The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1927. SHOULD STUDENTS PAY MORE?

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 104, 23 July 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1927. SHOULD STUDENTS PAY MORE?

'THIS question has been raised in the United States by Mr. John - D. Rockefeller, Junior, the second richest man in the world. It lias caused as great a stir among the thoughtful people of America as that aroused among the thoughtless by the spectacular bruising contest between Dempsey and Sharkey for a fortune in prize-money. In spite of enviable wealth and all the outward and visible signs of prosperity, American taxpayers, like those in this country, are asking if education is costing too much. And there is precisely the same querulous talk there, as here, about the multiplicity of educational activities, the frenzied rush for costly experiments, the endless appointments of school psychologists, school nurses, school dentists, medical inspectors, athletic directors, teachers of cooking, dancing and dramatics, and all the geegaws of modern education. It would be just as easy to make a slashing indictment against the extravagance of education as it would be to make an impressive defence of the enormous expenditure on it, but these exercises may be left to the perfect wisdom of politicians and other erudite experts. They will fix it, if given ample leisure in which to do it. The ordinary man whose rates and taxes are out of all proportion to the real value of his income will want to know if the present system of education is making a college training too cheap for students whose parents could well afford to pay more for the special advantages bestowed on their children. For almost a century past the ideal of every progressive country has been to make it easy to pay for a college education. But even multi-millionaires are now beginning to think that the saturation point of State benevolence has been reached or, at least, is close at hand. The most sensitive of extravagant educationists may not sneer at Mr. Rockefeller for raising an important question or impute to him any motive or even a streak of meanness about it. No living man lias done more than he has done in cash and in kind for the promotion of higher education and the advancement of nations along intellectual and spiritual lines. j\nd yet this greatest of all benefactors of education, watching the trend of the youthful generation, lias been constrained to suggest that it might be better for the students, as well as for their communities, if they were compelled to pay more for special education. There was a time, observes the shrewd Croesus, when col lege education was practically free, because of an assumption that students benefiting therefrom would enter a profession in which the returns to them would he small hut the gain to the public large. To-day, Mr Rockefeller thinks, students attend college “for a good time, for social considerations or to fit themselves to earn money. The idea of service to'the community is no longer the chief consideration. Therefore, it seems proper that the student might be expected to pay for the benefits he ~ Should the principle of students paying more for the best education available in their country be applied to higher education in New Zealand? The State’s expenditure on education as a whole is now about £4,000,000 a year. One-fourth of the whole population in the Dominion is at school or college. More than 260,000 of the total number of pupils receive free education. Twenty thousand boys and girls are given free tuition in secondary education as a reward of merit in the primary schools. Thirteen thousand more obtain technical instruction at the expense of the State. Five thousand students attend the University Colleges, but do not pay the whole cost of their advanced tuition. Apart from endowment rents, the State contributes not less than £33,000 a year for the special benefit of university students. Should they be called upon to pay more for their great advantages? The taxpayers who have to take their off in order to make a living will, for once, be on the side of a multimillionaire.