Federal Tax Policy Regarding Universities

Should federal tax policy towards universities be reviewed and changed? This study is not a comprehensive look at all the issues raised above, but discusses some of the major ones. Special attention is placed on the tax treatment of university endowments, and what are reasonable rules that should be enacted, if any, to assure that monies are expended in a manner consistent with the granting of tax exempt status. Lesser attention is placed on other issues, such as the use of tuition tax credits

Over Invested and Over Priced - American Higher Education Today

The prevailing view among leaders in the university community is that America is not investing enough in higher education. A recent survey of the American economy by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) echoed that concern. After all, college graduates are dramatically more productive than those without higher education preparation, and America is falling behind other nations in the proportion of the adult population with college degrees. National competitiveness and economic well-being are at risk, or so it is argued. The conventional wisdom downplays the concerns about rising costs, particularly soaring tuition fees.One argument is that the cost explosion is an illusion: "net tuition fees" (sticker tuition prices minus scholarship aid and loans) have risen less dramatically than gross tuition fees (published rates). Americans think college costs are greater than they really are. Besides, the rate of return of a university education remains high, since the earnings differential associated with college has risen over the past several decades in tandem with fees, maintaining a high return on the financial investment. Yet I think most of these arguments are flawed, even downright wrong. An excellent case can be made that we are over invested in universities, that too many students attend school, that much of our investment is wasted. Moreover, the rise in costs -- to society, to taxpayers, and especially to consumers -- is excessive, and has been made more so by well meaning but inappropriate public policies. The law of unintended consequences looms large in any discussion of America's colleges and universities

For-Profit Education in the United States: A Primer

Higher education during the twentieth century underwent drastic changes as reformers forcefully argued education was the business of the state, and society could be improved by strong, publicly backed schools (Coulson 1999). Often proponents of state-sponsored education on the left argued the government should use education as a way to shape the minds of the nation's citizens, who were not responsible enough to take care of their own education properly (Coulson 1999). On the right, similar arguments were used as special interest groups saw the government as a means to influence what went on in the classroom. Consequently, the government stepped into the higher education arena, in part, by arguing people were not competent enough to oversee their own education. While the data for this period are scarce, it is safe to say for the period 1890 -- 1972, for-profit colleges were increasingly marginalized by the growth of highly subsidized public institutions (Breneman et al. 2006; Kinser 2006; Ruch 2001).Starting in the mid-1970s and accelerating through the 1980s and 1990s, for-profit education underwent a renaissance, due in large part to the 1972 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which increased the amount of government student aid available to for-profit schools (Kinser 2006; Turner 2006). During this era, the broadened scope of Pell Grants gave rise to an increasing number of for-profit universities offering associates, bachelors, and graduate degrees (Turner 2006). Since 1976, for-profit enrollment has grown at an annualized growth rate of about 11 percent, increasing by a factor of nearly twenty-three. For-profits'market share of higher education has gone from 0.4 percent to nearly 6 percent (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2006a). The robust resurgence of for-profit schools suggests America's nonprofit colleges are failing to meet fully the people's needs. As a result, for-profits are stepping in to meet market demands their highly subsidized counterparts have chronically failed to satisfy. These recent and rapid developments have once again brought for-profit education national visibility

Griggs v Duke Power: Implications for College Credentialing

This paper is about a court case decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1971. Although attorneys recognize that the case is important to businesses, its impact on colleges and universities has been explored by only a few. As this paper will show, Griggs v. Duke Power may have enormously boosted the number of students in college and may have increased the differential in income between high school and college graduates. It may have led to higher tuition, without providing commensurate additional value.Indeed, it could even be a judicial decision whose economic implications have been matched by only a few far more celebrated cases in history such as Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the Dred Scott decision (1857), and the Schechter Poultry case (1935). The hypothesis of this paper is that Griggs turned a college degree into a "credential." The content of the education did not change, but the degree -- the sheepskin -- became a necessary first step for a decent job.Today, for many jobs, only a degree opens the doors of potential employers' offices. It does not ensure a job -- college graduates often say that it is just a "fishing license" -- but it assures the employer that an applicant has at least a minimum level of skill and accomplishment. In the eyes of an employer, a degree demonstrates that the applicant passed a certain number of classes,completed outside reading, wrote at least a couple of papers, thought critically, and was able to manage his or her life in a way that led to graduation. Such skills -- determination, critical thinking and writing, organization, and independence -- are often valued by employers.Providing such assurance to employers did not always require a college degree, and this credentialing function did not happen by chance. Through a series of court rulings and subsequent legislation, a cumbersome set of legal rules has developed that make it difficult for employers to use testing to find out if an applicant is intelligent, capable, and diligent. As we will see, fear of litigation is always in the background. For many jobs, a college degree has become an alternate means of "testing."This paper will describe Griggs, the environment from which it emerged, and the subsequent judicial and political activity that created such great constraints on testing. It will discuss testing today and then provide economic information suggesting the magnitude of the changes that Griggs may have instigated. While this paper does not "prove" the educational and economic consequences of Griggs, it suggests that additional scholarly work on the impact of Griggs on higher education is appropriate

North Carolina's Higher Education System - Success or Failure?

This study is not a comprehensive blueprint for reform in the system of higher education in North Carolina. Its purpose is to present factual evidence suggesting that the system of universities is deserving of greater public scrutiny. The evidence also shows areas where reform is needed the most -- cost containment, for example.And we will make some suggestions of areas where cost containment might legitimately occur. And while the system has many defects, we are the first to acknowledge that it is possible to have a wonderful collegiate experience in North Carolina and that some very fine research is conducted in the state that has had positive social benefits. Yet the issue is: can North Carolina use its resources in a better way, one that will improve the quality and affordability of its higher educational services

The Case against a Tennessee Income Tax

On November 2 the Tennessee legislature will convene a special session to debate reform of the state tax system. The center of the controversy is whether Tennessee should adopt a personal income tax, as proposed by Gov. Don Sundquist, to close an estimated $400 million budget shortfall. This study finds that a personal income tax in Tennessee would likely have two negative economic effects. First, an income tax would almost certainly reduce economic growth and job creation in the state. The absence of an income tax in Tennessee gives Tennessee a large competitive advantage over other states with which it competes for jobs and businesses. We find, for example, that Kentucky, a state very similar to Tennessee except that it has an income tax, has had considerably weaker economic performance since 1980. Between 1980 and 1998 the per capita economic growth rate of Tennessee was 47 percent compared to 36 percent in Kentucky. The second negative effect of a state income tax would be to trigger much faster growth in state expenditures. That has been the almost universal pattern in other states after they enacted a state income tax. Yet the premise of pro-income tax forces in Tennessee that the state's revenues have been growing too slowly is contradicted by the evidence. In the 1990s, even without an income tax, Tennessee's per capita tax receipts have grown 12th fastest among the 50 states. Tennessee's tax revenues have climbed at twice the rate of inflation plus population growth. The legislature should be cutting taxes, not introducing new ones

Outcomes Based Assessment of Universities

This study summarizes recent and continuing research conducted by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) on the metrics used for measuring college performance. Unlike other rankings, this study does not concentrate on the inputs of college education such as endowment size, number of faculty, or the educational preparation of students as measured by SAT scores, etc. Instead, it focuses on the outputs, namely the success of students after graduation. Using the names of entrants in Marquis Publishing's 2008 edition of Who's Who in America as our standard for measuring high levels of success, we collected the names of over 5,200 individuals, along with their educational background.This is more than a 5 percent sampling of all names listed in this standard reference work. From this sample, we then calculated which colleges produced the most successful graduates. The results thus far have been both fascinating and surprising.We have found that while going to top ranked schools as measured by standard college rankings does correlate with success, it is a weaker relationship than many may have previously believed. The study reveals that the "industry standard," U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) rankings, on the whole, is only weakly related to graduate success. This suggests that the characteristics contributing to the value of a student's education differ substantially from what is typically assumed. The goal of this study is not to serve as a definitive source for ranking and comparing colleges. Rather, the research presented herein will hopefully serve as both an impetus and road ma

Chemical precipitation of phosphorous with sodium aluminate and alum in the activated sludge aeration chamber

The purpose of this investigation was to study the removal of phosphorus by chemical precipitation with sodium aluminate and alum in the activated sludge aeration chamber, and determine the effect of the aluminum to phosphorus ratio and the mixed liquor suspended solids concentration on the phosphorus removal efficiency and the effect of the precipitants on the removal of organic pollutants in the activated sludge process. The studies were conducted on settled domestic sewage in three bench-scale continuous flow activated sludge units supplemented with jar tests. Major parameters employed included influent and effluent total phosphorus and chemical oxygen demand (COD), mixed liquor total and volatile suspended solids, pH, and sludge volume index. Both sodium aluminate and alum were found effective in reducing the phosphorus content of the sewage and aluminum to phosphorus ratios of 1.3 and 1.9 were required with alum and sodium aluminate to produce a minimum residual phosphorus concentration in the range of 1.0 mg/l P (q reduction of approximately 90 percent). On an available aluminum basis, alum was more effective than sodium aluminate; however, when molecular weight and cost were considered, sodium aluminate cost about one-half as much as alum for equivalent phosphorus removal. Variation of the mixed liquor suspended solids concentration had no significant effect on the removal of phosphorus. The addition of chemical did not adversely affect the removal of COD which averaged in excess of 90 percent throughout the studies; pH was also unaffected and remained in the 7.3 to 8.2 range --Abstract, page ii

The Challenge Of Botsourcing

Botsourcing is the augmentation or replacement of human jobs by robots or other computing systems.  This practice is growing in popularity for reasons both economic and technical.  Botsourcing will seriously challenge the human workforce, and in some cases humans will find themselves working alongside robots or other “intelligent’ computer systems.  In other cases, botsourcing will eliminate jobs and will force impacted humans to retrain.  This paper discusses the nature and appeal of botsourcing, as well as the challenge to human employment

Offshoring Limitations

Using offshore locations to provide high quality products and services at a lower cost makes good economic sense. The current global environment focuses on reducing costs and having a lean organizational structure. There are, however, numerous repercussions being felt by American IT workers due to an increase in offshoring activities. This paper focuses on the impact of offshoring and the weighing of costs and benefits as a result of offshoring activities. Minimizing costs is often cited as the most important reason for American jobs to be outsourced, but a major factor behind offshoring is the intense global competition among nations in a period of slow economic growth. This competition forces global firms to keep a constant watch on costs to achieve a higher degree of efficiency