The government, at both the state and federal level, pays huge amounts of money every year aimed at reducing the costs of attending college. Whether by helping to run an institution, subsidizing its expenses in various ways or through loans and tax breaks to students and their parents, the government takes on much of the cost of a college education. But tuition costs have still risen substantially over the past years and how big of a role the government should take in the whole process and whether the government should increase or decrease the vast amount of assistance it provides is often debated. Both sides want to improve college attendance and increase the number of people going to college but they differ in how they see when it is that going to college is determined and thus how and when the money should be spent.
             The position that the government should take a lesser role in paying college costs asserts that for most people, whether or not they attend college is determined very early on in life by the income of the family when they are young. In order to illustrate this point, Heckman shows that while there are countless programs available to help students gain the funds necessary in order to enroll in college, and that while there are many private institutions with high tuitions, the average cost of a community college or public school is not all that high and there are enough loan programs to cover those costs. In fact, many of these programs do not spend the money they are allotted fully and are not taken advantage of by students. He also shows that in the long run, when you take into account the child's intellectual abilities, those abilities account for very little of the difference in attending a college. That who goes to college is in fact determined early on in a child's life, by how that family raises the child, not only to help develop the appropriate skills, but also to cultivate the expectation of going to colle...