Is TOPS Really Bad For Louisiana Education and Our Kids?

101.7 / 710 KEEL's Robert J Wright and Erin McCarty, along with producer Matt Parker, continue their discussion about possible changes to Louisiana's TOPS program, including a number of proposed fixes and, whether, in the long run, the scholarship giveaway hurts education - and students - in our state.

As legislators in Baton Rouge ponder ways to limit the rising costs of college, they seem to forget simple laws of economics: TOPS exists because college tuition is so expensive. College tuition is so high because of TOPS. As long as more and more government programs (non-endowment scholarships, student loans, etc.) remove the student from the economic chain, the law of supply and demand is eliminated, i.e., government, not the student, is the "customer."

Meanwhile, the question arises, as TOPS and other programs expand to include more and more students, does Louisiana get closer and closer to the socialist pitch of former Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of "free college for everybody." To paraphrase conservative writer P.J. O'Rourke: "I didn't know how expensive college was until it was free."