Back in the 1920's, both my grandmothers got teaching certificates at age 19 after attending Normal school for a year. One eventually retired in 1975 and was considered one of the finest math teachers around. Now, because of "Big college", prospective teachers are forced to take classes that do nothing to help them teach a class (if anything, they're force-fed crap that keeps them from becoming good teachers).
Come to think of it, why do you have to go to "Big College" to become a good lawyer? Abe Lincoln never went to college, but he became a great lawyer. Dickie Scruggs, convicted felon and longtime Democrat Party contributor, was a Law School graduate.
If you want to control costs of "Big College", you have to introduce competition. Internet schools like the University of Phoenix is only a hint of how to bring down costs, to keep our kids from being indoctrinated by angry Socialists and their handlers in "Big college" Administration.
I agree with what you say about Big College. However, University of Phoenix is very expensive and is universally sneered at by those with “real” degrees.
I think most of this educational “racket” is pretty much a group of union “thugs” (I use the word because nothing else works)...that basically have said that you can’t teach unless you have your tickets punched.
Where I grew up...in Alabama....until the late 1950s...the majority of teachers had one or two years of teaching school...not even a real university...and they served out forty years as a teacher. It was in the 1950s when they had a number of new folks arrive with degrees. By the 1960s...almost all of the teachers had a degree of some sort. Today, you have to have the degree and a teaching certificate. The majority of the teachers can’t really teach, and you’ve got kids who simply aren’t prepared for university work...to replace the teachers eventually.
I don’t know how this system will work in twenty years.