Posted on 09/11/2011 3:00:07 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
My oldest child, Olivia, will be heading to college in two years. So its already become college-saving crunch time in our household. As weve been putting money away, Ive become even more passionate about helping other people find ways to cut college expenses. So Im intrigued by Texas Gov. Rick Perrys proposal to come up with an affordable college degree program. Perry, whos running for president, has created quite a buzz for a bold some say unrealistic higher-education plan.
Im challenging our institutions of higher education to develop bachelors 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?
Lets 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, Im more than perturbed that Perrys idea is being so quickly dismissed by the education establishment. Its 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 lets remove the politics from Perrys challenge. True, hes now a presidential candidate, and candidates will promise anything, but Perrys proposal has merit, and its something all the candidates should embrace, including President Obama.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Where did you study economics.
So long as the "Gubmint" is doling out taxdollars-for-votes, you will see overpaid/under-producing public employees.
Perry also suggested separating teaching budgets from research budgets, as a way of encouraging teachers to teach and researchers to do research. Tenure would be granted only to teachers who spent a large majority of their time teaching; a defined percentage of tenure jobs would go to researchers, who would concentrate on pure research. A system of cash awards and other incentives would compensate professors who successfully taught a large number of students.
Any businessman in a profit-seeking enterprise would see ideas like pay for performance as unremarkable, but they overwhelm the delicate sensibilities of people who have spent their professional lives on campus, where the word nonprofit is meant to act as a firewall against the unpleasantness of commercial life. Texas Governor Treats Colleges Like Businesses, headlined the Chronicle of Higher Educationa sentence sure to induce aneurysms in faculty lounges from El Paso to Galveston. The outrage was deafening, especially when university regents began acting on the recommendations. The Texas A&M system, for example, which includes a dozen schools, posted a spreadsheet on its website evaluating teacher performance on a cost-benefit basis.<<<....
Basically a money laundering mechanism for Democrat votes.
GOT-TO-LOVE-IT!
Ha!
You want to see my papers?
Charles Murray is right! What is needed are high quality, certifiable, and reliable credentialing exams.
On the college level, little work that is done in the U.S. specifically needs a B.S. degree. Employers demand it because it is one way to avoid the “racist” charge and to determine if the applicant has the literacy, numeracy, IQ, personal discipline, and focus to do the job. Credentialing exams might help break this high education log jam of degrees.
Why not start credentialing exams in first grade? If the child **proves** with a credentialing exam that he has mastered a specific subject, he would immediately move on ( using Khan or other system) to the next level.
Imagine how many **years** sooner many children could be finishing high school and moving on to college level work. For the young person to have and extra 2 to 6 years in his career adds up to a quarter of a million to perhaps a million or ** more** for that young person over a lifetime.
We could start immediately. Any child of any age who passes the GED or similar exam should be awarded a standard high school diploma from their local government indoctrination camp ( oops! “school”). They would then be free to move onto college courses or to other post high school career training.
By the way...All government teachers should be required to take the GED. If they fail ( most would fail the math section) they should be fired. And...All government teachers should take Calculus I right along with the engineers, math, and science majors. Do most need Calculus I? No, they don't, but it would assure that they have a high enough IQ to merit sitting in front of a class of prisoners ( Oops! “students”).
The word "Union" should be in the Dictionary today as the word defined by your statement.
“When I went to University (1976-1980), tuition was $2,500 per year. Starting salaries for BAs were about $13,000-$15,000. For those with an engineering degree, the salaries were about $15,000-$18,000. (130%-180% of four years of study)
Today, tuition is about $30,000-$40,000 per year. Starting salaries aren’t that much higher than a single year’s tuition
Either education is over-priced today, or companies are not paying enough... :0) “
The old guideline, was that the entire amount you pay for a college degree should be less than one years salary of your first job immediately out of college.
This old rule applied to me and mine decades ago, and I think this old rule still is a good one.
BS degree for $10K? Yeah, right. The only way to do this is to make everything online and outsource the professorships to China or India. So pay American professors to record the lectures, but have the professors (who actually interact with students online) be from India, China, or the Phillipines.
Don’t they teach “costs-benefits analysis” anymore?
It should be noted that the slap at the community colleges came from some professor complaining about Perry's plan and not from Perry.
Yes. The entire article is like a hot, running Texas wild fire burning through Big Education!
I’d be curious what’s going on in the private university world. Private universities tend to be pricey partly because they have the fame and they can command those premiums, and partly because tuition is so heavily subsidized. Would any private university want to become a Frugal U.?
That is no answer, did you, are did you not study any economics, simple question, no papers needed.
No. I am not properly “credentialed” in economics.
BTW — did you take the time to READ the entire article at the link?
Hmmmmmm?
Maybe out sourcing to china was Perry’s goal, he has a lot of crony ties to china. Oh, well a degree will get you your daily bowl of rice in the third world.
Think of what all the student loans and Pell Grants have contributed to inflation in the college tuition sector. The cost of education has probably grown 10-fold in the past 40 years while everything else has seen inflation rates of ~4% at the worst. When I think of my school, I know that the bureaucracy has grown probably 20-fold in that time.
You’re right. I keep hearing that there are many jobs out there that there aren’t properly skilled workers for. We need to taylor the school system to what is actuall needed and reinstitute apprenticeships.
To your point: If the government got out of the pell grant business and the student loan business and colleges were required to compete for the student’s tuition, costs would come down. There are many innovative ways to lower costs: E books, E classes, reduced wages for professors, allowing industry to utilize research facilities and students, etc.
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