The thing is, it isn’t “public” money — it’s my money and your money. It doesn’t belong to the government; it belongs to the people that earn it. And, we should have a right to require better public stewardship of the funds we pay. As far as public universities going bankrupt, citations definitely needed. In conservative Texas, universities seem to be operating just fine. Perhaps a solution is to restrict usage of federal student loan funds to only public schools. Federal student loans currently are being used to subsidize the operation of immensely wealthy private institutions. Harvard has billions in endowment, yet the taxpayer still gets to subsidize loans for students that go there. How is that fair? Perhaps we should tax the endowments of private schools and get them to start paying their fair share? It’s more fair than taxing me more.
If we tax the rich to pay for the poor, should we tax the rich schools o pay for the poor schools? Why should I subsidize Harvard?