The idea met with skepticism. Andy Brown, who was then chairman of the Travis County Democrats, labeled Perry's "scheme to serve up $10,000 college degrees ... preposterous," adding that "nobody in higher education believes that is even possible." Peter Hugill, a Texas A&M professor who at the time was president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, posed the rhetorical question: "Do you really want a stripped-down, bare-bones degree?" Hugill went on to declare that "$10,000 seems to me a number someone pulled out of the air."
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But would Perry's plan meet the public's need? One year after the governor's challenge, Texas A&M-San Antonio became the first school to answer the call, announcing a bachelor's degree in information technology costing students just under $10,000 in tuition and fees. Today, eleven other Texas schools have announced $10,000 degree initiatives.
The burgeoning revolution has not been confined to the Lone Star State. Apparently, when it comes to higher-education reform, as Texas goes, so goes the country. Florida governor Rick Scott recently asked his state's public universities to craft $10,000 degrees of their own. In May of 2013, Georgia Tech announced an online master's degree in computer science for $7,000, a reduction of 80 percent from the $40,000 price tag charged for its on-campus program. Additionally, in the last year, legislators in Oklahoma and Oregon have begun work to introduce $10,000 degrees in their states.
My day job at the moment consists of working for the University of North Texas, where I am a consultant. They hired me to build programs that are self-funding. I've only been doing that for about six weeks, but have been meeting with considerable success.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, I have to fly to Texas from California to find that sort of work.
Put academia on the hook for paying student loans if their grads do not find a job and I assure you they will find a way to make education cheaper, and more relevant to getting a job.
ReplyDeleteAcademia should have a piece of student loans in any case, since student loans, contrary to any other type of loan, has no collateral to secure principal payment on default. The only security a student loan lender has is the borrower's future employment.
ReplyDeleteSomething like 20% would work, paid back pro rata as the student pays the other 80% to the primary lender. And the source of funds should be accounted for separately from state ed subsidies. Schools can use donations, their endowments, and/or tuition for funding their portion. So as to not be able to look to state taxpayers to cover non-performing loans.
That might encourage them to pay more attention to getting value for money in the case of (1) employing professors who mainly do research, write books, etc, et al.; and (2) student choice of majors; and (3) post-graduation placements.
Hillary's proposal that higher education be essentially free to the student is a guarantee of waste, fraud and abuse. Further, I wish that higher ed would look a bit deeper into that proposal, as federal funds are never bestowed without strings. Strings that academia might find it chafing under.