"Subsidies to higher education are bonuses for the people who already are coming out ahead," he told me in an e-mail.
Similar claims can be made for adult education, with a bonus: children of parents who persist in adult education to university are more likely themselves to go to university.
We took our kids out of school every May for many years, and I always considered it good parenting, great education, and a bonus for the adult tour members to have kids as part of the group.
And, as a bonus, state education would benefit from the new tax raised.
In the 1950s, when three out of five American workers were "unskilled", education was considered a bonus; now the one in five workers who is unskilled is at a big disadvantage.
This week he praised the revolution's achievements in health and education and, as a bonus, disputed the Bush administration's claims that Cuba was conducting biological warfare research.
This spending took the form middle class welfare: the baby bonus, private education and health care costs, superannuation concessions, etc (no wonder the IMF identified the Howard government in this period as one the two profligate government in the last 200 years of Australian history).
I've got to discharge my need which is keeping them safe and running through all the possible scenarios of something going terribly wrong… anything extra that I can plug in terms of education, that's a bonus.
Aside from encouraging the tampering with test results to improve scores, the practice of using money from shrinking education budgets to pay bonuses is appalling.
Moreover, fewer people will help limit future climate change.All this suggests that worries about falling populations are better addressed by education than by baby bonuses or tax breaks.
