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There has been a lot of talk lately about free college. Being a Libertarian I initially scoffed at the idea. Then, as I normally do, I started to wonder if there was any idea that could improve the current college business model to attain most of the same perks that free college would be able to attain.

It would be nice if money were off the table when it came to choosing where to attend college. It would be nice if my income, or my familys income or social status, was not a factor. It would be nice if students were accepted solely based on their merit and potential, disregarding all other factors. To me, this is a principle that makes me want to find a solution as a Libertarian. I believe that I have done just that.

What if we had a business model that could remove the need for tuition, while making a college more profitable? What if colleges viewed students as investments and it was in their best interest to provide them with competitive degrees and to help them find employment quickly upon graduation? What if a college based its profitability off of the profitability of its alumni? What if colleges understood the needs of the market and focused its degrees on these areas to not only meet the needs of the market, but also to maximize alumni income? What if students that could not complete their program, and had to drop out, could walk away debt-free? What if the answer to all these questions is yes? Well, it is.

I have developed a business model that requires no upfront tuition to be paid by students. Instead, students agree that upon graduation, they will pay 12% of their income to the college for the next 12 years. With this basic agreement, the colleges profitability is not interlaced with the profitability of the student upon graduation. The college will want the student to find a high paying job quickly, and could offer services to help the student in this manner, and since the student is bound by this contract for 12 years, it is in the colleges interest to help its alumni for this entire time. The college wants to produce graduates that will earn a higher wage to maximize their profits.

In order to accomplish this, the college will focus degree programs on areas where there is a need in the market. Colleges would shift away from degree programs that earn little money and have little need in the market. Colleges would offer degree programs that would best fit the skill-set of the student and help the individual to be as successful as they can. The college now cares about counseling and motivating students to not drop out. The college now cares about each class within the degree program because it is in their interest to be as efficient as possible. Each class would be taking up vital space in a streamlined degree program designed to provide the best skill and knowledge to students to help them be as successful as possible.

Now the college would start to earn a reputation for itself and its alumni because of its better degrees. The market would constantly change and the degree programs would change in order to keep up, because that would be in the best interest of the college. This business model would remove the government from being loan officers, remove the need for grants for education, remove the debt that students face for decades, and create a contract between the college and its alumni that would be a mutually-profitable partnership.

In order to move this business model away from the theory and to test its validity, I took a look at the University of Colorado. During the Fiscal Year 2015-16 the University of Colorados revenue by tuition was $872.3 million, with a student headcount enrollment of 63,202 and awarded 14,479 degrees. If each of these graduates started out earning an average of $40,000 a year and received a 3% increase each year either through changing jobs or regular pay raises, once the 12 year span of alumni was full, the University of Colorado would be bringing in over $986 million dollars, an increase in revenue of over 13%. The average student would end up paying back $68,121 without any interest. These same 4 year degrees currently cost close to $120,000 with in-state tuition. If the average earnings of the alumni are $50,000 a year, the colleges income can increase to $1.2 billion, which would be an increase of over 41%. Understanding this, one can see why the colleges would focus on finding the best possible opportunities for its alumni.

I can hear you asking how does the university make more money while the student pays less? Its simple; we have removed the middle-man, the government. By doing so, we have removed compounding interest and all payments start off based on the graduates current income. If the college has graduates that are earning less than their peers, it is in everyones interest for the college to assist the graduate to find a higher paying job.

Students that attend college, but fail to graduate, owe nothing. This prevents the current problem of student debt without a degree. The student can always return later and complete their degree, or transfer to another college. Transferring credits would have the same effect as the college owning stock in the transfer student. The 12% that the student would pay upon graduation would be split based on their credits among the two colleges. There are sure to be challenges to this business model, but they could be overcome with creativity and resources.

The biggest challenge will be in the initial years until the college attains a full 12 year span of alumni that are paying their 12% payments. This could be overcome by using a hybrid of the tuition system with the 1212 program, or colleges with a large endowment might use some of it to attain this model. Harvard currently has the largest endowment in the world, just over $36 billion. It could be the first university to implement this business model as a social experiment.

There are solutions to these challenges, and these solutions lead us to a better business model when it comes to education costs in America.

* Jeffrey Smith served in the Army for 13 years, currently working as a Senior Operations Specialist and Analyst for a not-for-profit that proctors the clinical skills exam for medical students and has a masters degree in business administration from Excelsior College. Jeff is a long time Libertarian looking for opportunities to bring the Libertarian platform to everyday people.

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A Libertarian Look at Free College - Being Libertarian - Being Libertarian

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GARNER, Iowa When a voter here asked whether Sen. Charles E. Grassley supports a probe of President Trumps tax returns, the Republican gave a qualified yes. In Virginia, asked about Russian interference in the presidential election, Rep. David Brat said an investigator should follow the rule of law wherever it leads. And in Arkansas, Sen. Tom Cotton told 1,400 people sardined into a high school auditorium that the Affordable Care Act has helped Arkansans.

This weeks congressional town halls have repeatedly found Republicans hedging their support for the new presidents agenda and in many cases contradicting their past statements. Hostile questions put them on record criticizing some of the fights Trump has picked or pledging to protect policies such as the more popular elements of Obamacare. And voters got it all on tape, promising to keep hounding their lawmakers if they falter.

Theres more of a consensus among Republicans now that youve got to be more cautious with what youre going to do, Grassley said after an event here, referring to efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. That didnt mean much to me in November and December. But it means a lot now.

No Republican could say that the raucous town halls surprised them. Since December, a growing number of liberal organizations and activists have shared strategies for getting public answers from members of Congress. More than a thousand local groups have been founded to organize around the Indivisible Guide, an organizational how-to manual drafted by former Democratic staffers. Many thousands more have shown up of their own volition at town halls in their districts.

At every town hall, some activists have followed Indivisible advice, spreading themselves around the rooms to avoid looking like a clique, holding up signs with simple messages such as Disagree and synchronizing their chants.

The efficiency of the protests has led some of their targets, including Trump, to question their legitimacy.

The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists, Trump tweeted Tuesday.

[In N.J., record crowd at town hall presses Republican to get tough on Trump]

Fox News, which frequently covered 2009s protests against Democrats and lent several of its hosts to tea party rallies, has largely ignored the town halls. Other coverage in conservative media has focused on the role of veterans of Barack Obamas political campaigns and the Obama-founded Organizing for America in promoting the Indivisible Guide.

Obama told them to get in our faces, Rush Limbaugh told listeners of his radio show on Wednesday. Well, theyre in our faces now, and hows it working out? People are starting to get tired of it.

A number of Republicans have refused to hold town halls and courted ridicule. In California, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, local Indivisible groups held empty chair town halls where activists could meet and note the absence of their legislators.

In Pennsylvania, activists propped up an empty suit to symbolize Rep. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.); in other states, following the guide, they posted dummy Have You Seen Me? ads. In New York, they derided Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for canceling town halls just a week after publishing a report, Millennials & the GOP, urging more members of Congress to hold them.

It is unfortunate and counterproductive that a small number of activists believe the best way to address the very serious issues facing our country is to hijack and ambush community events for the sole purpose of political theater, Stefanik wrote on Facebook.

[Republicans are facing the ire of the anti-Trump movement this week. Will it last?]

Its true that organization has boosted attendance at town halls.

If youve got a personal connection to what this member of Congress is trying to do, youve got a great story to tell and a lot of legitimacy to ask that question, said Indivisible Guide co-author Ezra Levin on a Sunday night conference call, which more than 30,000 activists dialed in to hear. Its really important to be polite, but dont be scared of being firm.

But other Republicans who held public events this week have pushed back against Trumps characterization of protests, and his attack on the media as an enemy of Americans.

No American is another Americans enemy, Cotton said on Wednesday night. He also said: I dont care if anybody here is paid or not. Youre all Arkansans.

They are our fellow Americans with legitimate concerns, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) tweeted on Tuesday, referring to the protesters. We need to stop acting so fragile.

[At a town hall in Trump country, an America thats pleading to be heard]

While the National Republican Congressional Committee warned of possible violence at town halls, this weeks events have been peaceful. The harshest treatment has been loud heckling at answers voters didnt like, for instance when lawmakers struggled to defend the new secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, or to provide details on how the Affordable Care Act could be replaced.

In Iowa, Grassley was booed over his vote for DeVos, and he pointedly defended it only by saying that a president deserved to pick his Cabinet. In Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) was laughed at for saying he had not stayed for the entire DeVos hearing.

Cassidy, a medical doctor, is also the author of an ACA replacement bill that Republicans like Grassley have tentatively endorsed. If passed, it would allow states to keep the structure of the ACA, including its Medicaid expansion, even if other states opted out. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, has derided that solution. If you like your Obamacare, you can keep your Obamacare, is how Meadows described it a wry reference to an Obama pledge about individual plans that was belied when the ACA went into effect.

[Dave Brat: I thought it was going to be worse]

The Republicans whove had the neatest escape from town halls had already promised to save major portions of the law. Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), one of 23 Republicans whose districts voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump, told an audience Wednesday night that he would go for a replacement plan only if it saved popular parts of the ACA.

I do not favor repeal without there being a replacement in place, he said. Instead, he explained to a patient crowd that he wants to protect coverage for people with preexisting conditions, allow people under 26 to remain on their parents plans and ensure no lifetime caps on coverage. I want to assure the public that the majority in each house of the present Congress, I believe, will make sure these provisions continue.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a staunch Trump supporter from a deep red district, told constituents on Wednesday that preexisting conditions and 26-year-olds were the two Republican provisions that made it into the bill, and would obviously be part of a replacement.

But in 2009, it was Democrats, not Republicans, who introduced those provisions of the ACA. And the replacement framework from Republican leadership promises continuous coverage for people with preexisting conditions and also current health care plans; only the Cassidy plan, co-sponsored by moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and derided by conservatives, goes further.

Republicans have also struggled to answer constituents who took advantage of the ACA provision that allowed states to expand Medicaid to some people over the poverty line. In Cottons state, where a Republican-run government has maintained a version of the expansion called Arkansas Works, more than 300,000 people are estimated to have received coverage since the ACA went into effect.

Those results, and the stakes of repeal, were less clear when Cotton won his seat. The ACA, he said during a town hall meeting in 2014, was nothing but a churn operation designed to grow the power of the federal government. That year, he defeated an incumbent Democrat by 17 points.

Kim Kavin in Branchburg, N.J., contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

Read more from the original source:
Republicans distance themselves from Trump's agenda at rowdy town halls - Washington Post

Former House Speaker John Boehners comments come as Republican lawmakers across the country are facing angry constituents at town halls worried that Obamacare will be yanked away without a suitable replacement. | AP Photo

He says talk in November about lightning-fast passage of a new health care framework was wildly optimistic.

By Darius Tahir

02/23/17 11:04 AM EST

Updated 02/23/17 11:46 AM EST

Former House Speaker John Boehner predicted on Thursday that a full repeal and replace of Obamacare is not going to happen.

Boehner, who resigned in 2015 amid unrest among conservatives, said at an Orlando health care conference that the idea that a repeal-and-replace plan would blitz through Congress is just happy talk.

Story Continued Below

Instead, he said changes to former President Barack Obamas signature legislative achievement would likely be relatively modest.

[Congressional Republicans are] going to fix Obamacare I shouldnt call it repeal-and-replace, because its not going to happen, he said.

Boehners comments come as Republican lawmakers across the country are facing angry constituents at town halls worried that Obamacare will be yanked away without a suitable replacement.

President Donald Trump has said in recent days that he will release a plan by early to mid-March on how the administration plans to move forward on a repeal-and-replace plan.

On Thursday, Boehner said the talk in November about lightning-fast passage of a new health care framework was wildly optimistic.

I started laughing, he said. Republicans never ever agree on health care.

Most of the framework of the Affordable Care Act thats going to be there, Boehner concluded.

Read the original post:
Boehner: Republicans won't repeal and replace Obamacare - Politico

Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: Evan Mills/WIRED

The Affordable Care Act is far from the only Obama-era policy Republicans want to take down now that they control the government. A set of internet privacy rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission last year has also become a target. Though its received far less attention than healthcare or immigration, the rollback would affect millions of consumers and bring basic changes to how they use the internetthough they might not ever know it.

Companies like Google and Facebook can learn an awful lot about you based on what you search for, what pages you like, and who your friends are. But your wireless company and in-home broadband provider could learn much more. Although Google uses encryption to protect your searches from prying eyes, these companies can potentially see what sites you actually end up visiting and when you visit them. Mobile carriers track your location and could keep tabs on how much time you spend using different apps. And they can sell that information to the highest bidder.

It is unnecessary, confusing and adds yet another innovation-stifling regulation to the internet. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ)

The current FCC rules ban internet service providers and wireless carriers from selling many types of customer dataincluding web browsing history, location, and health informationunless you explicitly opt in. The rules do allow providers to sell certain types of less sensitive data, such as what type of data plan subscribers have, on an opt-out basis. But these gatekeepers to the internet have long envied internet giants like Google and Facebook. These massively wealthy companies couldnt exist without internet infrastructure to deliver their services. But they face fewer restrictions on data collection.

Now Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona plans to introduce a resolution to overturn the FCC rules, enabling internet providers and wireless companies to sell your data unless you explicitly opt out. The FCCs midnight regulation does nothing to protect consumer privacy, Senator Flake said in a statement to WIRED. It is unnecessary, confusing and adds yet another innovation-stifling regulation to the internet.

Until last year, the broadband providers had to comply with a set of less stringent privacy rules imposed by the Federal Trade Commission, which allowed the companies to sell your browsing data. That changed in September when a federal court decided that because the FCC had reclassified broadband providers as utility-like common carriers in 2015, the FTC no longer had the authority to regulate them. The FCC quickly passed a new set of stricter privacy rules in October. The new rules took effect last month.

The broadband industry, unsurprisingly, never liked the new restrictions. Access providers have watched jealously as companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook used their pipes to reap enormous revenues and become some of the most valuable companies on the planet. Now the broadband industry is working to become a bit more Google-like. Comcast bought NBC Universal. Verizon bought AOL and will soon own Yahoo as well. AT&T is trying to buy Time-Warner. All of these new consumer-facing acquisitions could benefit from the gods-eye view the broadband industry has into their customers browsing habits. Verizon did exactly that with its controversial supercookies in 2012. These trackers collected all unencrypted web traffic on customers devices and used that data to target ads.

Verizon eventually pared back the practice to collecting only data on Verizon-owned sites. But the industry clearly wants to have the option of turning supercookies on by default in the future. Earlier this year several industry groups sent a letter to Congress arguing that the FCCs broadband privacy rules confuse consumers because they only apply to access providers and not the Googles of the world.

Flake appears to be taking the letter to heart. His plan, first reported by Politico, is to use a seldom used law called the Congressional Review Act that allows Congress to overturn federal regulations within 60 days of when they take effect. It would also effectively ban the FCC from passing similar rules in the future, meaning that even if the Democrats retake the Presidency in 2021, the FCC still wouldnt be able to reinstate the privacy restrictions.

Flake describes his plan as the first step towards returning control of broadband privacy rules to the FTC. The catch is that as long as broadband providers are considered common carriers, the FTC has no authority to regulate them. But there are some older FCC privacy protections that will remain in place. If Congress enacts a resolution disapproving of the FCCs broadband privacy rules, no enforcement gap will be created, says former FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz. As long as the FCC has authority, he argues that a rollback wouldnt leave consumers entirely without privacy protections. Thats because federal law allows the agency to fine companies that dont tell customers theyre being tracked.

Even the new GOP-led FCC would presumably work quickly to pass a new set of privacy rules to avoid privacy anarchy. These would probably be more in line with the FTCs less restrictive rules. But courts may interpret similar rules as too close to those that Congress plans to roll back and prevent from being re-implemented says Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In that case, the FCC may not be able to implement any new privacy rules at all, and it will be up to Congress to pass privacy protections. The Republicans have all the options, says Tien. The question is what they want. Just as with health care, it becomes incumbent on them to decide.

Either way, the FCC would not be able to re-introduce the stricter rules if Flakes rollback succeeds. Barring a major public backlash, internet providers could soon start selling your browsing data to advertisers without your express permission. With all that data-envy, we have little doubt that they will.

See the original post here:
Republicans Are Trying to Let Internet Providers Sell Your Data - WIRED

Key Republicans in the U.S. House told the Federal Reserve not to issue new rules until President Donald Trumps pick to lead regulation of Wall Street at the agency is confirmed.

Should the Fed defy the request, lawmakers may undo their work, according to a Thursday letter to FedChair Janet Yellen from Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and 33 other Republicans on the panel.

We will work with our colleagues to ensure that Congress scrutinizes the Federal Reserves actions -- and, if appropriate, overturns them," according to the letter.

Trump hasnt announced his selections for any of the three vacancies at the seven-member Fed board, including the never-filled role of vice chairman for supervision, which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law. Among the three positions is that of Daniel Tarullo, who has served as the Feds point man on financial regulation, and plans to step down in April.

The Fed has received Republicans letter and has no further comment, said Eric Kollig, a spokesman.

Republicans and the Trump administration say Dodd-Frank and other financial rules have stifled economic growth and harmed consumers. Trump, who has called the law a disaster, signed an executive order earlier this month instructing the Treasury Department to examine financial rules and file a report on its findings.

Earlier, other Republicans -- including Patrick McHenry, from North Carolina, and Senator Pat Toomey, from Pennsylvania -- called for Yellen to hold off on various Fed activities until Trump nominees are in place.

In his letter, Hensarling of Texas referred to possible rules related to stress tests for banks that Yellen mentioned when she testified before the House earlier this month. Hensarling said that the Fed should halt rulemaking "absent an emergency," according to the letter.

Link:
Republicans Call on Fed to Halt Rules Until Trump's Picks Are in Place - Bloomberg