SENATE BILL: National University and General Education Reform bill (Law'd)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

That amendment just guts the bill. I would love to hear Senator Ben argue in favor of for-profit universities. I also object to removing our involvement in determining the location; this is federal money.

How is this for-profit universities?  I'm not a fan of them to begin with, and will happily adjust the language, but I don't like us taxing tuition that schools receive - that money belongs to the institution.  And as for the location, I don't want to force regions to locate a school in a particular place of "economic distress."

This isn't forcing regions to do anything. We are using federal dollars to build new, first rate universities in areas of economic distress so that we can stop the bleeding and reenergize areas in decline with bright and youthful people. The regions are given the option to recommend the city based on their own public education system and what areas could use the most help.

The tax only applies to predatory for-profit universities. Their students are already ineligible to receive student loans.

I do not see anything in this bill that restricts this to for-profit universities.   This section would also apply to colleges that do not accept federal student loans for philosophical reasons and to many community colleges that do not offer these loans out of fear of default liability. 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

We could put in a specific reference to the universities affected by my previous bill, then, to clear things up.

Is the purpose to dissuade students from attending for-profit colleges by making it more expensive?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I'd like Shua to tell us if the money currently in the bill is sufficient.

Not really, no.  The $35 million is enough to construct a medium-size academic building.  Community colleges can cost about 5 times that much. 
I'm not sure what is meant by "accommodating the local community," but $15 million for faculty is enough for a small university of a few thousand students (though funding for non-faculty staff will need to be provided somewhere as well).

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

How much money it will cost depends on how big you want it to be, what you want it to accomplish, which I don't see spelled out in this bill. Really you could build a small $35 million university in each region serving a few hundred students, if you want.  I'm just not sure what the purpose is.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I was thinking a large research university. 20,000 undergraduate students and about 8,000 graduate students.

I'd estimate a cost of about $1 billion in construction cost, and $700 million in operating expenses and salaries.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Shua, would you please elaborate on your claim regarding schools that oppose student loans for philosophical reasons?  I'm unclear as to why they would and particularly what type of schools actually do.

Hillsdale and Grove City College, most famously, but there are others as well.  Receiving federal student loans brings with it the possibility of strings attached (Title IX, for example) because it is legally considered indirect federal assistance to the institution.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I don't have much of aproblem with this proposal... however, I would like to see it reach more then 20K students...the university near my home has over 50K and I believe a national university with many campuses ought to have more... if the purpose is to provide access to a college education

I also believe there is merit to involving the regions and also specializing the various universities

I think most state universities are about the size I proposed. Maybe that's not true for the really big ones like University of Florida or Ohio State University but I wouldn't mind if our universities were a little smaller than that. I find your idea about specializing the universities to be interesting. What were you thinking of in particular.

Also Ben's amendment is friendly. Though do we need to appropriate even more? Shua, I would like a tuition rate of $7,500 per year for undergrads and $10,000 per year for graduate students. How much is the shortfall after taking into account Ben's amendment. I can do the math but I don' t know if schools have alternative revenue sources, especially in an university with research facilities and sports programs.

The figure of $700 million/yr was after factoring in the expected contribution from research grants and revenue from things like sports programs.  From the numbers you gave for tuition, based on the student size that's $230 million.  So $470 million would be needed.  (But you're not going to be able to build a 28,000 student university for $140 million anyway.)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

They can change their philosophy, then.

Why? Because you don't want to narrow the language to only cover for-profit schools - which you have stated is your intended target?
I don't understand the idea that a tax (which is really arguably a penalty) on for-profit schools only would be unconstitutional but that to extend it to all schools would be ok. 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

So is there an estimation of how much it would cost to nationalize the University system as single payer? I am going to have to introduce a vague amendment if there isn't one.

At least $275 billion/yr.
Are you proposing that the government manage the finances of the universities, or that the government would pay the full cost of the student's education to the university? Would there be some form of cost containment?