“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.
....."Perry continued on the intellect theme, explaining why he thinks it’s a problem that many of Obama’s advisers come from academia.
"They have gone to some great schools and they are intellectually smart, but he does not have wise people around him ... He has listened to smart people but nobody who has real wisdom," Perry said." Rick Perry deals with the ‘dumb’ question