Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, is a graduate of TESC, and a former tenured professor at Syracuse University. In a New York times article, he defends distance education, the value of not going into debt, and cites the soon-to-burst education bubble. His ultimate point is that "..when tuition skyrockets and returns on education stagnate, we can expect a flight to value, especially by people who can least afford to ride the bubble, and who have no choice but to make a cost-effective college investment. In the end, however, the case for the 10K-B.A. is primarily moral, not financial. The entrepreneurs who see a way for millions to go to college affordably are the ones who understand the American dream. That dream is the opportunity to build a life through earned success. That starts with education." http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/my-valuable-cheap-college-degree.html?src=me&ref=general
I completely agree. I have long held that unless you can graduate from a Top 5 school in your field, attend with at least a partial scholarship, and have realistic expectations of being heavily recruited upon graduating, VALUE is the best option. Choose a properly accredited school that offers the program you want in the format you want it in, for the lowest cost available.
I do agree. I completed my MS for under 7K and it has served me well. To add some national name recognition, I completed a grad certificate from UF for $2,700. (My MS would have some name recognition if I still lived and worked in the NYC area.) With those academic credentials I was able to earn a salary that would rival many Ivy masters.
I enjoy reading articles, but I enjoy reading the COMMENTS even more. People make good arguments on both sides, and at the end of the day, these alternatives work best for motivated people. I do always chuckle a little as the old guard gets their panties in a bind over anything that differs from their experience.
I thought it was a good article. I started browsing the comments and had to stop and close the webpage. The banter was getting annoying...
Here is one organization really pushing for lower cost bachelors degrees - Community College Baccalaureate Association "The CCBA attempts to gather all published articles and legislation dealing with the community college baccalaureate degree."
10k is too much. Lets go for the 6k BA. Revamp high schools to teach out of the CLEP books and each student passes CLEP US History I, II, biology, college algebra, personal finance, information systems, humanities etc. They can use cookderosa's book as a guide. Taxpayers pick up the tab for CLEP tests at 80/student but we can negotiate that down to 60/test due to volume. REA is the new textbook provider for the schools. At the end of a kids high school career he is awarded an associates or bachelors degree. Then he continues studying at the "college level" for his MBA.
I thought that was already the case. I've been under the impression that a kid with a H.S. diploma and nothing more (meaning no plans, no ambition, etc.) is settling for a life of manual labor or working in low-end retail. That may seem fine when you're 18 but when you hit 50 it becomes just a little bit harder to carry those roofing shingles up the ladder.
Now now, we're supposed to maintain the polite fiction that the liberal arts requirements for a Bachelor's degree are significantly different from what students study in high school.
Haha. Yeah they are identical. I told my boss that her kid could easily pass US History I&II since he was already taking AP history. In fact I used the AP Human Cultural Geography study book to pass the DSST version of the test. It was the exact same content. So as long as a kid can handle AP English, he can handle AP/CLEP/DSST everything else. Wake up college administrators, high school teachers can teach your 1000-3000 level liberal arts and basic business content.
