Priced out of the Education Market?

Are colleges pricing themselves out of reach of their market? With shrinking government support and dwindling endowments, colleges and universities have had to increase already exorbitant tuition rates, making them out of the question for millions of potential students.

Since a degree remains a requirement for many desirable jobs, students are coping by flocking to lower cost community colleges. Listen to an interesting discussion of the economic effects on higher education on NPR.

Higher educational institutions are being told that they must become more entrepreneurial (see related post From Stepchild to Cinderella on 2/6/09) below. The problem is that they don’t know how. The only options proposed on most campuses are to (1) raise tuition or (2) cut expenses.

Are traditional colleges headed the way of the music industry? Time will tell. Right now, however, significant opportunities exist for any schools who can offer accredited degrees for a lower cost. Community colleges are one option. Another is for students to take advantage of alternatives such as CLEP or DANTES tests, ACE-evaluated credits for military and corporate training and credit for prior learning.

For those who are completely fed up with the education system, innumerable opportunities for learning exist on the internet. I’ll cover each of these options in future posts.

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