In his State of the State address earlier this month, Gov. Rick Perry proposed a plan for a tuition freeze and a challenge for universities to offer students a lowercosting education.
“Today, I’m challenging our institutions of higher education to develop bachelor’s degrees that cost no more than $10,000, including textbooks,” Perry said in his State of the State address.
Perry suggested online classes, new teaching techniques and higher efficiency within universities as methods to bring the cost of a college degree down.
Students at UH, while thrilled at the idea of a cheaper education, are dubious of his plan.
The goal is good, according to Hanny Abouekde, a sociology junior, but he doesn’t think online classes are the answer.
They are good in theory, he said, but Blackboard doesn’t always work.
Amanda Cottrell, a finance junior, agrees.
“Whenever it works, its good,” Cottrell said. “You don’t learn as much in online classes.”
Perry’s call for the renewal of a four-year tuition freeze, which would lock in tuition rates at or below the freshmen level for the next four years, also concerned students about how it would interact with the cuts in state funding.
“Tuition’s going to go up with him cutting spending,” Abouekde said. “Does that pressure them to spend more wisely?”
Cottrell is concerned with what the budget cuts will do to UH’s many scholarship programs, she said.
The University is already under pressure due to the cuts to UH’s funding by the state.
“Under the introduced version of House Bill 1, the UH System’s general revenue appropriation would be reduced by $100 million (20%) for the biennium,” President Renu Khator said in her address to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education in Austin last week.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that cuts of this magnitude would severely limit our ability to achieve our goals,” Khator said.
The University is stepping up fundraising and reallocating resources, Khator said, but the budget cuts would take away from the University’s ability to support its current students and the projected increase in enrollment over the next few years.
One of the reasons tuition is going up astronomically is because of the demand and the increasing number of students who are enrolling in colleges. We have been fed and had the idea that without a college degree you can not succeed and that a college degree is the ONLY way to having a career, drilled into our heads.
Colleges have ceased to educate and instead, construct posh dorms and expensive gyms, instead of investing these funds in academics. If their goal was to truly educate, they wouldn't be trying to make there college campus look like a Florida resort.
I agree with you there. Talk with people who went to college back in the 70's, 80's and up to the mid 90's and I hear stories of how mediocre the campus living arrangements were. However they also said that despite that they felt that compared to today they learned more and had a better academic classes than today.
Instead of building big over price dorms that are nice and posh, they should be spending the money on the departments or how about saving some for a rainy day. But no just like any government run organization we must spend every dime we have.
On the part of college degree rant, your right. It used to be that there were trade schools and that just because you learned a trade you were not frowned upon. Today the attitude has change and just like high school education it is bringing down the level.
I think this article is way off base. We have to understand that the more people that graduate with college degrees the less our degrees will be worth. A watering down of our degree is going on. If they need to raise tuition than I say great because it will weed out all the people who do not have the heart to finish and get their degrees. Higher learning should'nt be so easy to attain like it is now. U of H needs to raise it standards so we do not have as many idiot dropouts who only think college is for beer bongs and date rape! I hope they double how much it costs to attend U of H so it can get back to being a great college not just an average one trying to get out of the shadow of Texas University and A&M. Recently we seem to have an admittance that very much mirrors TSU and that isnt what we are going for. If you can not afford the higher costs than try a smaller school. We are the University of Houston and we have to live up to that I mean it isnt like we are Southern Montana school for future horse trainers! The University of Houston is an awesome university and more of the students need to realize that! Go Coogs!
I have to agree with you. I wish UH would accept students on a stricter basis, and if need be, interview students who have less than staler grades but have potential to succeed. Schools like Texas Southern should be shutdown as they are an embarrassment to the education system in this state and country.
You should try searching for your textbook using http://www.GreenTextbooks.com If you have the ISBN number for the book you should be able to find it with no problem what so ever. The reason I mention http://www.GreenTextbooks.com is that they are a textbook search engine that will find your book for you for the cheapest price online. It's pretty amazing and they all ways save me a ton of money each semester.