We’re still paying for rich people to go to college. Why?

Republicans these days are full of tender concern that government welfare programs may weaken the moral fiber of their recipients. That is why they insist that benefits go only to those who prove their fitness of character through employment or job training.

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Unless the benefits are going to the rich and middle class, that is, in which case all concern evaporates. When it comes to in-state tuition rates, for example, which constitute one of government’s most generous handouts, no one seems to worry about a breakdown of family values or the debilitating loss of pride in self-sufficiency.

Maybe you haven’t thought of in-state tuition as a welfare program. But an upper-class family can send a child to a flagship school like, say, the University of Maryland for about $10,000 a year. That student is receiving an education that the College Park campus has determined is worth more than $32,000 a year — and plenty of out-of-state students are willing to pay as much. So by the time the student graduates, the family will have gotten a government handout to the tune of $88,000 — and no one will have asked the parents for proof that they’re employed.

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