Rizwan Ghani
PAKISTAN should be reviewing its education system to save the economy, social mobility and democracy after 35 American university towns closed and 40% UK universities started closure. These reports also show a fall in number of students mostly due to high cost of living (tuition and accommodation), failure of for profit education system, weak economies and democracies facing authoritarianism. Also, how the private education system has gutted the economy, social mobility and made the West dependent on immigrants.
America and Europe follow different education systems but both have ended up relying on foreign qualified professionals due to lack of skilled workers, high cost of living and student debt. The UK has £260bn outstanding student loan in March 2024 and it gives £20bn loan to students annually (Student Loan Statistics, House of Commons Library, 10 July 2024). It is an indictment of the UK education system (Student loans: UK’s highest debt revealed to be £231,000, BBC, 21 Mar 2024).
The US $1.67 trillion student loan has turned into a test of democracy and things to come. Biden struggles to write off even a small portion of student debt whereas, Trump wants to scrap constitution, state departments including education with plans to replace country’s secular public school system with private religious schools by giving public funds to them including control of admission prompting fears of turning U.S. democracy into theocracy (Project 2025, MSNBC).
Corruption has derailed the economy and social mobility in both countries. Higher education institutions of the UK and America earned around £40bn and $41bn respectively from foreign students in 2023 but as per the plan, it failed to lower the cost of education for local students. It has left a chain of fallouts including higher education for the elite only, more debt on state, zero social mobility for the majority of school graduates at the cost of economy and democracy at the grassroots.
Accordingly, the UK economy is now dependent on foreign workers more than ever. The last Tory government blocked use of public funds for training medical professionals including doctors and nurses. In the Investment Summit, Former Google CEO Schmidt asked the UK PM to start a pro-growth agenda with high-skilled immigration (the Guardian 15 Oct 2024). Students refuse to take loans due to negative cost-benefit analysis of degree, stagnant wages for the last fifty years and record unemployment.
Similarly, America is offering Green Card to foreign graduates under the U.S. National Interest Waiver program (Stem-related petition trends: EB-2 and O-1A Categories for FY 2018 to 2023, USCIS). Trump says most skilled graduates of US colleges should get green cards. According to the Joint Economic Committee Report, immigrants are vital to the U.S. Economy for future economic growth, their spending power, relative youth, high levels of involvement in STEM fields, and high rates of entrepreneurship.
Brain drain is supporting the West’s economies at the cost of home countries. In 2023, US immigrants paid more than $500bn tax, helped the economy with their $1.7 trillion spending power and started 22% of new firms in the country (New Report Details Huge Contribution Immigrants Are Making to America, Forbes 15 Nov 2023). Immigrants, including those with less than a high school degree, provide large fiscal benefits to U.S. taxpayers (Immigrants Provide Huge Benefits to U.S. Taxpayers, Forbes 3 Oct 2022).
Based on the lessons from the West, Pakistan needs to replace for-profit education with free public education to protect its economy, brain drain, social mobility and democracy. Modern states impose tax in exchange for providing merit based social mobility and quality public services including education, healthcare, transport and social welfare so that any citizen can progress as per its abilities irrespective of its social background. Otherwise, it is a corrupt Kleptocracy stealing public funds.
Free education is the guardian rail of democracy and economy. West is facing fallout from five decades of failed 1980 Reagan-Thatcher reforms including tax cuts, privatization and deindustrialization. The 91% tax policy of Eisenhower and Roosevelt laid the foundation of the American Dream with the state protecting quality public services and workers protections sustaining it for decades. Nation’s Report Cards protected education standards in the UK (SATs), America (NAEP) and PISA (OECD).
Without 99% distribution of national wealth, there can be no social mobility, no economy and no democracy (Gilded Age: A tale of Today). West won it with legislation and lost it to corruption (Citizen United v FEC). America passed the Equal Pay Act, Wages and the Fair Labour Standards Act, National Labour Relations Act, Pension Acts and Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and investment banking to stop the repeat of 1929 financial crisis. It was scrapped in 1999 allegedly causing the 2007-8 global financial crises.
West opted for deindustrialization and imports under 1980 reforms. Today the West has money but it is struggling to spend trillions of development funds due to lack of skilled workers (Biden’s Biggest Challenge: How do you even spend $1.6T, Politico 8 May 2024). Ex-Google chief tells Labour Business summit, pro-growth agenda would start with high skilled immigration (the Guardian, 14 Oct 2024). Even today merit based social mobility is the yardstick of making any country great again with education and economy as guardrails of democracy.
