That also makes intuitive sense. A host of American scientists, artists, intellectuals and others, including me, owe their success in large part to having come of age when a public college education cost little to nothing. Today it costs more than $6,400 in tuition and fees to attend City University of New York and almost $12,000 at State University of New York campuses. If I were 18 today and in the same circumstances as 1967, I simply would not have a college education. Because I do, the increased income generated taxes far in excess of the expense that older taxpayers bore so I could attend college.