I’ve thought that a brilliant political move by the Trump administration would be to get Congress to pass a 3% tax on any university endowment above $10 billion and use that money to fund a voucher program for early childhood education.
It would yield $12.15 billion a year, which is roughly the same budget as Head Start. You keep Head Start as an option, but if parents want to use the vouchers for nonprofit or private sector alternatives, they could. What do you think? I’m totally fine with Stanford or Harvard having to give up $1.5 billion their $50 billion endowments.
Aside from the fact that I can't imagine this admin allocating all that savings to childcare (because women should be doing that for free)... That could be an option for families to pay for care, but do you think that would improve the lack of workers/facilities and incentivize quality? I'm not sure what the right mix is but it seems like there need to be incentives on the supply side.
I wonder. With a $12.2 billion annual budget, head start’s per-child cost is around $13,700 per year. Imagine that someone in your neighborhood could start a nonprofit early education center for 60 kids. That’s $820,000 per year of voucher money. Plus any parental donations and state/philanthropic grants. Seems like some cool models could emerge.
Maybe! It sounds like a lot of money, but $14k is less than half the per child average daycare cost in Seattle, and there aren't enough currently and they often can't survive. I certainly haven't tried to do all the math, but I think it would rely on those additional grant and donation subsidies, which would hopefully come with quality standards. I would love to see some cool models emerge!
You called it pretty close. I missed that he had campaigned on going after Harvard’s endowment. It’s been pretty awful to watch cutting edge health research in particular get stripped of funding.
I’ve thought that a brilliant political move by the Trump administration would be to get Congress to pass a 3% tax on any university endowment above $10 billion and use that money to fund a voucher program for early childhood education.
It would yield $12.15 billion a year, which is roughly the same budget as Head Start. You keep Head Start as an option, but if parents want to use the vouchers for nonprofit or private sector alternatives, they could. What do you think? I’m totally fine with Stanford or Harvard having to give up $1.5 billion their $50 billion endowments.
Aside from the fact that I can't imagine this admin allocating all that savings to childcare (because women should be doing that for free)... That could be an option for families to pay for care, but do you think that would improve the lack of workers/facilities and incentivize quality? I'm not sure what the right mix is but it seems like there need to be incentives on the supply side.
I wonder. With a $12.2 billion annual budget, head start’s per-child cost is around $13,700 per year. Imagine that someone in your neighborhood could start a nonprofit early education center for 60 kids. That’s $820,000 per year of voucher money. Plus any parental donations and state/philanthropic grants. Seems like some cool models could emerge.
Maybe! It sounds like a lot of money, but $14k is less than half the per child average daycare cost in Seattle, and there aren't enough currently and they often can't survive. I certainly haven't tried to do all the math, but I think it would rely on those additional grant and donation subsidies, which would hopefully come with quality standards. I would love to see some cool models emerge!
Nor quite ECE. But admittedly, clever politics https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/us/harvard-trump-trade-schools.html
You called it pretty close. I missed that he had campaigned on going after Harvard’s endowment. It’s been pretty awful to watch cutting edge health research in particular get stripped of funding.