Tech College System to Link State Funds to Student Jobs
Texas State Technical College System officials say their top priority is placing students in good jobs. And they're preparing to put their money where their mouths are.
While some university leaders have balked at the idea of linking graduations or other outcomes to the amount of money they receive from the state, administrators at TSTC, a network of public two-year institutions that provide technical training, have embraced it. And they are working with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to develop a model that bases the system's entire state funding amount on the job placements and projected earnings ...
Comments (3)
visule
It’s about time these schools track the outcomes. The students and taxpayers that invest in the degrees and certs want more than vague promises of some job at the end of the degree rainbow.
When selecting a career track, the realistic outcomes would prove to be very helpful.
Of course this model of funding would not be appropriate for universities because they still hold onto the quaint belief their mission or purpose is not to train future workforce but to instill knowledge and make better citizens of its students.
audrey fisher
Visule: Wowzer, Universities have quaint belief their mission is to instill knowledge. While I don't have a problem with a "technical institute" teaching a specific skill set, the idea that knowledge of a general nature is what, a waste of resources?
That mindset assumes that nothing changes, technology doesn't advance, we in TX really don't want to know or care about innovator's, because that would require KNOWLEDGE.
Here in TX, you want worker bees/ drones only? Just go to work, do your job and leave all that strenuous stuff, like thinking to whom?
Alice Taylor
Audrey, you're making a basic assumption that is wrong. Just because a student goes to a tech school does not mean they aren't learning general knowledge nor doe sit mean that they won't continue to grow and expand that knowledge throughout their careers.
The students in tech schools don't think of themselves as "drones". The teachers of these students are obsessively dedicated to keeping their skills current and passing on those skills so that the students are able to work AND research and develop in their fields. These instructors aren't trying to produce drones, either.
The only people who look down on tech schools are the insecure individuals who worry about the relevance of a four-year liberal arts degree and who believe that creativity and thinking skills are reserved for those who seek them in the ivory tower.