A $10,000 Education

Texas Governor and GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry challenged leaders in higher education to create a $10,000 undergraduate degree during his State of the State address. He said,

“I’m challenging our institutions of higher education to develop bachelor’s degrees that cost no more than $10,000, including books.” He suggested using online classes, “innovative teaching techniques and aggressive efficiency measures” as means to reach that goal. In a letter to university presidents, he also suggested, “… blended classes… no-frills campuses; credit for prior learning, dual credit and Advanced Placement; and open-source textbooks”

Interestingly enough, Texas already has a $10,000 degree, and one that might not be around for long. At Brazosport College, you can get a four-year degree in Applied Technology for under $10,000 (not including books). The Texas legislature looks to eliminate all funding to Brazosport and other community colleges in their new budget. This underscores the tendency to overlook community colleges as a viable and more affordable option for students.

Note that Perry doesn’t suggest a $10,000 price tag, but a $10,000 cost. This isn’t a return to increased state support for public universities, but a call for universities to come up with a degree that costs $2,500 a year, or about $100 per credit.

The discussion is varied, ongoing, and largely unoriginal. We have been debating the cost of higher education for decades.

Richard Vedder, the author of Going broke by degree: Why college costs too much suggests increasing government subsidies ($5000/student) and asking most faculty to teach 6 hours a week. Others suggest that cutting the cost of higher education inevitably means cutting the value of the education. Some are hopeful, believing we have to change otherwise we are “wasting our investment.”

The LA Times suggests that increases in tuition haven’t benefited students, but the increased funds go primarily to athletics, administration, and increase in tenured faculty salaries. Perhaps we could return to the 1970s, when a degree cost about 10% what it does today.

Is a college degree worth its current cost? The Pew Center says that most people believe college is too expensive, isn’t a good deal for the money, but it’s been a good investment for them personally. People believe (and research shows) that college graduates make about $20,000 more per year. 94% of parents expect their children to go to college, even if they think it is overpriced.

Our internal stakeholders are also losing faith in the American system of higher education. Faculty believe that we are longer the best in the world, though about half of college presidents believe we are “one of the best in the world.”

Do students get what they pay for? What do students think they are paying for? Are they paying for intellectual growth, personal growth, a chance to grow-up, a football team to cheer for, or a piece of paper?

According to a recent UCLA study, students say they choose the colleges they do because of a good academic reputation, because their graduates get good jobs, and because they were offered financial assistance. For students, academics are important, a future job is important, and affordability is important.

Is it realistic to provide great academics and connection to a future career for $10,000 a year?

The Economist suggests cutting education funds by only charging students for teaching. Students could vote to charge themselves fees for use of technology and facility improvements and research would be funded by grants and state subsidies. This sounds good, until you examine the actual savings of cutting all research. The Chronicle of Higher Education cites that, without research and development, the university only saves about $3,000 per student.

Higher education is more than lectures, tests, and assignments. In fact, Pew research suggests that people value character development more than the learning achieved in the classroom. If we moved to online learning, and part time instructors, we may get through the same syllabus but have missed an opportunity to develop students.

A shortage of funding and growing lack of belief in the American system of higher education from internal and external stakeholders has made it clear that we are in need of a recovery. What if higher education were to take a page from the most successful recovery program in history? Here is my adapted version of the 12 steps for higher education

1. Acknowledge that we have a problem.
2. Acknowledge that we (politicians, faculty, administrators, students) can’t do this by ourselves.
3. Actively return to focusing our mission on student learning.
4. With that mission in mind, assess everything we do from the lens of students.
5. Identify people, programs, and policies that will get in the way.
6. Remove those things that get in the way.
7. Acknowledge where we can get better, and put our attention there.
8. Address where we’ve neglected identities and marginalized people and people groups.
9. Make specific outreach to those groups.
10. Reassess whether we’re reaching our mission.
11. Do everything possible to address what students need most.
12. Empower other universities to do the same

Perhaps by realigning our mission we can cut programs and decrease tuition. More importantly, if we’re able to actively re-align our priorities around student learning, maybe we’ll learn how to work together, accomplish our mission more effectively, and re-gain the confidence of our internal and external constituents.

Do we have a budget crisis on our hands? Maybe. Is a $10,000 education that accomplishes what students and stakeholders want from an education realistic? Probably not. Perhaps we have an opportunity to re-assess who we are and where we’re going. Maybe future student affairs graduate students can look back on this decade and see the example of leaders who were willing to ask difficult questions because our students are worth it.