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 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
For this reason alone, administrators and politicians and even regular folks will attempt to maintain the status quo.
People are motivated by fear.
When my grandson lost his Navy scholarship and commission at the last minute because he was colorblind, my son took all of the scholarship money he had accumulated over four years, and went to local med schools to see if they could get him in. It was a considerable amount of money in the six figures. The upshot was that when he got his medical degree, he would ONLY owe $80,000 and his Dad would ONLY owe $60,000. Whatta deal! The schools were eager to take him.
Fortunately Sen. Lugar helped him get around the exclusion and got him an Army commission and scholarship. He just arrived at Ft. Bennington for his basic training and will enter med school school in January.
He won’t get to go to the Naval Academy like he’d planned (his Dad was Navy) but it’s still a good deal. Both the Naval Academy and now Purdue were both happy to take the scholarship dollars.
Kids almost have to make a career starting at the end of 8th grade of qualifying for scholarship money. And if they work hard and achieve their academics, the last year of high school they can take courses with dual credit, which saves them almost a year of books and tuition.
One of the problems today is that school counselors are not working aggressively with kids to guide them through the process. They sit in their chairs and take up job space and sit back and wait to be approached. Grandson was lucky he got the right counselor who stuck with him all the way through and it’s really paid off. Arm your child with a counselor who’s not afraid to earn their money. They scoured everywhere for scholarship money right from the start and by doing that it also helped make the right connections, even from a farm in the boonies of Indiana.
And if they want to serve their country in the process, they have to start getting the attention of their Senators in their Sophomore or Junior year because the Senator is only allowed so many slots to fill each year. When grandson approached Senator Bayh, he turned him down flat as he already had applications backed up for three years. Senator Lugar takes all applications, and lets the chips fall where they may. The many fall out of the academic 98 percentile in their senior year.
It is an abomination that getting an education takes so much money, because it turns the process of just getting into college to political gamesmanship and makes one become government dependent, if your aim is high and you’re not flush with money. All grandson wanted to do was become a military doctor specializing in burns and skin recovery for returning vets. One of his uncles came home from the battle of Fallujah with his face arms burned off.
It always makes me scratch my head when people make the assumption that a degree creates a “skilled worker”. Experience and initiative make a “skilled worker”. My Grandfather and plenty of others I knew never made it past 5th grade, but there was much they couldn’t do: plumbing, electrical, roofing, etc. Also, what about the farmers who had to know how to keep their equipment running, but never attended a trade school.
What the U.S. really needs is an emphasis on developing an Apprentice / Journeyman model to boost our manufacturing capabilities. Too many educated idiots running around already.
Absolutely.
My son is trying to get in with the local fire department. He was told by the fire chief that there are two ways he can go:
1. He can go to fire school for a year.
2. He can sign up as a volunteer, train for three hours every Monday for the next year and show up to fight fires as a volunteer over that same year. At the end of the year, he’ll be considered for a full-time position.
The chief recommended option 2. He said that with that option, the guys would actually get to know the kid. That this would give him actual experience in the field and that was more prized than the education.
For kids who want to get into fields such as mechanic, plumber, police officer, fire fighter, etc. I recommended having a chat with the big wigs in the actual field. Sometimes there are a few courses or classes that actually help, but most of the time the complete degree is a waste of time and money.
My son was able to get a job as an apprentice mechanic for the summer and he’s now more qualified for a mechanics job than a kid coming out of college with a two year degree.
Your post is informative on so many levels.
Thank you for taking the time to put it out there.
It shouldn’t be so hard to (the process).
But kudos for him staying with it.
Sounds like good stock.
Good idea, but not one that is very well thought out.
We don’t have a shortage of BS degrees, we have a massive surplus. So much that a degree is not worth very much now. Having a $10K BS degree would only inflate the supply more, making the actual worth of such a degree even less.
Already we have people flipping burgers who have college degrees. Making the cost cheaper would just mean that we have more people who will never use that degree.
Most people shouldn’t go to college. It is a reflection of just how messed up we are that the view is you HAVE to get a degree.
This is a smart move by Gov Perry to say that a college degree should only cost $10,000 for books and tuition.
The parents will vote for him and the kids will vote for him.
And by reducing tuition it will take money away from dingbat leftist professors.
Remember it is ObamaCare that burdened parents until their kids reached age 26.
This is how you take down the leftist educational institutions in this country. They could have had $10K bachelor’s degree a long time ago but government has been involved with the loan program so market forces have not been able to take hold.
I hope it happens but it will be tough.
You are looking at it wrong.
There are more people with degrees now than ever before. And the government allows companies to bring in people from overseas. Often from places where their countries pay for college.
When you have a high supply, and a lower demand, you get lower pay. We have to many people with degrees now, and an artificially inflated price to get those degrees. The companies will keep paying less and less, because they can find people to work for less and less. An engineering degree is one of the better ones to get, but still not a great investment. There are many field were the tuition is many times more than the salary. Those fields should not exist.
IF you'd rather NOT be pinged FReepmail me.
IF you'd like to be added FReepmail me. Thanks.
The damn books with online components cost 1/2 of Jr.’s total CC expenditure last year. This semester the welding equipment and books cost more than the tuition.
At least the equipment can be used in future classes, unlike the books with internet keys that expire at the end of the semester.
Who is the tech guru who recently said technical degrees are a wages of time? That you should just start working?
Yes, the books are a real swindle, and of course none can ever be reused or resold.
Yes and their kids will be unemployed and on welfare.
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!”
Yeah, it is possible someone might be able to learn more on their own, but not very likely. A few might, but the vast (vast) majority aren’t that motivated—not even close. Most do need a professor breathing down there neck to make progress. Like it or not, a college education is still the best way to learn if you want to be a white collar professional.
Couldn’t agree more. Higher “education” is the biggest scam in the United States these days, with the possible exception of Social Security. He got anything to say about Social Security, btw?
The value of the degree is not based upon what you had to do, learn or pay to get it, which partly explains why the quality of that education is often so poor.
Beyond being a 4 year extension of adolescence, the value of a 4-year degree is at best loosely coupled to the actual education it once represented. Instead, its worth is as an entry ticket to corporate carpet country level jobs.
The price of admission to the corporate world is a 4-year degree. Without that piece of paper, assuming that you are hired, you won't ever be more than an hourly employee in the corporate world regardless of how good you are.
That's why a degree costs so much.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.