Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Standard Article by Zack Tiggelaar
Issue: Education
One of my premonitions of attending a university was that I would learn what to prepare for in life. However, after my first couple of years and current involvement in student government, I learned that a university only prepares students for a socialist lifestyle. The university system is similar to a nation state. Within this nation state, the citizens pay taxes, or in the students case, fees. For example, for the 2009-2010 school year, I will pay over $1,000 in mandatory student fees. These fees are combined and used to provide many different services for students, but much like any system of taxation and public provision of services not all members of the community benefit.
One example of the “services” provided through these fees is student health. With this, students are able to visit a doctor and receive their service without paying a charge up front. This is much like the single-payer system, one entity acquires the money from everyone, but only few will use it. The issue I have with this socialization is not the provision of this service, but since I do not use the health system as much as others may who pay the same amount as me, I feel I would be better suited to use that money on goods or services which would better my situation than its current use.
Another example of the “services” provided through these fees is student government. Each student pays a tax/fee, but only a select few benefit from student government’s use of these fees. Student government, much like American government, uses these fees to subsidize different industries, benefit interest groups or student groups, and provide “benefits” to students. These fees are used to subsidize the newspaper industry by using the money to purchase mass amounts of local, regional, and national newspapers. They benefit specific student groups by providing them with other students’ money for their own interests that their group supports, whether the other students agree or not. Finally, student government mandates fees from students to provide “benefits” for students by funding different events and activities that again are not used by all students but still funded by all of them.
All pay, but few benefit. This sounds very familiar to the American system and leaves me contemplating if this is the status quo lifestyle that the university system is preparing me for: a socialistic system where only the sick, government chosen, and few benefit from the mandated taxes/fees of others. What if the university was a free-market nation state, an institution where students chose where and to whom their money went to. I believe this would cause costs to decrease, inefficient services to be eliminated, and the services that would be used would be more efficient and of greater quality. Much like the American system, the university system needs a free market makeover. One in which all of their members can benefit from their individual choice of needs rather than having a select few decide for all.
Zack Tiggelaar is an intern at the North Dakota Policy Council and an economics student at the University of North Dakota.
