Cap in hand and gown flowing, President William Jefferson Clinton made his bid to be the “education President” when he spoke recently at Princeton University. He offered a $1500 refundable tuition tax credit for students and their parents, and predicted that such a credit would make community college attendance essentially free.
What he didn’t say was that the tax credit would cost about $25 billion in the next seven years, though the president did say that he could pay for the cost by reinstating a tax on international flights and imposing another set of new taxes.
Because issues of educational access are so important, this proposed tax credit merits attention. To be sure, it will help poor young people who don’t have the wherewithal to attend a school like Princeton or Yale. But one has to wonder, as one always does when tax incentives are offered to modify behavior, if the tax will stimulate enrollment or if it will do less than is intended.
Good Intentions Not Enough
