Daren,
You said: “One only has to look at what is happening to higher education to see how vouchers will be the government’s excuse for control of education.”
I think that higher education, through the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 a.k.a. the G.I. Bill, clearly demonstrates that government vouchers do not necessarily lead to excessive government regulation. Veterans were permitted to use the voucher at any college or university, including sectarian institutions, and the federal government stayed far away. They just sent the check and trusted that individuals would use the voucher wisely. They did. Students avoided institutions like West Virginia University.
There is no convincing evidence that the G.I. Bill initiated the kind of legislation (and regulation) that appeared in the 1960s and haunts higher education today. Only when universities accepted federal funds for scientific research and development did excessive government regulations follow. Probably the worst offender was the Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963. By the mid-1960s, the federal government spent around $750 million for university-based research and development, and federal regulation began in earnest.
