CA: Many intrigued by bid to cap college fee hikes

Sac Bee ^ | 1/8/04 | Lesli A. Maxwell

[NormsRevenge]

In his bid to stabilize student fees, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could trade California's reputation as a provider of cheap, world-class higher education for something maybe more valuable to parents: more predictability about how much it will cost to send their child to college.

[NormsRevenge]

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[jwalburg]

If we continue down this path of cutting universities and then turn around and cut their ability to raise fees, what will happen to the quality of a UC or CSU education?"

Let's find OUT!!!

Really what is needed is to make the professors they are already paying WORK! Right now their class loads are pathetic. They teach one or two classes, hold few office hours and spend most of their time working on obscure research often, in the liberal arts anyway, of little or no value. Cut pay, increase duties and don't let them get away with pawning off true teaching duties to novice TAs!

[KarlInOhio]

Really what is needed is to make the professors they are already paying WORK! Right now their class loads are pathetic. They teach one or two classes, hold few office hours and spend most of their time working on obscure research often, in the liberal arts anyway, of little or no value. Cut pay, increase duties and don't let them get away with pawning off true teaching duties to novice TAs!

I've thought for quite a while that there needs to be a system of "teaching" colleges. No research, no publish or perish, no sports...just teaching. It might be hard to get past the idea that they are mere "tech schools" instead of "real universities"

Fortunately I went to a college that expected the professors to actually teach. Very few of the classes were handled by non-PhDs, and many of those were better at getting the point across than the professors. One of the classes in my was taught by someone I worked with at my full time job. The lab sections were pretty much run by the TAs (I even taught a couple), but classes generally belonged to the professors.

[jwalburg]

Yes. I'm related to a professor at a small state college like that. Teaching comes before research and the professors do teach and the students come away with a solid education without all the flakiness of the larger universities. Where was your college?

[Amerigomag]

An alternative to steeply rising fees being proposed by the current students themselves, is quite radical.

First a bit of background. From the perspective of these current students almost 30% of UC entrants and 50% of Cal State entrants are academically unprepared to be in these institutions. These unprepared entrants are also statistically likely to be Cal Grant recipients which means that about 3/4 of their total expenses (books, tuition, housing and meals) are borne by the taxpayer.

As an alternative it is being suggested that for a while the UC system be only an upper division and graduate institution while lower division students be diverted to the Cal State or community college systems based solely on their academic qualifications.

Many of these Cal Grant recipients would be forced into the lower systems were their subsidies would be either moderately or significantly less.

[KarlInOhio]

Where was your college?

It was Wright State U. in Dayton, OH. One of the big things there was lots and lots of lab time for the students. You could get an engineering degree at the other local university with mostly book work and a few labs. Probably 70% of my science and engineering classes had labs.