How are well paid government workers the "economically disadvantaged"? And for that matter, how does reducing subsidies for a service consumed primarily by wealthier people (a college education) harm the economically disadvantaged?
Smug comics which preach to the choir are great, but I like statistics more. Here are statistics on the work habits of the US poor (about 1 in 4 poor people works): http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf
Here are statistics showing that the poor consume about 2-3x what they produce: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/standard/2009/income.txt
(In India, obviously the stats look nothing like this.)
"How are well paid government workers the "economically disadvantaged"?"
Speaking for myself, most government workers do something that's more valuable to society than what I do for a lot less money. That probably holds true for 90% of the HN readership, although I suppose YMMV for the societal contribution of serving ads and flipping bits vs administrating social security.
The issue is not about state employees at the university, but who can afford the education there. Here in California, the Master Plan for Education (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_High...) had the goal of providing education for everyone, and it is not unlikely that that is a significant reason for California's strong economy. But that is being eroded gradually.
Smug comics which preach to the choir are great, but I like statistics more. Here are statistics on the work habits of the US poor (about 1 in 4 poor people works): http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf
Here are statistics showing that the poor consume about 2-3x what they produce: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/standard/2009/income.txt
(In India, obviously the stats look nothing like this.)