Technology and globalisation have increased returns to education, which its members lack.
Earlier this week, Times Higher Education ran a big story on the apparent decline in the relative economic returns to university education.
But if returns to higher education go on falling as the price rises, will people want more of it or less?
Delayed refund checks due to a late start to the tax season this year and snafus with returns claiming education credits no doubt contributed to slower sales because consumers had less cash in hand.
There is also, thirdly, an economic literature that emerged, began to emerge actually in the 1950s and '60s but came full flower in the '70s and '80s about human capital and about the returns to individual investment, having to do with public education, especially higher education.
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The externality argument is in many respects just a highfalutin way of expressing revulsion that anyone should be so profane as to attempt to measure the returns on something as ineffable as education.
So the IRS dreamed up a new designation, RTRP (registered tax return preparer) which would require testing, ongoing education requirements and registration with IRS in order to prepare returns.
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The worst returns tend to come from schools whose programs focus on nursing, criminal justice, sociology and education, says Katie Bardaro, an analyst at PayScale.
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When three years of full-time higher education at the age of 18 was free, good and rare, the returns to almost any course were unsurprisingly juicy.
Mid-day Monday, February 14, IRS expects to be able to begin processing 2010 tax returns for those taxpayers who itemize their deductions, take advantage of education incentives, the Homebuyer Credit and many other less frequently used tax benefits.
In Committee land the education committee ponders the revised schools admission and appeals codes and the Public Accounts Committee returns to one of its favourite topics, HM Revenue and Customs annual accounts, with the top brass of HMRC.
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Meanwhile, in the coming weeks, the IRS will step up both education and enforcement efforts to ensure preparers are providing proper advice about the preparation of 2009 returns.
Even then, some returns were delayed even more, with taxpayers claiming education credits and depreciation, for example, being pushed back to mid-February for processing.
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