Saturday, November 21, 2009
Legislator, students pan plan for tuition tax
Post Gazette: "Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's proposed 1 percent tuition tax came under attack in Harrisburg yesterday, even as students panned it at a City Council meeting."
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8 comments:
This article asks some of the questions we all have been asking for while now. Why are they trying to tax us more than others? And how can they see this as a fair tax? I want to know why they are making it a percentage of a tuition rather than a flat rate all across the board. I think if it was a fair tax there would be less objection to it. However I think the thought of taxing college students is stupid to begin with, and very unfair to those looking to better their education.
I think that it is stupid to raise the taxes of students. Most students have hardly any income and it is difficult for them to make tuition payments presently. By raising their school costs, it is just taking their minds further away from learning and distracting them with financial problems. I think that if higher taxes are needed, they should be taken from people who are more financially stable.
A huge portion of the Pittsburgh economy revolves around UNiversity Campuses. THe universities employ locals, the students spend money locally, and many student groups help their communities. The university of Pittsburgh runs UPMC. That alone is a huge economic engine for the city. The comment that University students drain the city's resources is totally unfounded. We pay a fee at the start of each semester that goes to the port authority for our use of buses. Without the 30,000+ students that live and work in Pittsburgh the city would be in a much worse state.
I was talking about this issue with my mother the other day, and she raised a point that I had not thought about. I have been thinking about this tax in terms of how it affects students who are already going to school in Pittsburgh. However, this tax is a great way to deter future students from applying or deciding to come to school in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh needs its students, and this tax could very well be the thing that tips the scale away from school in Pittsburgh for a prospective student.
I think a major issue with this tax is the "idea" behind it - that the students are sucking the city dry and are not giving anything back. This is just an absurd statement. We pay for tuition which gives hundreds of teachers, admins, and food service workers jobs. Those people and the students live in the city paying rent, eating at local places, shopping at the malls, and giant eagle... They pay for cable and internet, water and sewage. Also they/we are the night life of the city. Although no one would ever be happy with 400 extra dollars a year I think people would be less angry is we weren't being accused of "not supporting the city" which is inaccurate and rude.
I do agree that there is some risk of deterring college students from coming to Pittsburgh, which would have an effect on the college 'industry.' Still though, I feel that this argument could be made for a whole lot of taxes that I support. Taxing corporations encourages them to work in other countries, so we have to moderate the extent of these taxes, but we shouldn't have none. I still believe that we can't hide behind the fact that we don't have money at present. In the case of private colleges, at least, we are attending either because we have money or because we believe we will have money before too long (to pay back our loans.) While, yes, many of us are living as economically as possible today, we can't claim that in the scope of the country, or even the city, that we aren't well off.
After looking into the issue a little more, I found out that others are in the same boat as we are. Tuition for the UC system is set to go up 34% next year, with protests and arrests happening at nearly every campus in California.
California is in a much more dire position than Pittsburgh is, but the issue still stands. Such taxes are a huge detriment to the economy. College is already unfordable for most; why make it even more so? We're putting a burden on our education system when the education in America already struggles to keep up with the demands upon it. What happens if universities go bankrupt? What happens if the majority of people are denied a college education?
I'd really rather not find out.
So many college students in Pittsburgh come from outside to go to school in this city. We bring a lot of diversity and energy to the city. Why single out education for taxing? I also do not understand why it is a percentage rate and not a flat rate across everybody. How is that fair? This whole tax sounds so irrational and ridiculous.
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