Vouchers: We’ve Been Here Before

Governor Abbott and some well-heeled supporters, along with Texas Legislators (many of whom have received significant contributions from those supporters), are about to do to private K-12 education in Texas what the federal government did to higher education beginning in the 1970s, namely increase tuition costs to students and families tremendously. Wait, that’s not what vouchers are going to do, is it? Hmmm ... let’s see what happened back then.

It started with the Democratic Johnson and Carter Administrations, which began directing more federal aid dollars to higher education over five to six decades ago, and the Republicans soon followed suit, with the Reagan Administration expanding the federal college loan program, to make federally-guaranteed loans for college cheaper and more widely available. Later Congressional sessions added to the largesse, and neither of the political parties made it a priority to monitor what this did to tuition levels at the start. But when you throw more money at a product, of course, the demand goes up, and without changing the supply, the prices rise.

Between 1969 and 2023, the average annual tuition and fees at private colleges and universities, measured in inflation- adjusted dollars, almost tripled, growing by 284%. At public colleges and universities, the growth was still more staggering, at 343%. Colleges and universities competed to attract these dollars, and built reputations on athletics teams, research, and academics so that they could grow their enrollments and reap the benefits of those federal dollars. [Data source: National Center for Education Statistics] As the federal government spigots continued to loan more and more money or grant more outright funding to students, state governments covered less and less of the budgets of institutions they had created, and more and more federal funds meant higher student demands for more luxurious residential and dining facilities, and more expensive entertainment and athletics centers. Higher education institutions became marketing specialists or went out of business.

Is this what we want private schools to face? Vouchers are a “done deal,” so we probably need to be ready. In Fayette County, there are two private elementary schools, and one private high school. Tuition is about $5,000 per year for the elementary schools (both Catholic schools, one in Schulenburg and one in La Grange), and just over $6,000 for the high school, a Lutheran school in Warda. Does anyone seriously think, once each student has an extra $10,000 from the State of Texas to spend on private higher education, that these fees won’t start to rise?

Ahhh: maybe someone will open new schools, with fancier buildings, playgrounds, auditoriums, even a swim facility? Why not, when parents get $10,000 per year more to spend per student, above the current market rate of about half that.

This would repeat the explosion of private higher education facilities that popped up all over the country to take advantage of the federal loans for students needing training or degrees or certificates in higher educational specializations (remember Trump University, anyone?) Not a few of those schools failed to meet new federal requirements that forced them to document that their graduates were employable and could land and then hold down paying jobs after graduation, and they, like Trump University, are no longer in business.

Vouchers are supposed to give parents “school choice,” but at present, Fayette County does not offer parents that many options, so I fear that much of that new voucher money will instead enrich urban private schools that already exist or are newly opened, in places where public schools are often poorly funded or poorly run. So our tax dollars are going to be drained from Fayette County to benefit students in private schools elsewhere.

Hmmm. . . maybe we ought to think about investing in some new business that will own private schools in Houston or Dallas or Austin? There are bound to be profit opportunities somewhere in all this mess, right? Oh, wait . . . that just might be why those political donors are so eager to get this measure approved by the Legislature in the first place, huh … or is it?