Duncan Calls for Urgency in Lowering College Costs

[alp227]

Source: NYT

Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a speech Tuesday pushed higher education officials to “think more creatively — and with much greater urgency — about how to contain the spiraling costs of college and reduce the burden of student debt on our nation’s students.”

At a time when the Occupy movement has helped push college costs into the national spotlight, the Education Department characterized the speech, delivered in Las Vegas, as the start of a “national conversation about the rising cost of college.” The department took the opportunity to call attention to steps the Obama administration has taken to reduce the net price that students and families pay for higher education and make it easier to pay back student loans.

The widespread anger over rising college costs came into sharp focus Monday, with student protests in New York and California.

In New York on Monday, City University of New York students and their supporters held a raucous street protest, with signs saying “CUNY must be free” and “Abolish the board of trustees” as City University trustees approved a series of $300 annual tuition increases extending through 2015. At a protest in California, Cheryl Deutsch, a U.C.L.A. graduate student who heads the union representing student workers, confronted the university’s regents to extended applause. “You, as banker and financiers, real estate developers and members of the corporate elite, are not representative of the people of California, she said. “You are not representative of the students of U.C. You are the 1 percent.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/education/duncan-calls-for-urgency-in-lowering-college-costs.html

[bbgrunt]

1. bite me, arnie--we don't need you to fuck this up too.

[Plucketeer]

2. Eggxactly!!!

Mr. Dunce'n, Fuck Off!

[exboyfil]

3. Start with insisting on open source textbooks

from the Department of Education. You can easily drop a $1,000 for textbooks your Freshman year. Shame universities into adopting this policy. I can understand higher level classes somewhat, but how much has Calculus changed in the last 100 years.

Another thing is fairer pricing on dorm rooms. Make sure the ones with the bells and whistles cost more dollars and give students an economic option. The same can be said on the ridiculous board prices. Give students more options to cut costs back (such as one meal a day plans fairly priced).

Use technology to cut costs. Have more video lectures sharing with other universities in some cases with recitation sections staffed by graduate students.

[triguy46]

5. Most housing is priced by bells and whistles...

And much low cost housing is the least preferred and last filled. Students and families are shocked that son might have to use a communal shower. So we do hear that housing should be affordable, as families continue to vote with their borrowed dollars for our most expensive housing options.

A simple solution that few families consider: Get out in 4 years. At the local state Univ. with 24000 students, the average undergraduate courseload is 13.4 hours. You are assured of a 5 year experience at that pace assuming no change of major (not likely). the tuition cost is a wash but you add on an additional year of room/board and fixed mandatory fees. Suck it up and take 16 hours and get outa there.

[exboyfil]

6. It does not appear that way at our flagship state university

The housing deltas are not that different. I would like my daughter to go onto the WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) dorm floor.

I agree with not messing around to the point that I am encouraging doing as much as you can in High School to reduce courseload in college. My oldest is thinking about Electrical Engineering, and I think we can get most of the Freshman year out of the way using our local Junior College/University/AP/CLEP. Another important consideration is to figure out your major while in High School. My daughter will have exposure to Calculus, Programming, and Engineering Design before she sets foot onto the main campus. If she does not like them, then we will think about something else.

[No Elephants]

7. Don't know how things are in your neck of the woods, but universities

in the Boston area buy up THE most expensive real estate in a very high priced town and pay university heads and other top brass a fortune, as well as giving them mansions to live in.

And then, there are the athletics programs.

pardon the pun, but showers do not even rise to the level of a drop in the bucket.

[Sedona]

4. start by not paying football coaches $4 million/year

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/campus-overload/post/ohio-state-football-coach-urban-meyers-salary-4-million/2011/11/29/gIQAup9K9N_blog.html