Should Private Schools and Colleges receive more state funding than non private?

realitykeeper wrote: »

Those who send their kids to private schools tend to come from more affluent sections of society. The affluent tend to pay more taxes than the less affluent. Furthermore, rich people tend to be less likely to cost the state as much in benefits as poorer people do, the dole being one example.

Surely then, it is both fair and logical that private schools should get more state funding than non private schools, as the parents for private school students pay more and get less from the government.

The fact that they draw less in dole payments doesn't mean that they get less from the state overall. For example, they are far more likely to have been to university, and/or to send their own children to university, and thus benefit from very substantial state funding. They also live longer, and therefore tend to draw more in old-age/retirement pensions than those from lower socioeconomic groups. And welfare expenditure on old-age/retirement pensions is, as you probably know, considerably greater than welfare expenditure on unemployment benefit.

So I think your assumption that middle-class people get less from the state is a bit glib. It may not be true, when we look at the entire range of public exenditure.

Even if it it's true, so what? The relationship of the citizen to the state is not a mercantile one, to be analysed in neo-Liberal individualised terms. State expenditure is not an attempt to return to each citizen an amount equivalent to the taxes that he pays; it is an attempt to indentify and meet both common and individual needs.

realitykeeper wrote: »

Despite these truths, I still hear arguments that private schools and colleges should get no state funding. How does that make sense?

You're offering a false dichotomy here. It's not a case that we either (a) give private schools more funding than public schools, or (b) give private schools no funding. You're overlooking the intermediate posiion, which is in fact the one that prevails in most countries; private schools get funding, but less funding than public schools.

realitykeeper wrote:

Despite these truths, I still hear arguments that private schools and colleges should get no state funding. How does that make sense?

Because it offers an unfair playing field. If well off people want to buy better teachers and make sure that their kids stay with Johnny Doctor and Paddy lawyers kids from down the road , they should be expected to foot the bill of the teachers salaries and the schools upkeep.

He does have form for posting provocative right-wing analyses that are based on bizarre misconceptions of how things work. But I have no reason to think that he is other than sincere in his views.

realitykeeper wrote: »

Exodus 20:5 “You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.”

If the poor try to take from the wealthy, the wealthy will go and leave everything to the poor. The poor will then have to fend for themselves. The children of the poor live with the decisions of their parents, that`s just how it is.

If you are going to use biblical quotes to justify treating people unequally then I have to wonder are you trolling.

realitykeeper wrote: »

Why would you think that?

Because nobody could possibly read Mt 13, and still think that Mt 13:12 means what you suggest it means. It has nothing to do with wealth or material possessions.

recedite wrote: »

The bible has a lot of morally questionable parables, and also some that contradict others. For example, that whole "prodigal son" parable would seem to give the opposite message.

On the original topic itself, I find it interesting to compare private schooling to private healthcare. In that situation you pay into the public kitty first.
Then, if you can afford it, you may also pay for private health insurance, which will give you access to the "higher tier" of healthcare. But you don't get a refund for the money you paid into the public system; you forfeit that.

If private healthcare was run according to the same principles as private schooling, your PRSI would be paid back into the private hospital as a state subsidy, and then you'd only have to pay the top-up.


They can't both be right, can they?

interesting juxta position, where I would see a difference though is that health costs are insurance/risk based whereas educational costs are certain also in terms of medical costs most people use a mix of private and state run services so one would be less inclined to argue to have taxes returned for "opting out" .
As education is more a cultural good, parents might be inclined to be more emotionally attached to educational choices for their kids.
I'd be in favour of a voucher system where the gov. creates an educational account for kids and parents could top this up if they wish and pay the school of their choice directly. Currently I'm happy enough with the system, my kids go to a private school which looks like any other city school and not a sprawling landed estate affair , I pay fees, the gov contributes to the costs (out of my taxes) so fair is fair.