With per-pupil spending soaring north of $10,000 per year in many states, you'd think that paying once for public education is expensive enough. But too often, we end up paying twice.

Vicki E. Murray, a senior policy fellow for the Pacific Research Institute, says that in California, taxpayers shoulder up to $14 billion a year in extra costs due to students receiving an insufficient education in high school.

Some of the costs are incurred in providing remedial education to college students--and 40% of those students are unlikely to drop out of college at some point, compounding the loss.

Other costs come from lost productivity and increased social costs.

So is there a way out of this? Yes. Start early, Murray says:

"The current remedial situation is unacceptable, but there is a way policy makers can fix it. Funding for the current patchwork system should go directly to students in the form of grants, which they could use at any qualified provider. Elementary or secondary students scoring below grade-level proficiency on the CST [California Standards Test], and undergraduates deemed unprepared by their postsecondary institutions would be eligible."