50 years of personal growth is greater than education policy change

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, September 30, 2022

This semester is the 50th anniversary of my undergraduate senior seminar in 1972 when I wrote my best research paper. It shaped my academic career choices and is still, unfortunately, relevant today.

My research paper was for a Regional and Urban Economics class at the University of Dayton, a so-called teaching university. At the time, it was titled “An Argument for the Elimination of the Property Tax As a Means of Financing Public Education.” Since then, I’ve inserted “Constitutional and Economic” before the word “Argument” to make it more explanatory and to display my increased verbosity gained through years of graduate education.

During the summer of 1972, despite the Vietnam War protests, the Nixon-McGovern presidential campaign, and the beginning of rumbling about the Watergate break-in, I had read in the news about several court cases working their way up to the Supreme Court that, if decided against local and state education agencies, would have dramatically changed American public education. Several were from Texas, and one from California, challenging the system of local property taxes as the primary means of funding public K-12 schools.

Public education is largely funded by a local property tax that results in local school districts having valuable assets being more able to raise revenue to spend on their schools. The disparities among the states, and within the same state, are large.

According to the Education Law Center, the average spending per student in 2019 was $15,114 per student and ranged from $26,634 in New York to Arizona’s $9,717. Missouri is slightly below the average at $14,438. Missouri’s spending per student depends on a combination of factors that results in a disparity of more than $6,000 per student.

Faced with the challenge of selecting a research paper topic, and wanting to be timely and a bit edgy, I proposed researching about the pending court. One of the hurdles I immediately faced was my lack of understanding of public school education finance. Even terms like “per capita expenditure” and “local tax effort,” as well as constitutional law jargon, such as “suspect classification,” caused slight anxiety.

I talked with my professor, Duane Oyen, who, thought public school funding was a rather good idea, and suggested I talk with his colleague, John Weiler, who I had for another class, because he was very knowledgeable about school finance and was completing his dissertation on a related topic. The idea of talking to a professor other than the class instructor was rather novel to me. I was then faced with the unfamiliar situation of having two professors know what I aspired to do.

In this case, their expectations elevated my effort. I read several court decisions, learned about local property taxes and how they were the primary basis for local school funding, and collected data about the Ohio school system. One of the professors suggested I include a statistical analysis of school revenue and school spending in Ohio school districts. This would require calculating a correlation coefficient, one of those things I knew for the test in Stats class but had quickly forgotten. A fellow student who had done well in Multivariate Statistics in the Psychology Department helped me calculate correlations using an adding machine (this was before the IT revolution and before computers were widely used.).

Within six months, March 21 of my senior year, about a month after deciding Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decided in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. It ruled that inequalities in public school funding are not a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution because public education is not a fundamental right. I was shocked — both at the Supreme Court decision and the fact that I was “ahead of the curve” on this public policy issue. I am rather sure than my classmates were more interested in Vietnam and abortion than in inequalities in education funding as we approached our undergraduate commencement.

San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, and the associated cases, may be the most important Supreme Court decision that few people heard of. Most Americans know that Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 ended de jure segregation in public education but the issue of unequal resources has continued with little public attention.

Imagine if the Supreme Court had ruled that the equal protection of the laws clause of the 14th Amendment required states to provide equal education to all students. The education gap between rich and poor districts, and between white and non-whites, would certainly be much less than it is today. Imagine if graduation rates, and reading and math scores, were more equal throughout America for the last 50 years. Imagine the reduced social and political costs of our remedial efforts to close the achievement gap. But such policy change has not occurred. California, Texas, New Jersey, and even Kansas, have made efforts to equalize education spending, but it has not been a major policy goal in most states.

Fifty years later, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez still catches my attention in public policy books and media reports.

As for me, completing that senior seminar paper in the manner I did undoubtedly shaped my academic career. I experienced the excitement of learning about a topic of genuine interests, of reading as much as possible about a subject. I experience taking pride in academic work, of going out of my routine comfort zone. Moreover, I recognized the effort and attention that two professors invested in me. Fifty years ago next summer, Professor Weiler lent me a copy of his dissertation, the first dissertation I ever read. About 10 years later, I wrote my own. You never know when public and private investments in humans will produce a good return.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994.

Two guys keep me thinking about homelessness

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, September 17, 2022

Over the past couple of weeks two Columbia men, Anthony Willroth and a homeless man I’ll call Donnie, made me think about how we interact with homeless citizens.

On the City Council agenda recently, I noticed that Willroth, whom I did not know, was scheduled to speak about “My Experience Running a Business Immediately Adjacent to Wabash.” I was expecting another recitation of how disorderly and unsafe Wabash Station is, because of homeless folk hanging out there, and applauding the Downtown Community Improvement District’s call for revoking the use of the bus station as a warming center.

Instead, Willroth courageously explained that his business, The Basement Reef on North Tenth Street, is literally the closest business to Wabash Station and that he has neither felt unsafe nor seen an increase in homeless-related problems. He said that any problems are because the present configuration of bus routes brings all the buses through Wabash, so there is a flood of people every 45 minutes, which translates into an uptick in all sorts of human activity.

I stopped by his shop a few days after Willroth spoke at the council meeting to thank him for speaking up about his experience. Willroth told me he has long known homeless men and women, so he talks with them and treats them just like anyone else. Such a simple, basic notion. If only we would all learn to do that. Compassion and empathy are innate to most humans, but the skills and inclination to implement compassion have to be developed.

The second guy I thought a lot about this week is Donnie, who died Aug. 3, presumably outdoors. He was in his mid-40s but looked two decades older. Street life is hard life.

I don’t know any details surrounding his death, other than he is one of at least eight homeless men and women who have died so far in 2022 in Columbia.

I do remember several interactions with Donnie since about 2017, mostly from his visiting Loaves and Fishes and seeing him around town. He once told me he was a carpenter and handyman but couldn’t find work in Columbia.

I know he spent some time in prison and slept outdoors back then. He was a pleasant, semi-withdrawn man who evidently was in a lot of physical pain.

My most significant conversation with him was on a sunny Sunday afternoon in March 2020 right at the start of the pandemic. He was hobbling up Broadway, near Sixth Street, on crutches. I knew he had been suffering gangrene from frostbite, but I was shocked when he showed me his bandaged left foot minus his toes that had just been amputated. For some reason, my first reaction was to ask him if I could take a photo with my cellphone, perhaps because I knew that some Columbians would be surprised that real homeless people are losing toes and fingers to frostbite right here in our town.

He gave me permission, but I instantly felt it was an invasion of his privacy and said, “No, Donnie, I don’t need to do that,” and asked him several questions instead, like, “Will you be OK? Where will you go? How will you keep it clean?” He assured me that he would be all right. I gave him a couple bottles of water I had handy and, after a pleasant conversation, headed home, leaving him at Broadway and Sixth. I felt a combination of sick to my stomach and total powerlessness. Surely, I could do something.

The next day, I pushed out of my comfort zone and made him a bag lunch with turkey, Swiss cheese, tomato on whole wheat — just like I eat — with a cheese stick, granola bar, an apple or applesauce, with a bottle of water. I eventually worked up to about 10 sack lunches a day for the first month of the pandemic. Trust me, I’m not bragging, just admitting that it took me a while to look around and see that guys like Donnie were out there by themselves as the COVID-19 shutdown was coming.

I saw that there is no public water between Flat Branch, Stephens Lake and Douglass parks. I eventually noticed that there aren’t public restrooms either.

Donnie’s feet deteriorated from about 2017 until last year, when he had lost his left leg and right foot. The last time I talked with him was this past May when he was in his wheelchair, and I sat on the wall in front of the now-demolished bank building at Tenth and Broadway talking about what jobs he could still do. He told me his caseworker wanted him to do telephone work but that he couldn’t see that happening.

When Donnie’s death was reported by several local volunteers on social media this past week, a frequent response was that Donnie deserved better and how powerless the volunteer felt. I agree.

It certainly does seem that I, and we, could have, should have done more for Donnie and several other men like him. But I don’t know what we could have done. Donnie had opportunities for housing, which he did not take, perhaps because he didn’t want the responsibility, perhaps because he didn’t want to attend rehab, perhaps because he was too proud to accept help. That’s hard for many “normal” people to understand.

Better shelter from the cold, something the proposed Opportunity Center campus could have provided, would have protected him from the cold and thus most likely prevented frostbite of his feet. But, simply, more shelter is unlikely to have changed his life to one of independence and self-sufficiency.

An unmet need of men and women like Donnie is to be engaged in something. Yes, they need shelter and food to survive, but people don’t live by bread alone.

---

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994.

Canceling student debt is a bad idea whose time has come

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, September 3,2022

Canceling some college student loan debt has finally reached the attention of national policymakers, some citizens and the media.

Washington policymakers should have seen this coming — since about 2006. Without immediate relief, student borrowers’ debt burdens will restrict their housing, family and career choices.

About 45 million citizens have college loan debt totaling $1.6 trillion. That’s a lot of money, more than the GDP of Canada and more than the total of consumer and auto loans.

Loans are not just for college kids anymore. More than one-third are borrowers aged 40 and up, including 5% of borrowers who are older adults.

About 8 million borrowers have defrauded on their loans, with estimates that one-third of loans may need to be covered by the federal government at a cost of $500 billion, seven times what we spend on the food stamp program.

News reports, books and documentaries are full of personal sagas about college students who are loaded with debt. They have resigned themselves to making the monthly minimum payment, allowing the principal to go untouched or even increasing, and ultimately dying in debt.

I personally know about several such cases that have caused me to reconsider whether we really should sit by and let college debt accumulate.

I talked with an MU grad from a decade ago to confirm that high student borrowing is common here.

She once had a sterling high school record and was recruited by many schools before ultimately choosing MU.

Family dynamics prevented any family contributions, yet her stepfamily income disqualified her for Pell Grants and other financial-need scholarships.

She worked, often full time, while in college and spent several months sleeping in her car in East Campus. Her grades slipped, forcing her to change majors, resulting in her graduating in 4½ years rather than the 3½ (due to AP and dual credits) that she had expected.

She has not yet missed a payment, but she usually pays the minimum. Yet, because of compound interest, she owes more now than she did a decade ago and doubts she will ever pay it off.

She is married, has a child, often works more than one job and rents a house. It hasn’t turned out the way she expected.

The higher education industrial complex is ripe for student exploitation and abuse. Parents, students, college and universities, state and federal governments, and financial institutions all have some self-interest in awarding student loans. But no one has the responsibility to check and balance unwise and unhealthy loan practices.

The result is a pit of debt that many student borrowers have accepted they will never repay.

President Joe Biden issued the executive order providing relief for up to 43 million borrowers and canceling the full loan balance of about 20 million others.

Biden proposes that Pell Grant recipients be eligible for up to $20,000 cancellation and non-Pell Grant recipients up to $10,000 if their income is under $125,000.

Further, a new income-driven repayment plan would reduce monthly payments caps for undergraduate loans from 10% to 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income. Additionally, Biden proposes doubling the current maximum Pell Grant of $6,895 while making community colleges free.

To attend Mizzou, in-state students pay tuition of $12,396 (for 14 hours), and out-of-state students pay tuition $30,734 plus another $11,000 for room and board.

Each university administers its own federal guaranteed loans, but certainly students should not be borrowing the full price of their education. Some do.

The foundation of the college debt culture is our prevailing “buy now, pay later” perspective long encouraged by Madison Avenue advertising.

Additionally, American culture has formed a culture promoting higher education as the major path to success.

A prevailing culture norm is that “it’s better to go to college than not to go,” even if you have no particular aspirations. Potential students have heard dozens of times from family and friends that “college gave me the best years of my life.”

Students and parents often have FOMA — fear of missing out — syndrome. Parents don’t want their students to miss out on educational opportunities, so they don’t discourage additional borrowing.

Plus, they are unable to truly recognize the skills of their children. Students, understandably, are more focused on “finding themselves” than accurately projecting their earning potential.

Moreover, 18- and 20-year-olds, feeling invincible, usually don’t understand the value of a dollar, so they are unlikely to use wise judgment when making a “drop out or borrow” decision.

And colleges? Well, they need students. And banks need borrowers.

The federal government went into the student-loan business back in the 1950s. The the National Defense Student Loan program was a response to the Soviet Union launching the Sputnik satellite that scared Americans into believing we were “falling behind.”

What sounded like a good idea back in the 1950s has grown into a hydra-headed monster involving banks, colleges and universities, lots of lobbyists and government employees who have secured protection for the industry, e.g., the exclusion of student loans in bankruptcy settlements.

A third-party payer of student expenses, such as the federally funded Pell Grants, provide little incentive for higher education institutions, including for-profit ones, to keep costs down.

Universities have added fine sports and information technology facilities, while student instruction is increasingly handled by graduate teaching assistants and “non-regular” faculty.

Cultural change is long overdue. Let’s cut the bells and whistles of the college experience, cap college debt to a reasonable level and encourage lower-cost alternatives.

Congress should establish higher education policies that protect future generations of college student from becoming life-long debtors rather than life-long learners. For the 43 million current college borrowers, Biden’s proposals seem reasonable.

Debt cancellation is a bad idea whose time has come.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994. He can be reached at Webberd@missouri.edu.