Revealed Preferences for Car Tax Cuts: an Empirical Study of Perceived Fiscal Incidence

Voting in an election in which elimination of the local car tax is the central issue shows how a highly visible universal tax cut can prevail in the electoral process even if benefits are skewed toward upper income households. These results are consistent with positive models of fiscal structure choice in which fiscal systems are the consequence of support maximizing politicians attempting to supply net benefits to easily identifiable interest groups without generating significant opposition from other groups.personal property taxes, tax revolt,targeted universalism

State Higher Education Spending and the Tax Revolt

Public effort in support of higher education – measured as state funding per thousand dollars of personal income – has declined by thirty percent since the late 1970s. During this time period many states implemented Tax and Expenditure Limits and/or supermajority requirements for tax increases. We use a forty-eight state panel from 1961 to 2001 to evaluate the effect of these tax revolt institutions for state effort on behalf of higher education. These provisions have a statistically significant and economically large impact on the timing and magnitude of this decline in state effort. An understanding of the fiscal environment caused by these provisions is critical for the future of state-supported higher education.State higher education spending, tax revolt, Tax and Expenditure Limits

Funding Students Instead of Institutions

This brief paper describes a plan to restructure the relationship between state-supported colleges and universities and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Since 2001, state-supported colleges and universities have had to absorb significant budget cuts as the state brought its expenditures in line with its revenues. The institutions have been allowed to raise tuition to soften the effect of these budget cuts. As a result, the percentage of each institution’s budget supported by state general fund appropriations has declined. We have been here before

Myths and Realities About Rising College Tuition

The list-price tuition at U.S. colleges and universities has risen by roughly 7% per year since the early 1980s. The inflation rate has averaged just 3.2%. These are some of the numbers that fuel public anxiety about how to pay for higher education. The story of rising tuition is complex. Unfortunately, much of the public discussion about the cost of attendance is too simplistic. To understand the reasons for rising tuition, and the effect that this has on families, we need to break down the forces that affect how tuition is set and that determine who pays the bill

The Temperature and Density Structure of the Solar Corona. I. Observations of the Quiet Sun with the EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on Hinode

Measurements of the temperature and density structure of the solar corona provide critical constraints on theories of coronal heating. Unfortunately, the complexity of the solar atmosphere, observational uncertainties, and the limitations of current atomic calculations, particularly those for Fe, all conspire to make this task very difficult. A critical assessment of plasma diagnostics in the corona is essential to making progress on the coronal heating problem. In this paper we present an analysis of temperature and density measurements above the limb in the quiet corona using new observations from the EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on \textit{Hinode}. By comparing the Si and Fe emission observed with EIS we are able to identify emission lines that yield consistent emission measure distributions. With these data we find that the distribution of temperatures in the quiet corona above the limb is strongly peaked near 1 MK, consistent with previous studies. We also find, however, that there is a tail in the emission measure distribution that extends to higher temperatures. EIS density measurements from several density sensitive line ratios are found to be generally consistent with each other and with previous measurements in the quiet corona. Our analysis, however, also indicates that a significant fraction of the weaker emission lines observed in the EIS wavelength ranges cannot be understood with current atomic data.Comment: Submitted to Ap

Federal Financial Aid Policy and College Behavior

This monograph by Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman finds little evidence that increases in federal financial aid drive up college tuition, and that institutions rarely rely on federal aid as a rationale to give out less of their own institutional aid. The authors use the so-called Bennett Hypothesis as the launching pad for their analysis. First advanced by William Bennett, secretary of education in the Reagan administration, the theory suggests that the availability of federal student loans, particularly subsidized loans, provides “cover” for institutions to raise tuition because students can offset any price increase with these loans. However, they find no evidence for this link for most institutions

The Landscape of the College Cost Debate

This chapter introduces the subject matter and the mode of analysis in the book. This chapter explains why costs and prices are quite different at colleges and universities. The way one thinks about changes in college costs and college prices depends on where one sits. In particular, a close-up view focused exclusively on colleges and universities will lead to quite different conclusions than an aerial view that places colleges and universities in a broader economy-wide perspective. This chapter explains why the book adopts the aerial view rather than a close-up view. The chapter ends with a preview of the results in the remainder of the book, emphasizing the critical role of technological progress. The pace of technological progress and the type of technological progress have significant influences on college costs and prices.https://scholarworks.wm.edu/librariesbookchapters/1006/thumbnail.jp

The Anatomy of College Tuition

A report by Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman based on their book, Why Does College Cost So Much? explores an economic framework for the forces driving college tuition

Moving Beyond Free: A College Affordability Compact for the Next Generation

Free college programs have proliferated at the state and local levels over the past decade, focused primarily on the nation’s community colleges. President Biden’s $1.8 trillion American Families Plan includes funding to make community college tuition free for participating states, and the idea of federally supported tuition-free four-year public college education is also back in the spotlight. It is easy to see why: “free college” fits on a bumper sticker, and it offers a simple message that signals to low-income families and first-generation students that achieving a valuable postsecondary credential is possible for them. This can lead families to prioritize education earlier, in the middle school years, when young people are developing the skills needed to succeed in high school and college. It can also support the growing number of adult learners by reducing one big uncertainty about the cost of returning to pursue a college degree. Making a public college education tuition-free can indeed enhance access and covering non-tuition costs of college can also aid in completion..