Friday, May 9, 2014

Will work for food


    Idaho’s Legislature cut college-education spending more than all but five other states since the national recession put state budgets under severe pressure beginning in 2008, according to a report by Idaho KidsCount and the Center on Budget and Policy priorities.
    The state cut funding by $3,857 per student and shifted the burden to students and their families—the ones who could afford it—with four-year college tuition fees rising by 28.5 percent in the same period.
    With Idaho’s per-capita income of less than $35,000 a year—just one rung up from the lowest in the U.S.—a lot of families couldn’t afford tuition hikes. The huge shift made it impossible for many students to obtain a college education, and the high-skilled, high-paid jobs that follow. Or, it left them with crushing debt.
    Yet, instead of finding ways to increase funding for higher education in order to create technically savvy workers and to develop and attract technical businesses and manufacturing to the state, the Legislature left Idaho Gov. Butch Otter with only a couple of tools. He touts the state’s unsurpassed outdoor life and its low-wage work force.
    The latter is desperate, like holding a sign that says “Will work for food.” It’s a sign that we’re engaged in a spiral of stupid policies that beget stupid outcomes. Poorly educated workers can’t engage in a high-tech society that needs highly educated workers. That leaves high-tech companies with nowhere to go but somewhere else than Idaho—and their higher tax dollars with them.
    This assures Idaho will remain on the bottom rung of higher-education funding. It leaves workers with no options but to eke out a living in low-wage, low-skill jobs.
    Idaho’s state-level leaders should be ashamed of the spiral. The mystery is that most are not.




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