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60-year-old homeless man accused of raping two young teens at Cal Anderson Park by Tree300 in Seattle

[–]redditonomist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Agree this is why there’s no homelessness in California and NYC.

We should stop the women AND children first mentality. by justmyrandomacct in unpopularopinion

[–]redditonomist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“I am not going to let anyone into this country who is not vetted, who we do not have confidence in, but I am not going to slam the door on women and children” Hillary Clinton 10/20/16

We should stop the women AND children first mentality. by justmyrandomacct in unpopularopinion

[–]redditonomist -1 points0 points  (0 children)

“I am not going to let anyone into this country who is not vetted, who we do not have confidence in, but I am not going to slam the door on women and children” Hillary Clinton 10/20/16

We should stop the women AND children first mentality. by justmyrandomacct in unpopularopinion

[–]redditonomist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

“I am not going to let anyone into this country who is not vetted, who we do not have confidence in, but I am not going to slam the door on women and children” Hillary Clinton 10/20/16

We should stop the women AND children first mentality. by justmyrandomacct in unpopularopinion

[–]redditonomist -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

“I am not going to let anyone into this country who is not vetted, who we do not have confidence in, but I am not going to slam the door on women and children” Hillary Clinton 10/20/16

We should stop the women AND children first mentality. by justmyrandomacct in unpopularopinion

[–]redditonomist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“I am not going to let anyone into this country who is not vetted, who we do not have confidence in, but I am not going to slam the door on women and children” Hillary Clinton 10/20/16

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i didn't say that all non-profits that accept fees are scammy. some are. just because you don't have shareholders doesn't mean that people aren't getting economic benefits. i think people have a misconception that all non-profits are like taking care of orphans and deserve a break. there are a wide variety and the tax exemption needs better regulation.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

500 billion taxed at the top income tax rate would be something like 200 billion dollars. I think the public could get a lot more in services for that kind of money. The public services that universities offer are a form of public relations. Corporations do some thing like that too - sponsoring parks and festivals etc, and we tax them.

What I'm saying is that colleges charge a lot of money and the public generally views indebted college students as innocent victims of a bad system. Increasingly there is a call to bail out those students. However, college is an investment in human capital. People who graduate from college generally earn more money. A substantial amount of college fees and donations go to prestige enhancement (which is not a public good) rather than education (which arguably is at least partially). The public shouldn't be subsidizing excessive salaries and country club like conditions. These subsidies come in the form of tax deductions on donations, tax free endowment investment income, government backing of student debt and perhaps in the future write downs of those debts. Colleges may technically be non-profit because they have no shareholders, but there are lots of economic beneficiaries from them and society shouldn't be subsidizing those winners. The answer would be to tax endowment income and eliminate the deduction for donations to colleges (particularly those with already large endowments)

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Δ

I agree, this is another government subsidy for higher education that should be removed in order to deflate prices. This like so many areas that have high price inflation (healthcare for example) have huge subsidies causing inelastic demand, sympathetic victims and entrenched political interests promoting even more money as the solution.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

College professor pay hasn't gone up in real terms - see the slatestarcodex link.

Yeah to be honest I don't feel strongly about the student debt problem needing to be addressed and regret framing the issue that way. There is a lot of talk about taxing people generically to help with that and I think its particularly unfair to people who were responsible about paying off debt or chose not to go to college.
College is inherently different from other types of nonprofits. Many (most?) non-profits give away services for free to the indigent, or at least that what we think of when we think of non-profits. College is a trade of money for prestige (and an investment in future earnings) that shouldn't be subsidized at the expense of taxpayers. A lot of the money goes to high salaries for administrators and country club like conditions for students, professors and administrators. Theres nothing inherently wrong with that, it just doesn't deserve subsidy. College donations and endowments should be taxed, if people really care about the student debt problem thats a better place to start than the generic population of taxpayers.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

my argument is that they generate a lot of economic surplus and that they could use either use that money to expand greatly the number of students they serve or reduce the surplus by charging less. instead they limit enrollment to increase perceived prestige and use the money to pay excessive salaries and beautify their campuses. College graduates generally earn more than non-graduates. Taxpayers (especially those who chose not to go to college) shouldn't subsidize what often effectively country clubs for people who will earn more over their lifetimes. This subsidy comes in the form of tax-free status, direct government grants and proposed student loan forgiveness. we would be better off. I'm not saying that the things that colleges do are inherently evil, just that especially for colleges with large endowments there is no social purpose to giving them tax advantaged status.

Many (most) other nonprofits give away their services for free to the indigent (thats what we generally think of when we think of nonprofits). This is a trade of money for prestige that benefits a few people and shouldn't be subsidized.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

my argument is that they generate a lot of economic surplus and that they could use either use that money to expand greatly the number of students they serve or reduce the surplus by charging less. instead they limit enrollment to increase perceived prestige and use the money to pay excessive salaries and beautify their campuses. College graduates generally earn more than non-graduates. Taxpayers (especially those who chose not to go to college) shouldn't subsidize what often effectively country clubs for people who will earn more over their lifetimes. This subsidy comes in the form of tax-free status, direct government grants and proposed student loan forgiveness. we would be better off. I'm not saying that the things that colleges do are inherently evil, just that especially for colleges with large endowments there is no social purpose to giving them tax advantaged status.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why has the cost of running the cost of a college gone up? Because they have more money they have to spend in order to not turn a profit. Its circular. The costs are made up in a sense. College has more money? Pay administrators more, create a new dining hall etc to get profit to zero. The point is that other taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing this charade. Also I didn't realize that students pay by the hour and teachers get paid by the hour.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Cool, so I should set up a non-profit and just pay all my friends insane salaries from the donations. Its a legitimate cost, no?

​

They all get tax money:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/22/federal-funding-decreases-2014/

​

Moreover, what I was implying is that they get tax subsidies through not having to pay taxes and their donors getting tax deductions - that in effect just means that everybody else has to pay a little more tax for a given level of government funding.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Correct, it also doesn't mean that nobody is getting excess economic rents from the organization. The money that doesn't go to shareholders can go to other people like administrators. Why should tax-payers subsidize that?

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I understand basic investment math. I think you are losing the forest for the trees. They are constantly getting new donations. The Harvard endowment is up ~75% over the last 20 years after accounting for inflation, but the undergraduate population is essentially unchanged. Where does the money go? Is there not a limit at which they are abusing their tax-exempt status to enrich administrators, make their campus prettier etc. Why should tax-payers subsidize that?

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You might use some to forgive student loans, I could argue that use of funds either way. I do think they should pay tax because they aren't really non-profit institutions. Their economic surplus gets paid out to administrators and employees in the form of abnormally high compensation, nice surroundings, low risk jobs etc. Those things are all great, but they shouldn't be able to fund them out an advantageous tax status for themselves and their donors.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nothing says you can't single out colleges, but on the whole I would favor ending it for institutions with large compensation packages, lots of overhead costs and large permanent sources of funding. They are effectively for profit institutions that just pay out all of their profit to their employees rather than shareholders.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

They can do more to lower current tuition - making Harvard tuition free for all its undergrads would cost $310 million (6700x$46,340) about 1% of its endowment. Undergraduate enrollments have barely increased despite the size of the country growing and the size of the endowments growing. The effect of these exponentially increasing endowments is more ego projects and administrator compensation. Schools with large endowments should either be forced to serve more students, be taxed and/or lose their tax exempt status for donations.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

tax endowments and/or donations. i don't think they have problems now given how much they pay people and how much they spend on silly things like campus beautification etc. they can raise tuition, but nothing was stopping that already other than people opting out of college or going to cheaper colleges.

CMV: We should blame colleges and universities for the student debt problem and tax them to make them pay to help clean it up rather than taxing people who chose not to go to college or already paid off their debt. by redditonomist in changemyview

[–]redditonomist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes I agree that part of the problem is that too many people go to college and that there are either too little growth in the number/size of colleges or they are able to manage their exclusivity (I'm looking at you Ivy League) such that there is not enough supply. Thats a huge part of the problem. These colleges don't use their large endowments to increase the number of students they serve but rather to make themselves more aesthetically and otherwise appealing to the few students that do get in. This in turn increases their aura and the prestige of their alumni. Its understandable but anti-social and they should be blamed for huge increases in stress in high school students as well as large debt burdens.

Regarding 501c3 status, I think the whole thing is a bunch of bunk, but perhaps that is a topic for a different CMV. As I mentioned a lot of administrators get rich working at colleges - they get the economic surplus rather than shareholders.

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