Higher Ed. Regents Want $1.1 Billion For Wealthy Families To Get Cheap College Tuition

  The sheer boldness of the request is perhaps dazzling. Rather than reforming the way Oklahomans are asked to pony up money to help wealthy families get cheap college, the regents want a nearly $400 million annual increase by 1919.
  Unlike the federal govt. which applies a means test for a FAFSA score which determines PAL grants, our Oklahoma Regents for Higher Ed. simply get about 1/7 of our annual budget given to them. Then they disperse that money so that govt. run colleges can cut the cost to every college student. This results in a predatory marketing scheme which seeks to close every private college in Oklahoma.  
  What's worse is that along with the struggling working poor who pay a state sales tax so that wealthy families can receive 16% of that confiscated tax money in the form of cheaper college tuition. 

A Better Method..

​  The legislature would do better to apply a state grant to students which uses the FAFSA score as an indicator. It would have a sliding scale of assistance which phases out for wealthier families.  This would assure that the truly needy have an opportunity to break the circle of poverty. It would end the disgraceful enabling of wealthy families expecting welfare handouts. It gives our great private colleges an opportunity to compete fairly for students.

Oklahoma would not have had a budget shortfall in each of the past 5 years, if not for this corrupted sacred cow.

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​The state 'PAL' grant would be applicable to any certified higher ed. institution in the state. Currently the faculty at all our fine private universities are forced to subsidize their competition by having 16% of their state income tax being transferred to the competing govt. universities.
  At some point this state needs to honestly answer;

1. What responsibility should be placed upon the workers and consumers?
2. Shouldn't a young adult and his family use their own money to attain a college degree?
3. Will an education be appreciated more if the student spends his own money on it, rather than someone else's taxes? 
4. Is it a core duty of a state, to give away money to able-bodied adults?

  If you think it's astonishing that this practice continues, just hang around the capitol for a while and you'll see just how sacred this bloated cow is revered by politicians who hope to land a coveted spot on the Board of Regents For Higher Ed.   Yes, former Speaker, Jeff Hickman, is already enjoying that golden hammock. He was named to the board in the past year.