Paying for post-secondary education is one of the most significant burdens for both families and students. Costs continue to rise and student debt continues to accumulate; at the same time, many recent college graduates end up in jobs that do not require a college degree, if they have jobs at all. Writing in the Orlando Sentinel, Lindsey Burke argues that federal government policies have fueled this trend and lauds the effort by Sen. Mike Lee and myself to take on the higher education cartel in order to foster more innovation, choice and affordability in higher education: “One way Congress could actually help with the college cost issue would be to follow the lead of Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Ron DeSantis, R- Ponte Vedra Beach, who have introduced proposals that would fundamentally restructure higher education by reforming the ossified accreditation system. Currently, accreditation is a de facto federal enterprise, with federally sanctioned regional and national accrediting agencies now the sole purveyors of accreditation. The result has been a system that has created barriers to entry for innovative start-ups — insulating traditional brick-and-mortar schools from market forces that could reduce costs — while making it difficult for students to customize their higher-education experience. The Lee/DeSantis proposal, known as the HERO Act, would decouple federal financing (student loans and grants) from accreditation and allow states to establish flexible accreditation models. South Carolina, for instance, could allow Boeing to credential aeronautical engineering courses, and Texas could enable Texas Instruments to credential mathematics courses. A student might spend a semester in a traditional college setting followed by an apprenticeship at Microsoft, and then spend time taking individual courses approved by a variety of organizations. Such a model would enable students to access course content geared toward the skills they need to successfully climb the ladder of economic mobility, without confining them to a single, expensive, brick-and-mortar college experience.” articles.orlandosentinel/2014-07-11/news/os-ed-front-burner-student-loans-con-20140710_1_college-costs-income-based-repayment-option-federal-student-loans
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 01:23:29 +0000
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