The Reclaim California Higher Education
(RCHE) Master Plan maintains that an
additional $48 in annual taxes per median household would be enough to fix the
system. The organization claims that this additional tax revenue would make all
college and university education tuition-free and restore state funding to the 2001 level of 1.17% of AGI.
For several
reasons, I think this “$48 fix” is broken. As an alternative, I will present the financials for what might be
called, the PSA HE Tax Relief Master Plan.
My model – the
Professional Society of Academics (PSA) – does not require additional tax
money, but rather far less public money than is currently spent on HE. Of
course, even if PSA were implemented, the government would not reduce taxes or
give out refund checks; but nor would they be legislating new taxes, as RCHE
recommends. And anyhow, one of the benefits of PSA is that the tax money it saves
and earns the state can be used to improve the finance of other valued social
goods such as healthcare or primary/secondary education.
But just for
amusement let’s look at what that tax relief might look like under the PSA Master
Plan. First, I’ll show what it costs to establish and operate a baseline
academic practice under my model. Then, on a national scale I’ll look at existing
sources of funding to see what can be accomplished with far less money, not
more. Finally, I’ll apply the PSA finances to the California circumstance and
estimate the scale of tax relief.