A Good Conversation on the Costs of College

Is it unjust that people who don't go to college pay taxes to subsidize the education of those who do? It's an idea that I've been working through since some gentle prompting from frequent commentator JL, and this post at the Chronicle of Higher Education's blog speaks directly to the point.

You could argue that since we have a need for college educated workers, it's right that we pay what we do. On the other hand, we don't need more Humanities majors, which leads to a legitimate argument that the state shouldn't subsidize those who pursue those degrees that don't serve a larger societal purpose. That's a tough line to draw, though.

It relates, too, to an article in the January 9th 2009 Chronicle of Higher Education written by Ron Knecht, a trustee in the Nevada college system. The big finish:

At the same time, however, we in education should embrace the current budget challenges as an opportunity to begin, out of necessity, to do the things we should have been doing all along. We should reorient our efforts, change operational models, lower costs, improve our product, and be more responsive to our changing markets.

We must shed the barnacles that have accumulated on our ships of educational enterprise and become efficient competitors. We should not waste time and opportunity looking backward and pining for how things used to be.

The first big step I've seen out of the Washington college system is the UofW limiting the number of spring enrollees at the Seattle campus; it'll be very interesting indeed to see what the other Universities do to follow suit.

Update: Also on the topic of financial efficiency at the higher ed level, this commentary from William Massy of Stanford is worth a read.

Read more here, if any.

Governor Gregoire: "Ha ha, I hate health care and children, who's a tax and spend liberal now bitches?"

Actually, the quote was more along the lines of, "I'm sure each and every one of you will find something you don't like about this budget," but if you ask the right people they'll give you an answer more in line with the title.

And Christine, love ya babe, and thanks for the Christmas card below, even though my invitation kinda sorta got lost in the mail, but all the same best wishes, and by the way fire your tech department for making that really, really unflattering picture what shows up when people link to the YouTube video. It even looks worse in wallet size on your homepage. Tweet me later!

Read more here, if any.

No, Really--Let's Close a Bunch of School Districts

Earlier this year I wrote a post about the potential of closing some school districts here in Washington, and this past week I gave a presentation to my Current Issues in Education class about that same topic, but only looking more here at Spokane County.

Since my original post the state has fallen into a budget hole chasm canyon that has the potential to cut services for kids K through 16, and I think that if eliminating gifted programs and raising class size are on the table, then cutting the administrative side of the equation should also be. It's common sense, it's just, so let's do it.

And just look at the map of school districts in Spokane County to get an understanding of why I think this is a discussion that needs to happen. There's West Valley tucked to the west of East Valley and Central Valley, and my essential argument is that if you combined all three of them you'd end up with a district that was a) geographically nearly identical to Mead, just to the north and b) still had less kids than Spokane District 81 immediately to the west. And those are large, urban school districts--you could save millions of dollars without touching the small rural locals (Great Northern, Orchard Prarie) which becomes a far more emotional issue.

Or, in King County, consider Shoreline, with Seattle to the south, Edmonds to the North, and Northshore to the east. The dividing lines between these districts are basically which side of the heavily travelled highway you live on; why not take out the arbitrary lines and make one administrative unit, as it should be?

Read more here, if any.