I've suggested this in the past, usually with the proviso that nobody would be willing to actually do this.
The underlying philosophy is that it is the job of the government to guarantee sufficient resources to survive. By giving it to everyone you make everyone benefit which makes everyone want to keep it. (The same principle that makes Social Security impossible to get rid of.) But once government has taken that step, then there is no need for separate welfare programs, there is no reason for a job to provide a living wage (hence the removal of minimum wage), and there are not artificial barriers where a single mom on welfare has incentives to not work.
Another crazy idea I have is to fix the student loan programs so that parents are expected to have living costs that a reasonable for some time in this century (currently they are appropriate for the 1960s) but then only make students at universities whose average tuition is in the bottom 75% eligible to receive any kind of government financial aid. This would provide a downwards pressure on tuition to stop tuition from rising substantially faster than inflation, as it has done for the last few decades.
They way to fix tuition fees is simply to stop providing government guaranteed loans, most students nowadays don't get a financial return on their investment (and many pass the bill to the taxpayer by defaulting).
The problem with that is that you've just massively increased the economic barriers for poor people who want to go to college.
My proposal provides a very clear incentive to universities to not jack up tuition while continuing to provide reasonable educational access to people whose families are not in the top x% of the population.
By eliminating loans, most universities would be drastically cut their fees. Good poor students could get scholarships and bursaries which is already the case.
Colleges are bogus insitutions, they have been since the advent of the book, radio, television, and especially now with internet.
Comments
I've suggested this in the past, usually with the proviso that nobody would be willing to actually do this.
The underlying philosophy is that it is the job of the government to guarantee sufficient resources to survive. By giving it to everyone you make everyone benefit which makes everyone want to keep it. (The same principle that makes Social Security impossible to get rid of.) But once government has taken that step, then there is no need for separate welfare programs, there is no reason for a job to provide a living wage (hence the removal of minimum wage), and there are not artificial barriers where a single mom on welfare has incentives to not work.
Another crazy idea I have is to fix the student loan programs so that parents are expected to have living costs that a reasonable for some time in this century (currently they are appropriate for the 1960s) but then only make students at universities whose average tuition is in the bottom 75% eligible to receive any kind of government financial aid. This would provide a downwards pressure on tuition to stop tuition from rising substantially faster than inflation, as it has done for the last few decades.
sigh If only I ran the country...
Guaranteed income has been tried and worked in some places in the world and was seriously considered by Nixon.
They way to fix tuition fees is simply to stop providing government guaranteed loans, most students nowadays don't get a financial return on their investment (and many pass the bill to the taxpayer by defaulting).
The problem with that is that you've just massively increased the economic barriers for poor people who want to go to college.
My proposal provides a very clear incentive to universities to not jack up tuition while continuing to provide reasonable educational access to people whose families are not in the top x% of the population.
By eliminating loans, most universities would be drastically cut their fees. Good poor students could get scholarships and bursaries which is already the case.
Colleges are bogus insitutions, they have been since the advent of the book, radio, television, and especially now with internet.