A bachelor’s degree for $10,000? Imagine the impact. (Perry's ideas nicely percolating)

Washington Post ^ | September 10, 2011 | Michelle Singletary

[Cincinatus' Wife]

My oldest child, Olivia, will be heading to college in two years. So it’s already become college-saving crunch time in our household. As we’ve been putting money away, I’ve become even more passionate about helping other people find ways to cut college expenses. So I’m intrigued by Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s proposal to come up with an affordable college degree program. Perry, who’s running for president, has created quite a buzz for a bold — some say unrealistic — higher-education plan.

“I’m challenging our institutions of higher education to develop bachelor’s degrees that cost no more than $10,000, including textbooks,” Perry said during his State of the State remarks this year.

And just how does he propose that schools offer degrees at a such a discount?

“Let’s leverage Web-based instruction, innovative teaching techniques and aggressive efficiency measures to reach that goal,” Perry said. “Imagine the potential impact on affordability and graduation rates — and the number of skilled workers it would send into our economy.”

Yes, just imagine.

Imagine the financial stress lifted off so many families if they could send their children to school for $2,500 a year, not including room and board.

.....Aside from an unfair slap to community colleges, I’m more than perturbed that Perry’s idea is being so quickly dismissed by the education establishment. It’s long past time that professionals in higher education — from college presidents to professors — work harder to figure out how to reduce college costs. They can no longer smugly claim that just having a degree is a fast track to high-paying jobs.

And let’s remove the politics from Perry’s challenge. True, he’s now a presidential candidate, and candidates will promise anything, but Perry’s proposal has merit, and it’s something all the candidates should embrace, including President Obama.

[PastorBooks]

“One of my favorite lines from all time was in that movie Goodwill Hunting IIRC. He tells the smart ass from Harvard that someday he will wake up and realize he spent $250,000 for an educaiton he could have gotten at the Public Library for the cost of a Library card...Priceless!”

I like the quote!

Never saw the movie... any good?

[MuttTheHoople]

Count me skeptical, but anytime a politician says he can make anything cheaper, I grab my wallet. I'm sure Perry will try something that'll make college "cheaper", but until the free market gets into colleges and universities, the rate will keep rising at 7.8% like it has for the past 30 years.

When I was in school 30 years ago, I could either work 20-30 hours a week during the school year or work fulltime in the summer, and pay for most of my education. Nowadays, too many students are relying on loans. I'm amazed that there are so many people who're still paying on student loans years after they graduated school.

Part of it is "The Big College Industrial Complex"- why does anyone need a college degree for certain professions? I'd go so far to say lawyers and engineers could self-study hard enough (in the library and apprenticing to professional engineers and experienced lawyers) to pass the required exams and become excellent in their profession....however, I'll accept that you "need college" for those. What I'm talking about is why anyone needs a Bachelors to be a fireman, policeman, military officer, electician, plumber, etc. that "Big College" is trying to monopolize.

I agree- with Internet technology, improved security devices, etc., someone could get the best education they ever wanted from the finest professors in the world from their own home...either at home with mom and dad, or in an apartment with his/her buddies. Just think, instead of $900-5000/semester hour listening to some '60's Marxist retread indoctrinating your kids in Socialism, you could pay $10/semester hour to go online with some distinguished professor who would have thousands of students online to listen to his lectures. The prof makes the money he deserves, college costs are cheaper, and students are more educated.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Good points.

And a lot of that same logic applies to K-12.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Those familiar with candidate:

Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, who still have not ruled out entering the race, are also well-liked by Republicans (74% and 69% favorable ratings, respectively), but also do not generate the same degree of strong intense feeling as Perry and Cain. Giuliani's current Positive Intensity Score is 15 and Palin's is 13.

Perry Remains Best-Positioned Candidate

Perry's combination of high name recognition and a high Positive Intensity Score help make him the best-positioned candidate for the Republican nomination at this point, underscored by his lead in Republican nomination preferences. Cain's enthusiastic support is offset by his low name recognition, and other well-known candidates like Romney, Michele Bachmann, and Ron Paul, do not generate the same level of intense feeling as Perry.

Source

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Perry has room to grow within his name recognition numbers.

[Condor51]

As Mark Twain said on Education:

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Somethings hold true forever.

[If everyone went to college where would we get Plumbers, Carpenters, and Electricians?]

[Bernard]

The only way to reduce the cost of college is to privatize the public colleges and make the administrators accountable for their actions. Not likely to happen. As long as the public colleges are run by the same kind of amoral scalawags that run the K-12 systems, their first and only priority will be accumulating power and money, and the hell with the kids.

[org.whodat]

So everyone gets a college degree and the worth of said degree becomes equivalent to a K12;

wow, do any of you Perry bots know anything about economics and the law of supply and demand. Well at least they may be able to make changes at the hamburger joint. This one is out the with wanting more defense spending.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

An 8th grade education used to mean something in the day.

[org.whodat]

Law of supply and demand, and useless degrees. Anyone that thinks more degrees will not further drive down starting salaries, never had one day in an economics class.

[Diogenesis]

Maybe they need the Sex Ed to understand exactly
why Gardasil was forced on them (as lab rats)
in the sixth grade.
(the sex reasons, not the ‘payoff’ from Merck).

[PastorBooks]

“you could pay $10/semester hour to go online with some distinguished professor who would have thousands of students online to listen to his lectures. The prof makes the money he deserves, college costs are cheaper, and students are more educated.”

That’s how universities got started, before there were campuses. Students gathered around a teacher who taught out of his own home or in a rented space. There were no campuses, no administrations, no financial aid offices. The students came, paid, and listened. Their proof they had been educated was that they **knew stuff**.

We have replaced knowledge with parchment... very expensive parchment.

[org.whodat]

Yes, it will mean the same thing as Perry's degree program. 19% percent unemployment and the way to fix it is more college degrees with no jobs. Damn beam me up scotty.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Have you had your breakfast?

It helps the thinking process.

[FreedomPoster]

>>Employers should be able to give tests to candidates without worrying about discrimination suits over the test results. If you are a self-taught learner and have the knowledge, it won’t matter if you have a degree or not. Knowledge is the thing desired.

That is absolutely worth saying again.

[Lockbox]

Wow there's another group Perry will lose, the liberal university professional professor union member. Oh wait they were never going to support Perry to begin with anyway!

I continue to be mad at the on going demand for more money to support the old bricks and mortar 'business' model. It's always more government funding.

[tbw2]

I don’t know whether to credit Perry or the Republican legislature of Texas, but we had medical tort reform a few years ago and the number of doctors practicing in this state has risen faster than inflation. Doctors have moved here and set up practice faster than others.

[PapaBear3625]

The federal government accredits the agencies which accredit the universities.

What if the standards for accreditation were changed so that primary weight was given to the percentage of graduates who were gainfully employed in the field of their major within one year of graduation? What if student loans once again became dischargable in bankruptcy, with the university being liable for the unpaid balance?

How would education in America change if the federal government published statistics for each university showing the median gross income of graduates one year and five years after graduation, broken down by major?

What if more American students got their degrees overseas, and their overseas degrees were accredited?

[Diogenesis]

org.whodat has a good point.

why should easy-to-obtain college degrees
(see what that did for ‘high school’?)
make for more JOBS?

It will make the illegal aliens more competitive though.
It is this for Mexico?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

There is credit to go around!