Posted on 08/14/2012 5:09:50 PM PDT by eagleye85
Burck Smith, CEO and Founder of StraighterLine, recently likened higher education to the U.S. Postal Service, which faces private competition and changing methods of communication as a result of new technology. However, in the case of higher education, government subsidies and accreditation requirements provide barriers help established universities maintain their old business models even in the face of innovations such as online courses.
“The postal service, I think, gives us a good example outside of academics to look at a subsidized business model that’s uh whose business model is really past […] past the time or whose market conditions have changed,” stated Burck at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) event. He later argued, “So if you applied what higher education has done to what the postal service could have done or thought they might have done it would be like requiring that every communication means be monitored and credentialed by the post office and charged first class rates.” StraighterLine offers students online courses through an online subscription model where these courses transfer to accredited schools.
According to Michael Stratford, reporting for the Chronicle of Higher Education, both Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney support for-profit education.
“In January, he praised Full Sail University, in Winter Park, Fla., as an example of how for-profit colleges can hold down the cost of higher education,” reports Stratford. “The chief executive of the university is a donor to the Romney campaign, it was later reported.”
Stratford reports that Ryan’s 2013 House budget proposal would “slash federal spending for nearly all non-defense-related programs, including many of concern to higher education,” cut spending on academic research, and alter federal student-aid programs.
“This budget ensures higher-‐education assistance programs are put on a sustainable funding path, better focusing aid on those in need and better addressing the root drivers of tuition inflation for all students,” states the 2013 plan.
“But, instead of helping more students achieve their dreams, studies have shown that increased federal financial aid is simply being absorbed by tuition increases,” it asserts. “While financial aid is intended to make college more affordable, there is growing evidence that it has had the opposite effect.”
The 2013 plan continues,
“Economists such as Richard Vedder point out that the decisions of colleges and universities to raise their prices would have been constrained if the federal government had not stepped in so often to subsidize rising tuitions.”
Dr. Vedder is the director of The Center for College Affordability & Productivity. Spencer Irvine, an intern at Accuracy in Academia, has an excellent article outlining Dr. Vedder’s perspectives.
Stratford reports that Ryan’s budget proposals called “for ending the in-school interest subsidy on undergraduate Stafford loans and tightening the eligibility requirements for the Pell Grant program. He would completely cut off Pell eligibility for students attending college less than half-time.”
Technology?????
We are up against modern runaway stupid technology coupled to
retrograde dunbed-down common sense !!!!!
Burck Smith, CEO and Founder of StraighterLine, recently likened higher education to the U.S. Postal Service, which faces private competition and changing methods of communication as a result of new technology. However, in the case of higher education, government subsidies and accreditation requirements provide barriers help established universities maintain their old business models even in the face of innovations such as online courses.
“The postal service, I think, gives us a good example outside of academics to look at a subsidized business model that’s uh whose business model is really past”
The Postal Service is, “uh,” not subsidized.
Only the clowns at the post office could try to defend the way they’re doing business. Very little of value is moved by first class mail these days. Their main “product” is on a glide path to oblivion.
They should go to MWF delivery, and if there’s a holiday on one of those days, substitute Saturday.
Kinda' weird eh!
At the same time the most advanced technology available in the field of robotics has made the USPS the most efficient postal operation in the world ~ achieving a 700% improvement in productivity per workhour in just a few years.
Currently Congress doesn't want USPS to lay off about 200,000 employees so it can realize further productivity gains.
USPS has no technological or system problems ~ it has Congress standing on its neck.
Ending bulkmail rates would be a good move. Companies will still use mail to advertise, but they will pay a fair price. It might reduce the ad monies the enemy media receive, too.
That'll get rid of more than 100,000 marginally useful employees ~ all of whom are unionized.
There are another 100,000 employees in city delivery post offices who are only marginally useful since massive investments in postal automation and robotics have simply eliminated their jobs.
Preferential mail (First Class, Periodicals) is not so well sorted and packaged. That mail must be worked, plus it gets forwarded or returned as required ~ which bulk mail doesn't.
Most of what goes on in the USPS is invisible to the users.
Couldn’t they just transfer these surplus people to the Obama campaign staff? At least thru November?
The rural crowd is predominantly RURAL and they think they invented RED STATE stuff.
I think you've been seriously misled.
You’ve got that backwards. Presorted bulk mail subsidizes the rest, without which mailing a personal letter would be much more expensive. They get a better price because they do a fair amount of the work of the USPS for them, barcoded, presorted, trayed and even drop shipped via private trucking lines to the bulk mail center or sectional center level. It also takes a back seat as far as delivery time, to other forms of mail. If you want to collapse the postal service and quite a few direct marketers who employ hundreds of thousands nationwide, follow your advice. Leftist, tree-hugging advice that first got legs due to newspapers feeling that their ad revenue was threatened.
I stand somewhat corrected ... but how often is the bulkrate fee raised?
About as frequently as postage for everything else is raised. They’re a little more careful about it because direct marketers really are their bread and butter, they’d be cutting their own throats if they went too far.
It's fair to say that the USPS suffers from sclerotic management and poor employee training, but it is wrong to bash it to the degree that's become stylish.
And you're right -- it is Congress's oversight that's hobbled the Post Office. Two issues come to mind immediately.
The USPS is forbidden to ship alcoholic beverages which cuts them out of the growing market for mail-order wine. Millions of revenue foregone annually.
And then, several years ago, Congress got on its high horse and forbade the shipment of cigarettes in the mail -- all for the chiiiiilllldrennn, of course. Another few million dollars of revenue lost.
And when the P.O. announced the closing of several thousand local post offices, Congress, not wanting -- understandably -- to hear the screams of its rural constituents [of which I'm one], nixed it.
It's a no-win situation being a business run by the government.
usps hires its management from within. every time they’ve tried bringing in outsiders a bunch of them get caught stealing. private sector folks seem to not understand ‘it ain’t yor’ stuff’ ~ totally strange situation.
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