Pittsburgh's proposal to tax tuition idiotic

In a free market society, nothing is free. And when a government needs money to provide its citizens with services, it taxes them. Oftentimes, the wealthier in a society are taxed more than those with less wealth. That, in a nutshell, is the basic philosophy behind taxation.

But the mayor of Pittsburgh, Luke Ravenstahl, is going against conventional wisdom by proposing a tax on some of the poorest people in his area — college students.

In order to close a $15 million budget gap for the city of Pittsburgh, Ravenstahl proposed a 1 percent tax on tuition for all colleges in the city. The tax, he says, would raise about $16 million. The mayor’s primary argument for proposing the tax is that 1 percent is a small amount compared to the exorbitant fees that are charged for tuition.

The way Ravenstahl sees it, if the students already are pouring out tons of cash, why not squeeze out a little more for the city?

Needless to say, we find this proposal absolutely ridiculous and simply wrong.

By taxing those who are least able to pay, Ravenstahl is showing a gross disrespect for the students in his city. Tuition for students is high enough — to tax students for choosing to go to college in a particular area is to take advantage of them, pure and simple. And although it’s important to stress that Pittsburgh is the only city that even is considering such a policy, we can’t help but imagine what it would be like if such a tax were imposed on students in Michigan.

In East Lansing, for example, students are the No. 1 clientele in many of the shops and restaurants. By living, working and playing in the city, students are the biggest help to the city’s economy. Even in Pittsburgh, students likely are putting a lot more into the city’s economy by living and shopping there than the city would get by taxing them on their tuition. Ravenstahl needs to understand that Pittsburgh is privileged to have young students live in his city, not the
other way around.

Oftentimes, students are not looked at as “real adults” by the older people in government. Most of us are unmarried and lack full-time jobs, but these things don’t necessarily mean we have more disposable income or that we should be taxed more just for living in a college town or big city.

These taxes most likely wouldn’t be coming out of students’ income, but from student loans or their parents’ checkbooks. Students might have to take out more loans just to pay a city tax. And if such a tax were to pass, it could even deter students from choosing a school in the Pittsburgh area. Regardless of the extra hundreds of dollars students would have to pay, why would anyone want to go to school in a city that looks at them purely as a means for more cash?

The thought of taxing students even a little bit on their tuition might be tempting to city officials, but the results would be disastrous for all involved. We’re happy this idea never came up in the state of Michigan — after all, students have already paid their “tax” with the lost Michigan Promise Scholarship. In the end, Ravenstahl and all city officials need to understand that just because students are being a charged an arm and a leg for tuition doesn’t mean that cities have the right to do it too.