Subsidized Higher Education Comes at a High Cost

(This post was written by Namrata Narayan, Associate, Communications at CCS)

We the People had an interesting conversation regarding government funded colleges that heavily subsidise student fees, even for the families that can afford to pay full fees. (See the episode here, BRIAN DRAIN: ‘BOND’-ED TO INDIA)

The issue that ended up taking the talk by storm was whether or not students who use tax paying money to complete their education (which comes up to 96 lakhs per student) should go oversees to work — meaning, none of that tax paying money benefits the tax payers in any measurable way. The government has now passed a judgement saying that some of these students have to work in India for a certain period of time before leaving to work abroad. Some argue that there should be a ‘tax’ if they want to leave. (Government shackles always follow government shekels!)

Milton Friedman among others pointed out long ago that higher education is a middle class welfare program that redistributes wealth from lower to higher income individuals. See this 8 minute video: Milton Friedman — Middle Class Welfare