Financial Frenzy

Tyler Powell

What if you always buy your groceries at the Publix just down the road, but it's closed this weekend? You would probably go to one in the next town, right? Well when you check out your groceries at the next Publix, the total cost is twice as much as usual and you're getting the same food. The cashier informs you that this is because you're from another town and must pay more for the same products. You probably think this is ridiculous and won't ever shop outside of town again. Their mission is accomplished because they were able to convince you to keep your money flowing to the same store every week so that the store in your town doesn't need to shut down.

This is the idea behind tuition; it's why out-of-state tuition is so much more expensive than in-state tuition. The government has devised this plan in-order to scare off those prospective students from leaving their home-state. By doing so, the student's money is continually recirculated throughout the state and the student is more likely to settle down and get a job in the state he/she attended college. When that student gets a job, a percentage of his/her income goes to the state in the form of taxes. If said student were to leave the state, that state would miss out on income taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes, taxes that would go toward education, like the HEA federal loan program that costs $22 billion a year. While it may not be much money for one person, if everyone had the opportunity to leave state, certain cities like Atlanta or New York would experience and economic boom with the wealth of new students or employees, while small towns with little in the way of a superior education would experience a financial collapse. This would create an enormous rift in the economic map of the United States where rural areas would go bankrupt and roads and public facilities would crumble away from disuse.

Through the institution of this idea, the government can easily spread the population, and in-turn their wealth, evenly throughout the fifty states. Thought it may seem unfair to the citizens and territorially discriminative, it is in the best interest of each states economic status that this is the way it has to be.