Gov.-elect Martin O’Malley promised to cap tuition for this university. But the question is, when? How high would the cap be? What about room and board and other mandatory fees? To tell you the truth, without cutting tuition in half and granting more money to the university, Maryland would likely still get an “F” in college affordability.
Though there are expanding state grants and loans, as well as student aid available for students, these are Band-Aid solutions to the problem. O’Malley knows the problem of college affordability and how to solve it, but he does not want to. His concern in higher education is to make college less expensive, but that is not enough when it is possible to ensure that students who are admitted to a public university in Maryland do not have to worry about funding or taking out a loan to continue their education.
How can the state of Maryland resolve college affordability? It can establish a higher education trust fund. The trust fund would be dedicated to giving out much-needed funding to the University System of Maryland so it would not need to rely on tuition costs. It should also apply to room and board and other fees you or your parents are paying every semester. It would be similar to the Social Security trust fund, but the difference is this trust fund will be separate from the general budget and will pay out interest. No one in the Maryland government would touch it, because it goes exclusively to the universities.
The trust fund would, for all intents and purposes, allow free higher education to all students, undergraduate or graduate, admitted to any school that’s part of the system. The fund would also give out monthly living expense grants of about $4,000 per semester to all students, unless they have jobs that pay the average yearly salary of a Maryland worker.
How do we fund this? Simple: Shift the tax burden to the rich and well-off. Expand the state company tax to any business earning $10 million in revenue. Make the state income tax more progressive by raising the minimum tax threshold to the average yearly Maryland worker, so any worker who is paid a salary under the threshold would not have to pay income tax at all. The property tax should be made more progressive as well – if either a taxpayer’s land or property is expensive, the owner has to pay even more of his or her income. Finally, institute a wealth tax for the richest residents in the state.
The money from these sources would flow into the trust fund, which would grow as it collects interest. Eventually, the interest by itself will pay for the system, with the fund’s principal intact and growing. As a consequence of the tax shift, it would be necessary to repeal the state sales tax.
The Maryland General Assembly can easily establish this trust fund as soon as it commences the 2007 session next year. Fully funding the system with a trust fund benefits not only the system, but the government, people and students.
Ndubuisi Okeh is a freshman government and politics major. He can be reached at jkid@umd.edu.
