Education is a business.
Education has a product to sell.
Like every business, they must make you believe that their product is essential to your future. If you have a college degree you will make millions more than any mere high school grad. Or so they say. Just don’t ask the millions of college grads struggling to pay off ourageous student loans while living in their parent’s basement.
Okay, let’s say you bought into the degree myth and spent over $100,000 on a degree in philosophy. Whoops good luck getting a job with that degree.
Or, you spend $100,000 getting an education degree. Again, that will never place you in the high income bracket.
So here is my proposal. You cannot charge everyone $100,000 for a college degree. Let’s face it, an engineer is going to make at least three times more money in her lifetime than an English major. A biology major is going to kick the hell out of a music major when it comes to EP, Earning Potential.
Plus it costs a lot less to educate an English major than a Biology major. For English, you need one faculty member (often part-time), a classroom, a text book and you are good to go. For a biology major, you need labs, chemicals, frogs, animals, lab assistants… in other words the Biology overhead is a lot higher than the English overhead. So are English majors, by paying the same tuition as a biology major, really subsidizing biology majors?
The new tuition plan I propose is based on EP. Your English Degree has half the EP of your Engineering Degree, your Philosophy Degree has half the EP of your Geology Degree. So you should be charged half as much for an English, Education, Drama , Music, Art, Education, Sociology, Communication, Journalism degree.
This is the way the real world works. If I want a Mercedes, I pay Mercedes prices. If I am perfectly content with a Honda, I pay Honda prices.
It should be the same way with college degrees. If I don’t want a Mercedes degree (engineering degree) but am perfectly happy with a Honda degree (Education degree) why should I pay Mercedes prices for a Honda degree?
Makes sense to me. Last time I checked, no one in the real world got away with one price fits all. Why should colleges?