Posted on 02/06/2013 3:53:58 PM PST by NoLibZone
The $10,000 bachelor's degree could be coming to a campus near you.
What began as a challenge from billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates to make college more affordable is now catching on with governors eager to stem spiraling tuition costs and mounting student debt. Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced recently that 23 state-run higher education institutions will soon offer the four-year degree programs for $10,000, following similar calls by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. At least one lawmaker in California is calling for that state's vaunted university system to embrace the idea, too.
The bargain baccalaureate could prove popular with students and parents, frustrated with ever-mounting tuition costs that can't guarantee jobs for graduates. Nationally, student loan debt tops $1 trillion and the price of going to college has risen 440 percent in the last 25 years, according to Sallie Mae.
“The public has come to realize that the degrees that cost far more than $10,000 aren’t delivering,” said Thomas Lindsay, director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “They’ve come to the realization that you don’t get what you pay for.”
Proponents of the plans say the savings can be gleaned by using more web-based instruction, as well as forcing the public schools to be more efficient. The $10,000 degree also may not be available to everyone. Under one model being implemented in Texas, only high school students who graduate with at least a 2.5 grade-point average and complete at least 30 hours of college credit are eligible. They then a spend a year at Southwest Texas Junior College before completing their degrees at Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College, where they must maintain a 3.0 grade-point average and take 15 hours of classes per semester.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
University of California teachers’ union aims to block online classes.
October 11, 2011
Nobody is gonna mess with the “Big Education” cycle.
It’s a significant component of funding for liberal candidates with money borrowed by people desperate for a job.
“They then a spend a year at Southwest Texas Junior College before completing their degrees at Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College, where they must maintain a 3.0 grade-point average and take 15 hours of classes per semester.”
The University would seem to have a financial incentive to give C’s to these students.
If the conservative movement was smart, this is where a lot of energy would be directed. The left’s monopoly on higher education lies at the root of a lot of their power.
BINGO! You are spot-on. Wrap this program up with some other common-sense ideas that promote true education like apprenticeships (without being under the thumb of unions), working with small business owners to create secession plans, with farmers and ranchers to help keep small ag viable and aid with wealth transfer, and bottom line: realize that “college is NOT for everyone” and that a sound economy that produces “living wage jobs” is built around people who know how to do things that are needed, not pieces of paper. We don’t need to TEACH conservatism, we need to LIVE IT, and the learning will happen automatically.
Exactly right. All conservatives who have businesses, farms, etc., need to be made aware that they are better served in the long run by focusing on hiring and/or training their employees based on actual skills rather than credentials. Valuable skills can be obtained in a myriad of ways outside of the liberal education system, from as you mentioned apprenticeships, to online education, home schooling, working your way up from the bottom, etc.
I agree. Also, don’t overlook Veterans education benefits. I earned by Bachelor degree using my VA benefits. My son, US Army Reserve, is also using his VA benefits to get his degree.
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