Cutting the Cost of College to $6,700
July 16, 2011 in Daily Bulletin
The Economist notes that “America’s universities have raised fees five times as fast as inflation over the past 30 years” and yet “still the universities keep sending begging letters to alumni and philanthropists.” The Economist reports that Vance Fried of Oklahoma State University found a way to provide a first class education for just $6,700 a year. Some of the cost cutting techniques include:
- Separate the funding of research and education, and make sure that students are only paying for their education and not subsidizing the institution’s research.
- The student-teacher ratio should be increased. Both business and law schools achieve good results with higher ratios than those that currently exist at undergraduate institutions.
- Eliminate and consolidate programs that receive little interest from students.
- Reduce administrative costs that have risen by as much as 61% in the last 15 years.
Read about other ideas and the universities that are seriously implementing them over here.
Source: The Economist
The real question is – why are there now more adminstrators than teachers, and can sometihng be done about it.
And I’m sorry, but the New York Times has lost almost all of the little little crdibility it had.
Those are some interesting propositions. I thought one of the most striking points in the article is that students pay to be taught, but professors are rewarded for doing research. It’s a common complaint among my peers that their teachers don’t seem to care too much for teaching.
On the related note of a college cost ‘bubble’ I’ve found these two articles to be the most informative on the subject.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/there-is-no-college-cost-crisis/
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/college-costs-the-sequel/
The thesis is that there is no college cost crisis. College is more affordable than ever. It’s just gotten relatively expensive because the cost of things like those sold at Wal-Mart have dropped but college can’t benefit from what’s made those things cheaper. The graph in the second link shows it all: The cost of dental services has gone up in lock-step with the cost of college over the last 60 years.
Those are fascinating links. We’ll feature them on our blog at some point – thanks for that!