The Brookings Institution report that we wrote about the other day in UTEP earns public support made some blunt statements:
State governments should take a hard look at the universities in their jurisdictions that neither seriously promote opportunity, nor produce much serious research.
Misallocated investment doesn’t just come at a large opportunity cost, however. Public subsidies for the relatively affluent directly reify existing inequalities by reinforcing the opportunity “choke-point” of higher education, driving up demand (and costs).
They go further and write:
A university education is a wonderful thing. But there are many wonderful things in life, and the government doesn’t need to pay for all of them. That’s especially true for students from the upper middle class, who dominate the current system and enter college with substantial advantages in life already. We are a very long way from the ideal of higher education as the “great equalizer,” with colleges acting as engines of mobility, leveling the playing field for each generation. Rather, public higher education too often provides yet another chance for the upper middle class to engage in opportunity hoarding at the expense of the taxpayer—and even worse, at the expense of students from low-income families.
How about it state legislators?
UTEP does enormous public good in helping lower income students climb the income ladder.
Shouldn’t the state allocate more money to the school that does the best job enhancing social mobility?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
State allocation is directly proportional to the number of graduates in the legislature from a particular institution. UT, TAMU, TECH…then there’s everyone else.
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“opportunity hoarding” and “social mobility”? Is this now a social justice blog? First, universities are supposed to teach kids, all kids. Second, if you hate upper middle class and want to exclude them from college don’t make them pay taxes. Next they’ll be banning whites and speech they don’t like. Nice job, Brookings.
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Guess which class pays the most tax to fund higher education?
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