Universities should be embracing technology to avoid higher costs
Higher education is so important to Texas that the Legislature should increase its financial contribution to help meet the ever-greater costs of operating our universities. This, in essence, is the viewpoint expressed May 10 by Kenneth Ashworth, a former professor and onetime Texas commissioner of higher education.
At the root of the problem is the increased cost of college. Higher education is a labor-intensive activity. At the University of Texas, labor represents 70 percent of the budget.
As productivity in the economy in general increases, with added capital permitting a worker to produce more widgets or whatever, the worker is paid more. At the university, professors are also paid more, so that they don’t leave to become widget-makers — but the professorial output does not increase.
Teachers at our colleges and universities continue to teach as they have taught for centuries; it is just that they are paid more now. This is the reason tuition goes up.
At UT, we are told the cost of providing college education increases on average 2.6 percent a year, after adjusting for inflation. That represents a doubling of real costs every 27 years to provide the same college education — an increase in cost due to our success in achieving greater productivity in the noncollege economy.
The high costs of college are met by students, their families and the Legislature. Historically, it has been about a 50-50 split. But now, 50 percent of the higher tuition is more than a middle-class family can afford — even considering student loans. Often forgotten in discussions of the cost of college is what must be paid beyond tuition for textbooks — about equal to the charge for tuition at community colleges.
To meet the increased costs, the Texas Legislature, as Ashworth suggests, should raise its contribution — though the Legislature understandably resists paying more for the same higher education. Those who advocate for an increase in the state contribution to higher education are challenged to identify something in the state budget that can be unfunded and struggle to pinpoint state taxes that could be increased to cover college costs.
Fortunately, there is a new way that capital can be used in teaching to increase the productivity of higher education. The computer can provide a learning experience for many subjects as effective as the classic teacher-classroom-lecture method.
Carnegie-Mellon, Rice and MIT are leaders in developing such new learning tools. At Carnegie-Mellon, a computer-based course in basic statistics produced outcomes as good as those achieved with a course taught covering the same subject but in the traditional way.
It should be the responsibility of at least one faculty member in each department to be abreast of the best teaching materials in their subject, wherever developed. Effectiveness should be tested and the good ideas borrowed.
While most professors may have little incentive to devise computer-based learning materials, some are excited by the opportunity new technology offers.
An excellent laboratory in the UT College of Liberal Arts stands ready to show professors examples of successful products and to provide the technical expertise needed in developing computer-based learning materials. The Texas Legislature itself has authorized a modest program of “course redesign” to be administered by the Texas Higher Education Board.
These initiatives provide paths to addressing the cost of college that are more realistic than asking students, families and the Legislature to pay ever more for college.
Re: May 2 article, “Opponents of no-permit gun carry gather at Capitol.”
This session of the Texas Legislature is seeing a parade of gun bills, including House Bill 1911, a “permitless carry” bill. It removes licensing and training requirements and
For all my life, I have considered the American two-party system to be sacrosanct. Somehow the logic of a reasonable choice between two reasonably centrist parties seemed a good enough reason to make an either-or choice. In the recent presidential election, I found many of the positions of Green Party candidate Jill Stein very appealing. But I didn’t vote for her because I convinced myself the vote would be “wasted.”
I find a lesson in the recent decision by the French — in a runoff election — to choose a globalist over a racist-nationalist (Is the label “populist” supposed to help us accept the incursion of its opposites: oligarchy and tyranny?).
The multiparty system in this case has not proven itself the gateway to governmental chaos I had been led to believe. Instead, it was a safety valve that put the minority in a minority position instead of an equal contender in a Hobbesian choice.
Vive la France!