Opinion

Hey, Rube

Opinion of, The Gainesville Sun
Published: December 5, 2012

There is a good case, or two, to be made for the notion of differential tuition rates in the Florida University System. There is the public service case: To entice students into crucial but relatively low-paying careers — teaching or child welfare professionals come to mind — lower tuition costs would seem justifiable. Then there is the cost-of-service case. Some degrees — science and engineering for instance — simply cost more to offer than others, and therefore should command higher tuition rates.

But the differential tuition plan being pushed by Gov. Rick Scott's higher education task force would seem to have no such logical nexus. Turning supply and demand on its head, the task force would charge less for "high-skill, high-wage, high-demand degree programs" and more for degrees that are presumed to lead to lower-demand, lower-paying occupations.

Thus, degree seekers in science, technology, engineering and math would be subsidized by degree seekers in English, history, sociology and, of course, anthropology.

Under such a policy, students pursuing liberal arts degrees that may be less likely to result in an immediate payoff in the job market could be obliged to take on more debt in order to subsidize students who have the a better chance of landing a lucrative job — and who are thus in a better position to pay off their student loans.

Other than to discourage students from pursuing a liberal arts degree — on the unspoken assumption that such a degree simply isn't worth the paper it's printed on — it is difficult to understand the public policy objective behind such a tuition plan.

Reinventing public higher education is one thing. But a tuition policy that, in effect, designates winners and losers — and then charges the losers more — is a Rube Goldberg-type invention that seems destined to break down.