Financing Lifelong Learning: The Case against Institutional Grants

Abstract

How should lifelong learning opportunities be financed? Should public funds go directly to institutions or to the clients of those institutions? Judging from past practice, it appears not to matter that, with the customary grants to institutions, individuals seldom directly receive subsidies ostensibly designed for their benefit. But the old ways of funding social interventions are being seriously challenged. One notable challenger is Charles Schultze, now chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. In his 1976 Godkin Lectures at Harvard, which he entitled "The Public Use of Private Interest," Schultze offered a sustained attack on this bias: "One first identifies a market