budget situation and tax climate simply will not allow a tax increase to fund higher ed, so this seems like a good option to me. (State Parks and Conservation Easements could be partially funded by increasing the daily-use fee and parks passes, which I believe is allowable under TABOR.)

For the sake of cost, one possible change to the program is to limit scholarships to majors that the state needs badly -- such as the natural sciences, engineering, math, CS, business, etc, and not apply to the majors less in demand such as Classics or philosophy. I'm sure that will offend some as a violation of the renaissance ideal, but in an era of scarce resources you have to make tough choices, and no matter what we do there's going to be tough choices with regards to higher ed.

[Katarina Witt]

I'd include need in those scholarships. Otherwise, well-off students will suck up most of the money available.

[Vision67]

Good points Bob. I spent a lot of time in Germany and I have great respect for their system. They evaluate students by about age 15 and use testing to make a decision to send them either to college or to trade school. Fewer students go to college, about 15% but they don't just ignore the other 85%. They are trained for many skilled trades.

In both cases, the tuition is free. They don't end up $70K in debt with a job that pays only $10 per hour.

College tuition should be free for the folks who demonstrate the drive and ability to succeed.

Seems to me in this country we expect everybody to go to college and ignore the rest. Truth is, by age 25, only 25% of that cohort will have completed a 4 year degree and many of them will discover their degree isn't worth much. Furthermore, many will have drowned themselves in debt. That's an awful beginning to adulthood.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Vision67

Good points Bob. I spent a lot of time in Germany and I have great respect for their system. They evaluate students by about age 15 and use testing to make a decision to send them either to college or to trade school. Fewer students go to college, about 15% but they don't just ignore the other 85%. They are trained for many skilled trades.

In both cases, the tuition is free. They don't end up $70K in debt with a job that pays only $10 per hour.

College tuition should be free for the folks who demonstrate the drive and ability to succeed.

Seems to me in this country we expect everybody to go to college and ignore the rest. Truth is, by age 25, only 25% of that cohort will have completed a 4 year degree and many of them will discover their degree isn't worth much. Furthermore, many will have drowned themselves in debt. That's an awful beginning to adulthood.

There is no way I would support a system that tracks kids so young. I think it's actually much younger than 15 in Germany, possibly as young as 10 or 11. I've seen some bright kids burn out early, and I've seen some late bloomers. We need to give everyone the opportunity to go to college; if their high school grades aren't good enough to get into a 4 year college, they can go to CC.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Vision67

... I spent a lot of time in Germany and I have great respect for their system. They evaluate students by about age 15 and use testing to make a decision to send them either to college or to trade school. Fewer students go to college, about 15% but they don't just ignore the other 85%. They are trained for many skilled trades. In both cases, the tuition is free. They don't end up $70K in debt with a job that pays only $10 per hour. ... Seems to me in this country we expect everybody to go to college and ignore the rest. Truth is, by age 25, only 25% of that cohort will have completed a 4 year degree and many of them will discover their degree isn't worth much. Furthermore, many will have drowned themselves in debt. That's an awful beginning to adulthood.

Agree. One of my gripes is there seems to be no place in this country that teaches manufacturing; is it any wonder we have little manufacturing left. I've known some really cool tradespeople who were both highly skilled AND intelligent, articulate, delightful human beings. With the decline of labor unions, there has been a decline in apprenticeship programs to produce skilled labor. Trade schools, like the German ones you spoke of, could fill a training void, but being skilled at a trade isn't enough.

Many people do good trade-work, but are they capable to run their own small business? If not, that's a hole in our system. Why should most skilled trade persons end up working for a few large firms. Why should any city have but a handful of large trade firms who do the lions share of work? It seems better to have a plumber, electrician, etc, living in each neighborhood, running their own businesses, and make a living sufficient enough to afford living in that neighborhood, rather than living in a "working class" part of town.

Being capable to run their own small business is only the start of it; they still have to be capable parents, citizens, voters, drivers, homeowners, eaters, consumers and members of a large country with a ton of diverse people, issues, health care choices, investment options, natural resources and opportunities. It seems half our people are poorly prepared to think and act in response to these topics and come out ahead, which gets at why I believe widespread college education has value to us all, and why I favor some level of public support for higher education; the devil is in deciding how much support and who gets it.