Help From Someone Good In Economics

Here’s a question for the economically enhanced here…

do public schools drive up the cost of private schools…?

it should be obvious as to why they do…but I’m having connecting the dots here…

If most parents are sending their children to public schools, because they’re paying for it through taxes and it comes off as “free”, then there will be relatively lower demand for private schools, driving prices up. It would be interesting to research whether or not private school costs have been coming down.

  1. They compete with the public schools for resources. Actually, it’s no competition. Public schools seize their resources by force. So more accurately, public schools crowd out all of the resources available. Those resources taken by the public system are obviously not employed efficiently.

  2. Restrictions on free entry. Private schools usually require State approval. Competition is hampered.

  3. Private schools are always regulated and subject to State oversight. This limits their ability to become more efficient from the point of view of its customers.

Despite this, the per student cost in a private school is 30-50% lower, while private schools are generally always considered to perform better.

Medical costs have been driven up because government forced HMO’s on us which caused alot of resources to chase unnecessary tests and so on.

I’m trying to think how this could relate to government schools.

If you want to use that analogy, then consider that almost everything the government forces on us causes “a lot of resources to chase unnecessary” ends. And to add insult to injury, those “ends” are being provided by a system that has no incentive to cut down on costs.

Unlike in the case of HMO, the entire public school system is forced on us.