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The lack of education mobility in the U.S. with rising student debt and soaring tution.

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The SUNY public university system is giving each student $2000 in aid to reduce college dropout. It is using simple approaches that include transportation money, and other aid to keep students from dropping out. It is called Accelerated Study in Associate Programs that has doubled graduation rates at the City University of New York since 2007. it provides textbook fees, transportation stipends, academic advisement, free tutoring, tution funds. In return the students commit to full time study and meet with their advisors regularly.

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Krugman points out that the federal tax rate for the top 1% is 34% in 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office, because president Obama let the high end Bush tax cuts to expire. It is the number to remember says Krugman- 34. In 2008 the figure was 28.2. Under Hillary Clinton the average tax rate for the top 1% would go up by 3.4 percentage points, according to the Tax Policy Center. Some of this would help pay for the tution plan to provide access to the middle class to public universities. Under populist Trump, Krugman points to the elimination of the inheritance tax and tax rates going down substantially, and no such programs to promote the upward mobility that everyone is talking about, and no way to pay for a big infrastructure building effort for growth and jobs- upward mobility that is the focus of every candidate's election campaign including Sanders, Trump in appealing to older white working class families, Clinton, Ryan, Bush, and others in both parties.   ...

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The failure of colleges and universities in the U.S. to control costs and lower the tution burden for parents and students. Student debt crosses $1 trillion in the U.S. in 2012. This is likely to hurt consumption and new home sales and lower the prospects of economic recovery.

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In 2000 student debt in the U.S. was at $200 billion. In 2010 student debt at 1 trillion dollars will surpass credit card debt. Student debt is now become a serious macroeconomic factor. Budget cuts will also increase the level of student debt as fewer grants are available and tution goes up. It is expected to shape when young people can afford to buy a home, start a family, or save for their kids education. This would have serious economic implications for the future.

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About 14.5% of U.S. households went through some form of food insecurity in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The problem is acute on some campuses. In the 10 campus system of the University of California about 40% of the student undergraduates now come from households with yearly income of less than $50,000. Many students with full tution aid come from a low income household, and have to reduce meals or use a food pantry. About 183 schools are now part of the College and University Food Bank Alliance.

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John Carney of the WSJ looks at the financial transactions tax proposed by 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to pay for high college tution costs.

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About 43% of newly admitted students in 2014 at nine undergraduate campuses of the University of California (UC) system are the first to attend college in their families. The UC system has striven lately to attract more students from underperforming high schools with many Latinos or Hispanics. About 28.8% of students admitted in the UC system are Hispanics in 2014, 27.6% White, 36% Asian American and 4% Black. 13% of students admitted are out of state paying tution of $35,000 per year compared to $13,000 in state tution, out of state students tution subsidizing the in state students. It was 5% in 2010.

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A 52% cut in state funding to universities in Pennsylvania. Democrats say the cuts in funding for 18 public universities from $1.2 billion to $567 million would lead to significant tution increases. Penn State University says 8% of its funding comes from the state, and this will lead to tution increases.

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Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, says the Obama plan for ratings of colleges in the U.S. will not add much value because much of the information is already available. More important she says is to tackle the bad actors in education leading to high student debt. She says she will cut costs by a couple of hundred million dollars in the next few years, and will keep pushing on costs as there is a natural tendency to revert back. With less state support the UC system is admitting a larger number of students from out of state who pay higher tution.

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Romney promises job and tution assistance for veterans.

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As Arnold Schwarznegger's time as governor of California comes to a close, the state is still short of $20 billion to pay for all the services that it provides. Arnold's popularity is down to 27% and he has failed to bring financial order to the state- the state is simply broke. Hikes in tution for the state's university system and other moves haven't been enough. And Arnold is down to warning the federal government that California's safety net faces further shredding- with more pain for the elderly and children, and in the schools.

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The title about Indians in America as an Experiment is a misnomer, and reflects a loss of understanding of American and European civilization, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions that created the Modern World starting in Britain and the US, and of India's aspirations for modernization. When both China and India aspire to the modern world that the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution have created.  India's Mohandas Gandhi read Emerson, had the support of FDR, of Christian missionary Charlie in the Bardoli Satyagraha, of a British Admiral's daughter at the Gandhi Ashram,  and Gandhi's prayer service included his favorite Christian hymns. This report shows no appreciation of this India and its relations with America. No country does that, what the US has done for 2 decades according to the National Science Foundation cited in this article, not the countries in the European Union, not France, Germany, Italy and Britain, not India, not China- provide tution and stipend and educate more foreign students than Americans or citizens of the home country in advanced engineering. It has never happened in the history of the world for the major nations that participated in the Renaissance in Europe and the Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, that have created the Modern World. It puts at risk what we know as the Modern World. It also puts at risk the countries such as China and India in addition to the US, as either these Indian or Chinese engineers stay in the US and take jobs and lower wages for Americans, or go back to their home country and help the development of their home country which has invested vital resouces for their previous education. Only if they return to their home country can 2.4 billion people of China and India gain from the investment made in these engineers education. This is particularly true for India, which is now emerging as the fastest growing country in the world with the access to pools of capital, labor and technology needed to match the US and China in modernization and development. For India these computer and other engineers can play a vital role in development for 1.4 billion people.  India like Germany, Italy and France in Europe and Japan, Indonesia Philippines, need the US and Britain as the leader of parliamentary democracies with a long history of parliament since 1600. Need Britain and the US as the cradle of the scientific and Industrial Revolutions, and see their vital interests in the making of a strong Nation in the American continent that can fulfill this role through it's religious values, scientific spirit, pioneering spirit, and generous impulses towards other nations. ...

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Kristina Johnson is the new chancellor of the SUNY education system in New York state. About 440,000 students are enrolled in the SUNY system. Johnson is an engineer who studied at Stanford for her masters and doctoral degrees. She headed the engineering school at Duke and set up the new interdisciplinary engineering  center for applied sciences and medicine at Duke in 2007-2009. She is also an inventor with 42 patents, some are being used in technology to take pictures of cancerous cells. In 2009 she was made undersecretary of energy in the Obama administration. SUNY is expanding access to lower income students with Governor Cuomo's Excelsior scheme to fund tution for students whose parents make less than $125,000.

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A Tax Policy Center study (joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Insitute) shows $157 billion would be generated in the first year from an increase in taxes on the top 1% of income earners in the U.S., about 1.13 million households earning average $2.1 million, by increasing the federal tax rate from current 33.4% for this group to 40%. This could pay for a program to provide tution free education in America's colleges and universities. Even increasing the federal tax to 40% on the 115,000 households earning over $9.4 million on average, the top 0.1% of American households, would generate $55 billion in the first year, enough to pay for the $47 billion cost of tution free education at all of America's public colleges and universities, according to the Tax Policy Center. Economists including Stiglitz and others, point to significant impact of revenue generated from such a tax when applied to improving educational opportunity for the middle class and lower income groups. Education is a great leveler of income disparities as seen in the U.S. after World War II. During recent decades the highest income groups weren major beneficiaries of tax and economic policy, at the very time the middle class and factory workers were hit hard by global competition which lowered wages and exported jobs. The interest rate policies of the Fed after boom bust cycles also favored large investors in equity markets over smaller income earners with savings account deposits, whose savings experienced little growth under interest rates close to zero. ...

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Funding for US colleges decreases, fewer high school students graduate in 2025. Fewer foreign students. All this is affecting American colleges. For two decades American colleges allowed tution to get out of control making it unaffordable for a middle class that was already hit by the American leaders who allowed America's industrial base to be shipped out to China. As factory towns dwindled in importance and worker jobs and incomes declined across the length and breadth of America, universities and colleges took little responsibility even as young men opted to not go to college. Tution fees kept rising requiring loans that could not be paid off. Today the rust belt is coming to these colleges as the DJT administration has decided to give low priority to funding these colleges and universities and new career paths are being created through apprenticeships and other vocational education.

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The Wall Street Journal points out that about 3.92 million people in the U.S. reported income above 200,000 in 2009, and paid $434 billion in taxes. Of these people 90% are not millionaires. The overwhelming majority of the people affected by an increase in taxes on the middle class with incomes above $200,000 are not millionaires. The editorial asks a question about "fairness" for these Americans- who pay a large share of their income for higher university tution payments for kids- for whom the taxes can make a difference.

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Mitch Daniels, former 2 term governor of Indiana, and president of Purdue University, describes the damage done to hope for the future by putting so many people in so much debt- with estimates by WSJ-Experian showing 70% of recent graduates as borrowers and the average borrower graduating with $33,000 in debt. 40 million young people are affected, as they postpone marraige, postpone childbearing, postpone buying a new home, stay away from starting a new business. Daniels put his own social and moral obligation to the test as he brought the cost of an education at Purdue for 2 successive years- with a 3 year freeze on tution and cuts in room and board, textbook costs. Purdue student borrowings have dropped by 18% since 2012, adding a new metric in evaluating the delivery of quality education for the country, and a moral and social obligation for all the leaders in our society.

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Bernie Sanders takes up the problems of young people facing large tution costs and seniors on limited income by recalling the situation 40-50 years ago when things were a lot better for these two groups.

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Jack Hough points out the problem with TIPS, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities. The CPI-U that is used to calculate the inflation for TIPS is not representative of inflation for the average household. It understates the cost of gasoline, tution increases for kids in school, and price increases for prescription medicines. Prescription drugs have a weighting of only 1.25%, college tution only 1.53%. The CPI-U index went up by about 3.9% in 2011, and at the same time the gasoline portion increased by 33%, for households spending a lot on commuting to work. Another problem is slowing inflation- with inflation slowing to 2%. Compared to TIPS the alternative of dividend payments by cash rich companies with secure market positions are a better hedge against inflation.