News and perspective on public policy issues affecting Washington's economy and quality of life, brought to you by the Economic Opportunity Institute.
At a poker table, the Washington Roundtable’s latest education report would amount to a bold bluff. Our elected representatives in Olympia should call them on it. The leaders of Washington’s biggest corporations say they want more graduates from the state’s colleges and universities to employ — but they’re hoping no one notices the billions of […]
Tuition-free postsecondary education may seem like a stretch in our current economic climate, but it is not impossible, as Jordan Weissman describes in an interesting thought experiment over at the Atlantic. More people need to go to college than ever before in order to have a shot at a living wage. Why not make college […]
It’s fine to expect instant gratification when downloading an app to your smartphone or streaming a movie to your computer. But we can fairly expect our elected representatives to behave differently than the average consumer, by making choices that are less about short-run returns and more about building for the long-term. Most of the rhetoric […]
The Economic Opportunity Institute’s innovative proposal to re-imagine college tuition financing is getting some serious attention in the state of Oregon. The proposal, dubbed Pay It Forward: The Debt-Free Degree Plan, would allow students to attend any public college or university without up-front tuition costs. Instead, they would pay a small percentage of their income for […]
