A lot of the presidential candidates declare that the Dept. of Education is one of the federal agencies they will get rid of…but no one ever does and we never really hear why it’s needed or isn’t needed
So why is a federal department of education even needed at all? As far as I can see, local school boards around the country decide the curriculum their school districts will have, as well as other issues such as teachers hired, etc…there’s no set national curriculum a fed agency sets…so what is the use of a dept of ed?
This. Various states have historically demonstrated that they lack either the funding or the inclination to do the job right. And letting some state’s education levels degenerate to some Third World level simply isn’t good either for the state or the country as a whole.
The problem isn’t with the amount of money being spent. We spend more money than places like South Korea and Finland, but we perform well below that level. So the problem isn’t lack of funding as progressives will claim in the face of nearly every failure of government. The problem is the system on which that money is spent.
Do you have some numbers on that? And regarding the teachers, does that include the cost of their benefits which (I assume) come out of a different rice bowl since they have national healthcare?
As the parent of a college student, I appreciate the Department’s Direct Loan Program very much. Also, without the Department, who determines how the federal aid to higher education is distributed? Colleges get lots of federal money, you need a bureaucracy to manage it.
This makes sense. We have decided, as a nation, to fund education endeavors with tax funds. You need some way to keep track of same.
And for what it’s worth: the Constitution does not give the federal government the power to regulate education. I would be opposed to any federal laws that said, “Schools must teach X,” for example. (Unless ‘X’ ran afoul of some other constitutional provisions, like the Establishment Clause.)
But the federal government has every right in the world to say, “If you don’t teach ‘X’ we won’t give you any money.”
To manage compliance with such requirements is another good reason for the Department of Education.
You shouldn’t since that loan money is primarily a benefit to the college and a detriment to your child. If student loans were unavailable, colleges would have no choice but to cut tuition down to the reasonable levels of the 50s and 60s. Back then, it was possible to work your way through an Ivy League college and professional school at a minimum wage job.
While government provides elementary school education freely to the public, government funding does not fully cover middle school and high school education. Often parents will directly supply the rest or some kind of coalition of local government and private groups find ways to get the rest of the money. It’s one reason why wealthier areas still have better schools - they (including parents) still spend more money per student despite some level of national oversight and funding. That’s certainly a different case from the US, where all public school funding comes from government.
My parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins certainly paid school fees to attend public schools.
It also doesn’t account for the massive additional personal spending parents make in South Korea in the form of hagwon (after-school cram schools) which can be often more expensive than college and sees students studying from after school often to past midnight on a daily basis.
That provides a bit of distortion in public school spending figures in South Korea. So, the total amount actually spent per student (vs what the government spends per student) may be a better measure to use, and it skews higher in Korea than in the US.
I think states do a better job of teaching the basics like Arithmetic. We need children who can count! If I were President, I’d eliminate three departments: Energy, Education, and…oops, I can’t remember the last one.
Schools like Harvard reject nearly 10 students for every student admitted.
Your argument fails at a basic microeconomic level. Basic supply/demand time:
There would be two likely effects of removing cheap, subsidized student loans:
Students would take more expensive bank loans knowing (rightly) that they’d still be better off financially in the long term by going to better schools.
If even these loans dried up, only the wealthy or people with access to other types of personal loans could send their children to college.
Basically, there’s no reason for prices to come down if supply is limited and demand far exceeds it.
Besides, tuition isn’t high solely due to loan money. Schools are forever having to upgrade facilities (including athletic) and fund research. Those costs do not come down.
