Half of All Freshman at U of A Fayetteville are Out of State Students

More evidence of my thesis that Higher Ed is one of the most over-funded areas of state government. It turns out that half the freshman at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville are from out of state. A big reason for this is that they have offered inducements to out of state students because they have run short of Arkansans who are qualified and interested in their programs. In other words, they have a huge over-capacity.

Heavy subsidies of higher education does not "create jobs" in this state, because labor is mobile. Rather, when a state has a higher-ed system grossly disproportionate to the size of its underlying existing real economy then higher ed is a subsidy from the taxpayers of that state to the economies of other states where the students must go to find work. Or those students graduate and then take a job around here which does not require a college degree, in which case the higher ed represents of massive misallocation of resources.

I tried to warn people back when they started the lottery that Higher Ed was already over-funded. Now I guess they have so much money coming, and they have ballooned their facilities to such an inappropriate capacity, that they have to start subsidizing the education of out-of-state people to find someone to use it all.

This state will be forced to make some very difficult choices in just a few years. When it comes time to cut back, a primary target should be Higher Ed.  When we are having trouble taking care of our own needs, subsidizing the college education of non-Arkansans should be last on the list. Especially since many of us detect an arrogant, elitist, and out of touch culture at some of these universities. It is particularly unfitting that the state of Arkansas stuff more public money into institutions whose administration expresses disdain for the values, mores and culture of the people whose funding makes it possible.