O Estado deve pagar o ensino superior? E a quem?

O economista inglês Andrew Lilico sugere que apenas os melhores alunos deveriam receber bolsas de estudo e os restantes deveriam pagar o custo da formação universitária.

Under this system, poor but gifted students would receive full funding and maintenance. There would be no means testing. Outside the top 10-12 per cent of students, all that the state would really be doing would be addressing liquidity issues. There would be state support only for the top 35 per cent of students.

We can afford to fund higher education to a much greater extent, but only if we do so by focusing that funding on a much smaller group of students — the most gifted being the most appropriate group to focus upon.

That does not mean that only 35 per cent of students would attend. Others would doubtless attend, funding themselves from parental resources, private sector loans or extra jobs.

Já agora, uma vista de olhos pelos motivos pelo qual ele considera que o Estado financia a educação (nomeadamente a superior):

There are three proper reasons:

1 The Externality Argument – Higher education delivers benefits to society as a whole in addition to those benefits experienced by the student herself. That means a pure market is likely to under-provide higher education (fewer people will go than is best for society).

2 The Liquidity Argument – People will gain the most from higher education if they attend when relatively young, when their minds are most flexible and they have longer post-education to reap its rewards. But early in life people will not have been able to establish a track record with banks and other lenders, and so may find it difficult to obtain loans against their future human capital improvements.

3 The Glory Argument – Once we had kings, dukes, and other Great Men of the past who acted as benefactors and promoters of art and research and other goods provided through universities. Modern governments tend to tax away much of the surplus wealth that Great Men used in this way (for other socially important programmes such as health and income support). That means there would be a loss from reduced philanthropy if the government did not at least replace the philanthropy of these Great Men.

Higher education obviously provides other important social functions, but these are not good reasons for government intervention in it. For example, one of the main purposes of higher education is as a “consumption good” — the university life, with its freedom of thought, bonding experiences and general fun is a great thing to be part of. But things we enjoy doing and benefit from are usually best paid for by us, not the government.

Similarly, much is made of the benefits of education in preparing students for working life in a modern economy — that it is an investment with a high personal return. In which case, people will be more than willing to invest and government intervention will not be needed.

As duas primeiras razões (externalidade e liquidez) parecem-me muito os que apresento aqui ("externalidade") e aqui ("liquidez"); mas Lilico é muito mais otimista face ao mercado poder resolver o fator "liquidez" - "I suspect people would find it fairly easy to borrow privately to fund education if the state did not lend to them and if financial markets were healthy (the latter possibly still not being so, post-2007)." - do que eu - "um empréstimo à educação que verdadeiramente não criasse "constrangimentos de tesouraria" ao beneficiários seria um que durante o curso pagasse, não só livros e propinas, mas também o equivalente ao ordenado que o beneficiários receberia se estivesse a trabalhar em vez de a estudar (ou talvez um valor um pouco abaixo, assumindo que estudar é mais divertido que trabalhar) e que, depois, pudesse ser amortizado em suaves prestações durante 20 ou 30 anos - ou seja, um empréstimo que cobrisse todo o custo da educação, e tivesse um prazo de amortização comparável ao período em que a educação gera rendimentos (que é basicamente o tempo de vida activa do individuo). Posso estar enganado, mas penso que não são frequentes os empréstimos com essas condições."

Mas a ideia que este artigo me despertou foi outra - até que ponto a proposta de Lilico, de que o Estado só deveria pagar a universidade dos melhores alunos (independentemente do seu rendimento), não era, na prática, o que vigorava em Portugal até 1993 (quando as propinas nas universidades públicas era simbólicas)? Isto é, os melhores alunos iam para a universidade pública (gratuita), e os outros, se quisessem tirar um curso universitário, iam para a privada, a pagar (OK, a Universidade Católica - privada, paga e para os bons alunos - sai um bocado deste esquema, mas tirando isso era a regra geral).