Something else I’ve mentioned frequently is the bipartisan bias in federal policy towards higher education. This article at City Journal documented that bias:
In 1990, more than 53 percent of the federal investment on education went to a combination of elementary, secondary, and vocational schooling. The Clinton-Bush years shifted the balance toward higher education. By 2008, only 38.5 percent of all federal education dollars went to elementary, secondary, and vocational schooling. The early Obama years slowed this trend somewhat, though not in a way that helped vocational training efforts. Obama’s 2009 stimulus package shifted monies back to elementary and secondary schools, in part to protect the jobs of public school teachers. The pro-college bias reasserted itself more recently, and higher education’s spending share has increased steadily. The 2017 budget approaches 2008’s relative high, allocating 57 percent of all such spending to higher education and leaving only 43 percent to be shared among primary, secondary, and vocational efforts.
Note that, since the incomes of the parents of college students are significantly above the median, support for higher education is a middle class subsidy or even subsidizing the rich, not aid to the poor.
