Posted on 09/25/2012 2:14:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry said college students in Texas should be able to lock in four-year tuition rates when they arrive on campus, and lawmakers could consider the idea when they return to the Capitol in January.
The proposal is Perry's latest push against rising higher education costs, which has sometimes caused friction between the governor and administrators and faculty at some of the state's largest campuses.
Perry also has championed $10,000 bachelor's degrees and called for greater efficiencies at state universities to improve graduation rates.
Speaking Friday at the Texas Tribune festival, a three-day public policy forum in Austin, Perry didn't give many specifics about "freezing" tuition but seemed intent on pursuing it during the next legislative session.
"If you get out of the University of Texas with a $50,000 debt, I don't know if we've served you well," Perry told an audience of about 500 state leaders, lawmakers, officials and lobbyists.
"We'll tell an incoming freshman, this is what the university will charge you for four years."
The Austin American-Statesman reported that initial reaction to Perry's idea appeared supportive.
Texas State University System Chancellor Brian McCall, a former member of the Texas House, said it was the first time he'd heard Perry call for a four-year freeze for incoming freshmen.
McCall said he hadn't considered a freeze before but added, "We are now."
(Excerpt) Read more at reporternews.com ...
The universities would then simply charge more to students.
UTA can (and should) then have to start looking hard at where they need to make cuts. Such as, oh, ‘gender studies’. Or ‘Chicano studies.’
Or start bring in more out of state and foreign students who will pay full tuition. Or maybe eliminate intercollegiate sports and focus on learning.
I do too! Kinda like locking in a 4 year lease rate on a car.........
With that being said, I'm also in favor of eliminating classes that are not specific to one's ultimate degree choice. Classes in the Humanities, sciences and Phys Ed.......
If you eliminate the bullshit classes then quality degrees can be earned in only 2 to 3 years........
How about outlawing college loans backed by the feds. That’ll stop the money gushing.
Either way, they will have to start getting their academic heads out of their arses and figure out (like the rest of us) how to operate on a budget instead of being able to just charge the kids more to make up for any shortfalls.
But sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. You have 80-90% of university faculty supporting the left, or at least voting democrat, and supporting an agenda that wants to take more money out of your pocket. Well, why not take money out of their pockets, using the same arguments (e.g. ‘health care is a right’ = ‘a university education is a right’). If you sit on the ropes and let the other side punch you, without fear of getting punched back, they will keep swinging until they connect and hurt you.
I’m suggesting that the state freeze both the spending AT state colleges and the tuition charged BY them. Sorry that was unclear /incomplete.
Of course, PRIVATE colleges can keep right on pricing themselves out of any non-wealthy kid’s budget, for all I care. This is strictly about those colleges run and hugely subsidized by the state.
How to fix higher education? Get rid of the “Everyone deserves/has a right to a college degree” baloney. Return to real academic standards. Eliminate entire university departments that exist only because of political correctness (Womyn’s Studies, African Studies, “human resources” in business schools, etc.). Privatize the student loan business and allow lenders to charge different interest rates based on different college majors (higher-earning majors are less risky to a lender than, say, a worthless degree in Intercultural Studies).
But most of this will require a lot of lazy left-wing professors to get real jobs or starve, so it will never happen...
He wants to stop raising costs of college but then lets the illegals into the college system for free. Doesn’t make sense.
My suggestion would be to freeze all instructors, all professors, and all university professionals at their current pay scale for three years as a minimum. After that three-year period, I’m limit all pay raises to a maximum of two percent every two years.
I don’t understand why everyone thinks keeping teachers or professors salaries down is a good idea. You get what you pay for. These folks go to school for about 25 years from high school through PHD and you want them to work for peanuts. 2 percent a year would not even cover the taxes that will be raised. No I am not a teacher but you guys think it is easy apparently or work for free. When are we going to freeze salaries CEOs of companies?
Not sure whether your comment was sincere or sarcastic, but . . .
Not all degrees are created equal in terms of cost. There’s way more to some courses of study than lectures from profs.
Providing the necessary facilities, equipment, and expertise to educate scientists and engineers requires more than books, profs, and a classroom like, for example, a degree in English or psychology or history.
What we need to do is tax the wealthy professors!
They need to pay their fair share, instead of living their obscene excessive lifestyles, off of educational corporate greed.
So you advocate ditching courses in history and government so our citizenry will be even more ignorant of our heritage?
Your idea would reduce universities to trade schools.
Nothing against trade schools, but they already exist.
The ideal university education requires a core curriculum that gives the student at least a basic knowledge of the major disciplines, as well as training and certification in a chosen field.
As the parent of three Texas A&M engineering students, I know it can be done and done well.
You forgot the sarcasm tag.
Because they're filthy lying communists. I'd just as soon they were all fired. You get what you pay for.
No we don't, or we'd be up to our eyeballs in a market full of homegrown math and science majors, ready to take all of Americas high tech professional positions. But we are awash in dummies.
Instead, we are importing these people from all over the world including India and Pakistan.
What sarcasm?
Yes, this is true, but this doesn't explain the continuous rise in tuition, especially at Universities with very large endowments. Regarding scientific training, this is a big problem, IMHO. A significant amount of taxpayer-derived federal research funding is going to pay for foreign trainees (e.g. postdoctoral research fellows from Europe and Asia training in US labs), and not enough US students are pursuing scientific careers.
There are many reasons for this, and it's not a simple fix. I would, however, limit the percentage of federal grant money that can be used to hire/train non-US citizens. This is not meant to be anti-foreign trainee. It's just a practical issue in that we need to do a better job attracting and keeping capable US citizens in scientific careers. It is, to some extent, a matter of national security.
Yep, those should be taught in high school.....
Agree wholeheartedly with your contention that we should be training more Americans in scientific fields. That, however, has nothing to do with college costs and everything to do with our society.
Kids can’t handle the rigors of higher learning in math and science if they don’t have a strong foundation in those disciplines prior to college entry.
My experience as a parent very involved in the schooling of our three in public school has been one of rigorous curriculum and excellent teachers, but peers who weren’t willing to do the work and parents who didn’t care.
Much of our society no longer rears its young with a sense of responsibility and self-reliance. Kids just want to have fun, and the rewards of hard work and intellectual challenge are not immediate.
For much of our population, we could offer free tuition for science and engineering study, and they couldn’t take advantage of it, because they’re too far behind. Thus, the plethora of psychology and general studies majors, with the best and the brightest from overseas taking their spots.
My (well-informed, from the trenches) two cents’ worth.
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