Perry's $10,000 Degree Challenge Spreads to Florida
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, apparently taking a page from Gov. Rick Perry's higher education policy playbook, on Monday at the St. Petersburg College campus made an announcement that will sound familiar to Texans.
"I am issuing a challenge to our state colleges to find innovative ways to offer a bachelor’s degree at a cost of just $10,000 in fields that will provide graduates with the best opportunity for employment," Scott said in a statement.
Back in 2011, Perry issued his own challenge to Texas public universities to create a bachelor's degree that only cost $10,000 ...
Comments (7)
Rene Ocelot via Texas Tribune on Facebook
isn't he the one that let the tuition caps expire?
Scott Hoffman via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why doesn't he just take Romney up on that bet?
Jon Dye via Texas Tribune on Facebook
One semester at UNT costs around 3k, not including books. I'd say Texas failed the challenge.
Frank Lee
A degree should cost $10K. Make it happen.
Whittle down all the redundant basics to a specific major course load.
Most degrees are useless once you get a job and realize the company that hired you could train you in 3 months to do almost anything. This is the wave of the future !
Sharon Richard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Texas taxpayers could fund one college degree per the $10,000 a month rental on his mansion.
Eric Bittner
$10,000 for a job training program would be reasonable. So, if your goal in life is to do some low-level tech job or do sales, then a $10K degree plan will give you the preparation you need.
But that's not a University degree nor should our universities be trade-schools.
No university degree will prepare any student for any specific job.
A university education is supposed to teach students to be critical thinkers, expose them to some of the greatest pieces of scholarship and work the human mind has created, and prepare them to tackle difficult challenges that require reaching beyond what is in the textbooks. This is true for humanities majors, science major, engineering majors, etc. This is why engineering and science students are required to take philosophy, history, and foreign language courses and why students looking to go to Law school NEED to take math, chemistry, and physics.
If you really want to rein in student tuition and fees, you need to increase public funding and trim athletics. At my university (UH), our athletic program LOSES tens of millions of dollars each year. This is NO secret. At UH, almost 10% of student tuition revenue is used to prop up our football and basketball teams. Perhaps about 15% of all athletic programs are profitable. UH is one of the least profitable programs.
Finally, upper division courses and graduate courses (especially in STEM fields) are expensive. They involve more one-on-one time with the professors. They involve expensive lab equipment and materials. A typical PhD in chemistry costs about $500,000 to produce. It adds up really fast. But, that person will likely generate 10-20x that in personal income over the course of his or her life, not to mention any income and value added to his or her company.
Chris Thornton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
College degrees are worthless when there are no jobs to use them at.