U of I $12,000 tuition tab too high

The U. of I. freezing the annual tuition rate for incoming students next year ($12,036 reported in the Daily Herald, but $20,606 including fees on the school's website) is a laughably weak response to controlling the ballooning cost of higher education.

What's needed at the U. of I. and every American college and university is a rethinking of the entire process by which students earn high-quality degrees.

Governors Perry of Texas and Scott of Florida, for example, have recently challenged their state colleges to develop high-quality degree programs at a total four year tuition cost of only $10,000.

Some colleges in those states have already developed such degrees in math, chemistry, geology, computer science, and information systems.

These programs typically encourage more advanced placement courses in high schools, allow students to test out of some college courses, take online instruction and some courses at community colleges, and shed administrative dead weight.

Another way to reduce cost at the U. of I. is to peel off student tuition funding support for the university professors' research activities. These highly-paid, largely senior faculty members seldom see the inside of undergraduate classrooms where most teaching is done by junior facility, graduate student teaching assistants (some whose English is barely intelligible), and part-time adjunct instructors.

Many research activities at state universities are unquestionably valuable, but could be separately funded by the state and federal governments and by grants from individuals, foundations, and interested private corporations.

It's time that the higher education establishment be subjected to the same processes of disruptive innovation and creative destruction that enable competitive businesses to provide their customers with better products, delivered faster, and at lower cost.

Bob Foys

Inverness