A college education has been growing more and more expensive in recent years. At the same time as we’re working to make sure high schools prepare our children for college, rising costs are preventing many of those struggling students from even thinking about the next stage of their education.
According to an article in the Washington Monthly, the solution to rising college costs isn’t flashy or controversial. In fact, Maryland has been holding down college costs without resorting to cuts in service, complicated funding schemes, or piling on the debt. It all came down to having an efficient plan, and listening to the public:
How did Maryland manage to hold the line on tuition for four years in a row, when no other public university system was able to do so? The system’s board of regents insisted on some modest long-term operational efficiencies, and the universities’ administrators and faculty actually complied. Then elected officials, responding to political pressure, agreed to increase funding for higher education. It’s not a terribly shocking tale—unless you work in academia, in which case you talk about the Maryland example the way soldiers discuss the Battle of Thermopylae. Indeed, what’s astonishing about this story is not so much what happened as the fact that in other states, such things almost never do.
Maryland provides us with a great example of what we can accomplish with smart planning and a strong political will.
Click here for the full article.
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A college education has been growing more and more expensive in recent years. At the same time as we’re working to make sure high schools prepare our children for college, rising costs are preventing many of those struggling students from even thinking about the next stage of their education.
According to an article in the Washington Monthly, the solution to rising college costs isn’t flashy or controversial. In fact, Maryland has been holding down college costs without resorting to cuts in service, complicated funding schemes, or piling on the debt. It all came down to having an efficient plan, and listening to the public:
How did Maryland manage to hold the line on tuition for four years in a row, when no other public university system was able to do so? The system’s board of regents insisted on some modest long-term operational efficiencies, and the universities’ administrators and faculty actually complied. Then elected officials, responding to political pressure, agreed to increase funding for higher education. It’s not a terribly shocking tale—unless you work in academia, in which case you talk about the Maryland example the way soldiers discuss the Battle of Thermopylae. Indeed, what’s astonishing about this story is not so much what happened as the fact that in other states, such things almost never do.
Maryland provides us with a great example of what we can accomplish with smart planning and a strong political will.
Click here for the full article.