The people of Iowa face great risks if they ultimately agree with Blake [Hasenmiller] to conclude that the state should no longer fund public universities. In many ways, I agree with the arguments, but I believe there are subtle realities that have been missed. I worry that these ideas instituted without nuance will send society into a deathly spiral toward ever-growing inequity.

Argument: “If capitalism is allowed to rule, then profits, not quality education, will become the focus of universities.”

Response: “As long as students demand quality education, the two will go hand-in-hand.”

We agree, because without state money, the university’s number-one priority becomes student satisfaction. However, society may need to institute a regulatory system, at some cost, to keep this for-profit system running smoothly.

Right now, any one of the three regents institutions will give a student a quality education. If universities can sell other services or undercut the competition by sacrificing quality, there will be greater variability and un-predictability in the quality of education.

Perhaps society will want each university to file annual quality-of-education reports. Education is a product with delayed returns. Since it may not be obvious until years after the fact that the education they’ve purchased is worthless, students will need this guidance.

Argument: “Without government funding, poor people won’t be able to afford a college education.”

Response: “They won’t be able to afford to go to Disney World either, but that’s not reason to get my tax dollars involved.”

Some universities may resemble Disney World in the for-profit world, but riding a roller coaster won’t double or triple earning potential like a bachelor’s degree. An education is what gives people the ability “to be productive and make money.” The value of education to society is trivialized by comparing it to Disney World.

But the biggest problem with the argument is that one dollar of tuition out of a $20,000 salary is worth far more than one dollar out of $100,000 salary. A poor person paying the same tuition as a rich person will sacrifice far more real consequences. Thus, poor people will need to value education more in order to go to school.

Implemented fairly, the idea that students should pay for the real cost of education means that public universities should charge tuition in a graded fashion. It will be tough to figure out the real costs of tuition for every salary and situation, but economists can help, right? With this adjustment, I’m really starting to like the idea that students should pay for the true value of what they get. We agree, once again.

Argument: “Then how will poor people ever get out of poverty? Wouldn’t a college education be the best way to combat this?”

Response: “If the value of the inputs (time and money spent to go to college) costs less than the college education is worth to you, then yes, you should go to college.”

I don’t see a response to the argument. Raising tuition to the full cost of education, without account for the real cost of tuition to individual students, will inevitably keep poor people in poverty.

Argument: “Doesn’t everyone benefit from an educated population? After all, an educated workforce is more productive and pays more taxes.”

Response: “If it costs more to educate the workforce than you get in increased productivity from educating the workforce, it’s not worth it.”

Society’s investment in education can pay for itself plus some. Did not the educational component of the GI bill, which paid veterans to go to college after World War II, more than pay for itself in the taxes and contributions these veterans made to society after their education? Yes, there will be some students who do not properly value their state-funded trip to college, but that does not negate the benefits to society provided by the students who value the opportunity. Maybe our society should invest some effort in teaching its youngsters to value their education; other societies do this far more successfully.

But, in truth, we once again agree. Let’s collect the data to properly assess the return on the state’s investment in public education.

Argument: “Well, what about all the research that universities do? That has to be worth something.”

Response: “Then let the people who benefit from the research pay for it, rather than the entire state. If the research is valuable, someone will pay for it.”

The money that pays for research is largely separated from state monies and tuition, so we really need not discuss the point. Nevertheless, I cannot resist making a few points. The taxpayers do benefit from this research. The Internet, lasers, digital images (see the Nobel Foundation) were once research discoveries that have now given incalculable benefits to society.

In an ideal world, it may work to have direct beneficiaries pay for research, but the real world is different. Researchers would need to continually patent ideas that may yield valuable discoveries in the future. Some scientists, just like some Nobel Prize-winners, would not recover their fees in their lifetimes. Research is often a hapless game of chance. Every great research discovery is accompanied by research flops. Some great discoveries are accidental side effects of research without obvious beneficiaries. Who will pay for this seemingly pointless, but unavoidably necessary research?

Meanwhile, universities will spend enormous quantities of money and time filing patent paperwork and investigating and suing patent violators. Inevitably, many types of innovation will be slowed. It is far more efficient to have society, a fair-and-square beneficiary, pay for many kinds of research. All-in-all, I agree with Blake. Society should definitely and carefully evaluate the far-reaching, long-term returns on their investment in public education. Ending state funding will screen out students who don’t value their education, but it will also disproportionately eliminate poor students. A fair implementation of Blake’s idea would demand students pay for the real value of a quality education by instituting a sliding tuition. Of course, it won’t work until all other states follow suit, so for the meantime, the state needs to find a way to subsidize tuition for the poor. Charging students an intermediate subsidized fee encourages some students to waste their education while discouraging others who could most benefit.

Karin Dorman is an Associate Professor in Statistics at Iowa State Univeristy