With a new emphasis on affordable higher education, many state universities have been experimenting with programs, partnerships and scholarships to meet the 10k challenge. The 10k challenge, issued by Texas Governor, Rick Perry, means providing a four year degree that will cost the student no more than $10,000, including the cost of books. But, while keeping education affordable is a noble cause, providing higher level education still remains expensive, meaning programs could be finding ways of pushing costs to other systems, skimping out on quality or are so limited in scope that they are not accessible to those they are designed to help.
Texas A&M has been working on their 10k degrees by relying heavily upon their community college partnerships and high school college credit programs. The San Antonio campus boasts a bachelor of applied arts and science degree for under the $10,000 mark, but little of that has anything to do with what the university is providing. Up to 60 hours of dual credit classes are available to high school students thanks to the state sponsored program. A further 27 credits are spent at the partnered community college, Alamo College and only 36 hours are actually at the Texas A&M-San Antonio Campus. In order to reach the magic 10k number, the school has outsourced 70% of the education and pushed off almost half the cost onto the state.
Reliance for dual-credit classes are on the rise, as the number of Texas high school students participating has increase 1000% in the last decade. Typically, only academically advanced children participated in the program, but now more and more students are taking advantage of the potential cost savings. Multiple universities, not just Texas A&M, are now factoring in dual-credit classes as a huge part of their 10k jig saw puzzle. While this sounds good on the outside, the state has very little statistical information on the program. Data on dropout rates, income levels, and even cost is all severely lacking.
What will happen to the program when budget cuts come rolling through and people discover that the state is absorbing the cost for students to take college level classes in high school and never attend or finish college? Students who do continue on, may not be any better prepared for college classes than students on a standard 4 year trajectory, and due to the age difference, may have more difficulty adapting to campus life. It is one thing to take some prerequisites to your degree early to get them out of your way, it is another to walk onto a university campus as an 18 year old junior and run smack into Thermodynamics. There is a possibility that this is doing little more than creating a taxpayer funded dropout machine.
The University of Texas of the Permian Basin announced their Texas Science Scholars Program. The program would provide a four year bachelor’s degree in the fields of chemistry, computer science, geology, information systems and mathematics to qualifying high school students who declare their major upon being accepted into the university. Being accepted into the major requires that resident students be able to place into higher level mathematics courses as freshmen either by taking college level classes in high school or by scoring well on their ACT.
Those who qualify will see their annual academic costs capped at $2500 a year as long as they maintain a 3.0 GPA and meet each class requirement on time, a 60% tuition reduction from a standard academic year. Of course, most teenage students who are already this prepared for college should not have much of an issue finding scholarships and grants, so the savings for some may not be drastic.
Permian Basin is in a unique situation though, after completing construction on a new science facility on campus, class loads are currently under capacity. The school can earn revenue by filling in vacant seats in the classroom with 10k program students because the costs are already covered by current students paying full tuition. It is a smart way for Permian Basin to fill classes in majors of its choosing, attract students to a city with little desirability and take advantage of the free marketing of Rick Perry’s pro higher education speeches, but it is not reproducible in institutions that are already running at capacity.
In reality, the program is not a long term solution to address the affordability of higher education. The school is offering nothing more than a merit scholarship in the field of science to the few who can earn it. While the creative thinking and unique opportunities becoming available are refreshing to see, there is not much to be optimistic about yet. Fancy labels don’t hide the fact that the only programs offered either lower the quality of education and squeeze the life out of a state program or is a limited time scholarship to fill empty seats.