In “Paying for college is a whole new ballgame”, Gil Smart observes:
“According to U.S. News & World Report, the total cost of a four-year degree by the time my youngest goes to college, assuming he does, will top $200,000. Where’s that coming from? Well, maybe he’ll be even better at baseball than his older brother.”
“Costs simply cannot keep rising to the extent they have; it is unsustainable. We are creating a generation of debt slaves; and we’ve created what many say is a bubble in higher education, not unlike what happened in the housing market.”
WATCHDOG: A wag of the tail.
As we have written before, our higher education system is a holdover from the Middle Ages and Renaissance Period when students had to travel to a few major metropolitan areas to obtain a higher education.
Change is already in the air. Penn State, along with other universities, is offering Internet based programs that lead to a full degree.
We propose one year on campus with month long visits during each of the remaining three years. Lab courses would be taken at a local college.
Such an approach would enable our existing universities to reduce the cost of an education by at least a half. The Pennsylvania university system would be able to close down a number of its campuses while accepting more students.
In large part because of the cost of raising a child given today’s high expectations, couples throughout economically advanced nations, including the USA, are deciding to have less children. The birth rate per couple across Europe averages about 1.5 children and in Canada 1.6. In order to maintain a stable population (all other things being equal), 2.1 per couple is necessary. The USA is 2.06, largely due to the burgeoning native born Latino population.
Given the modern computer driven world, there is no reason to cling to the past. If they don’t mind having the kids at home while at college, parents should be clamoring for educational reform.
