The Graduate Tax

By Steve McCann

Politicians are ever on the lookout for new sources of revenue for their bloated governments. The new coalition government in the United Kingdom is scrambling to find new and creative ways to increase revenues.

A proposal made by Vince Cable, Business Secretary of the current British Government, represents a new and insidious methodology of effective indentured servitude if someone is foolish enough to obtain a university degree in the United Kingdom.

In essence this graduate would pay a lifelong tax each year until death emancipates him or her. The tax will be solely based on the fact of obtaining a degree and would be based on a percentage (yet to be determined and subject to the whims of future parliaments) of one's income. As it stands today, higher earners could pay up to $24,000.00 per year.

Theoretically this revenue would be designated to keeping tuition costs down as the new funds would subsidize the universities. But as history has shown, whenever there is a subsidy from government cost containment is rarely on the agenda for any institution. No to mention there is no guarantee that future governments would cease the subsidy and simply add the new revenue to general expenditures.

Now that the Washington D.C. has fully taken over the student loan program will this kind of thinking soon appear in the halls of Congress, as they too are desperate for new sources of revenue?