Education and Stimulus MoneyYou wonder where the Stimulus money went?

Education costs are rising higher than medical costs.
h/t to Instapundit

It's amazing what you find when you follow a single link. Frankly, few of us have any interest in the 20-somethings who graduate from college with $20,000 to $90,000 loans. But finding out why they owe so much leads to Stimulus spending.

Matt Welch interviews economist Richard Vedder. (video)

"Twelve percent of the mail carriers in the U.S. today now have bachelor's degrees. Do you really need a bachelor's degree to deliver the mail?"

Vedder wonders if the government is overinvested in colleges.
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Richard Vedder is the author of "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much"

Much of the problem is government investment in colleges with little return. One reviewer at Amazon summed up the stats:

With less than 20% of college costs being covered by tuition, on average, in the U.S. and graduation rates at 4 year colleges (over a 6 year period) in the 50% range and at 2 year colleges (over a 3 year period) below 30%, it is hard to see how the public can continue to subsidize a system that fails to acknowledge its obligation to educate students, not build organizations and infrastructures that are uneconomic.

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WHAT I FOUND when researching TennCare (That state's public health care disaster.)

The importance of jobs vs. education to the Obama administration can be seen in the Stimulus money given to Tennessee.

Tennessee as a whole is set to receive about $5.1 billion in total grant funding, of which more than $3 billion has now been allocated from federal to state agencies.

The Nashville Post links to a downloadable spreadsheet that lists the recipients of Stimulus money.

These are the top recipients as of July 10, 2009.
1 Middle Tennessee State University $10,531,935
2 Tennessee State University $4,943,967
3 Nashville State Technical Comm $3,836,643
4 Draughons Junior College Inc. $3,697,593
5 National College of Business & Technology $2,988,922
6 Volunteer State Community College $2,866,021
7 Vanderbilt University $2,300,464
8 Nashville Auto-Diesel College Inc. $2,091,956
9 United Neighborhood Health Services Inc. $1,425,506
10 Denver Acquisition Corp. (Kaplan Higher Education) $1,367,150
11 Belmont University $842,158
12 Dellway Villa Apartments $804,468
13 Vanderbilt University Hospital, Children's Rehab Unit $732,120

The top Government Agencies receiving Stimulus money:
1 Executive Office of Tennessee $691,803,281
2 Tenncare $506,245,044
3 Tennessee Department of Transportation $407,383,014
4 Tennessee Department of Education $220,578,405
5 Tennessee Department of Human Services $199,741,000
7 Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development $81,850,844
8 Tennessee Department of Finance & Administration $34,504,061
9 Metropolitan Development & Housing Agency $12,961,867
10 Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority $4,788,316

United Neighborhood Health Services Inc. priorities were express to BIZJOURNAL: "Currently serving 25,000 patients a year, United Neighborhood expects to receive about $1 million, which it has earmarked for renovations of two clinics, at 905 Main St. and 617 South Eighth St. It also has plans to purchase ultrasound and other prenatal equipment."
Oh yeah, almost forgot that medical stuff.

From the same article:

Health centers in Nashville provided medical care to 55,000 people last year, about 40 percent of whom were uninsured. Roughly 40 percent were on TennCare, and the rest had a mix of Medicaid and private insurance coverage.

If they were on the wonderful TennCare, what did they need with the health centers?

Here is a review of the Dellway Villa Apartments. Makes you wonder who owns it, doesn't it?