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 ...
Yes, the books are a real swindle, and of course none can ever be reused or resold.
Really!
And look at Rush Limbaugh.
They laugh at Rick Perry’s grades but at A&M he excelled in Corps of Cadets, Yell leader and politics (ran John Sharp’s student body election) — and found his true gift - leadership.
And why we're in the toilet and so many "kids" can't figure out how make it in the world.
Interesting. My starting salary (1980s) was about equal to the total tuition I paid in the 4 prior years. Granted, it was a B.S. I earned, but it was a famed top-tier university.
Sounds like an entirely reasonable course of action.
Here’s an idea, Ricky boy. How about us Texas taxpayers NOT have to pay for your illegals who are paying in-state tuition and stealing a desk spot from other Texans and US students who would like to attend college.
Perry is doing this at a state level. He is giving an example of what local control can do. That is all, not advocating a nation wide program.
And how many college graduates are now working at minimum wage jobs out of desperation? They are enslaved to their college loans.
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.
Thank you for the thought-provoking post. My first job’s annual salary was about the same as four years of tuition.
Thanks. He is a good hearted kid, and he was lucky to get really wise counsel that kept him pumped for it.
Gov Perry is doing a great job of contrasting his ideas with the crackpot ideas Obama has.
1. Perry says that a 4 year college degree should only cost $10,000.
2. Obama says that any kid should get a 4 year college degree (no matter what it costs) for FREE and paid by the taxpayers.
Perry’s plan will lead to ridding our colleges of leftist professors.
Obama’s plan will will to an increase in leftist professors.
What do the voters prefer?
Bingo!!
It's because we/they have been taught the wrong stuff by liberals and accepted it.
We essentially live in two worlds at the same time, the natural world and the social construct we’ve built and overlaid upon it.
The natural world plays by The Rules and exists in dynamic balance regardless of what we do.
We can upset the natural world, but sooner or later it returns to business as usual.
The best we can do is figure out what the rules are and then live in harmony with them.
I believe that was the intent of our Founding Fathers and the Constitutional Republic is the construct they created for humanity to thrive in harmony with natural law.
Liberalism/progressivism, like socialism, communism, fascism, etc., is a social construct that does not harmonize with natural law, but rather seeks to impose its will upon it.
Rather than seeing ‘what is’ and living accordingly, liberalism sees it as ‘what is unfair’ and then forces solutions to that which aren’t problems, financed with other people’s money stolen from people who had nothing to do with the problem liberals are trying to solve.
“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.”
Not small Christian colleges. They often have small budgets and the professors aren’t paid nearly as well as their secular counterparts. They also don’t have any of the prestige of the larger private secular schools. But you can get a fine education from them... I sure did.
good.
Socialism is never successful — it’s unnatural.
“Either education is over-priced today, or companies are not paying enough... :0)”
Higher education suffers from the same bureaucratic bloat as public K-12 education and the government in general. Add to that the tenure system and the “publish or perish” philosophy that values “research” over teaching. Tenured academics at major universities enjoy guaranteed jobs and very light teaching loads.
Imagine if the professors at public colleges and universities were required to actually be in the classroom teaching 6 hours a day and in their offices to advise students the other two hours a day. Note I’m suggesting they work a standard 8 hour day, not the 10-12 hour days the parents of the children they teach who work in the private sector put in. Under this plan, it would be possible to significantly reduce headcount in universities as well as cost. Then take an axe to the layers of bureaucracy (Directors of Diversity and staff can be the first to go) and you will have colleges that can charge $10000 per year tuition without requiring billions in taxpayer support.
The other issue driving up the cost of education is the construction of palatial monuments on campuses instead of buildings designed simply to house classrooms, meeting rooms, and faculty offices. Soaring atriums and marble floors greatly add to the cost of heating, cooling and upkeep. In the early 1970’s, most of my classes were held in un airconditioned classrooms with a blackboard and very basic chairs and desks. Recently I attended a reunion at the university I attended and was shocked to see new air conditioned classrooms with plush seating, electronic hookups for laptops, hi tech video walls. All of this wizardry costs millions of dollars to maintain and likely has limited value in supporting the mission of learning in the classroom.
Another problem with today’s academic world is the perception that one must have a PhD to be qualified to teach. Most of the professors in business school today have PhD’s and zero experience working in a real private sector job. I’m amazed to see people teaching “entrepreneurialism” who went from undergraduate school to a PhD program and then wrote papers about what it takes to be an entrepreneur in order to achieve tenure. These schools should be begging real entrepreneurs who are actually starting and building businesses to instruct students. Instead schools are fixated on academic credentials.
Compare school books from a century ago to the lack of knowledge in students today. Schools can't even teach the kids to read.
I think that was about the price of college, when I graduated about 30 years ago.
Colleges do not need football teams. Colleges do not need grad buildings that win awards for their looks. College spend so much money to be “competitive” in the eyes of their students it is just crazy.
I just sent two kids to college this year—one to a small school with a world wide reputation. They are pretty mundane with their spending. The other is a decent small school with a world wide reputation in one degree. They spend millions promoting their OTHER majors to fill the dorms.
It is so wasteful. Focus on what you do well, and leave the rest out.
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