Editorial: Still a long way to go in reducing college costs

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry plans to reduce college tuition. He has asked Texas state universities to come up with plans for students to obtain a bachelor’s degree for $10,000 or less at public colleges.

Administrators are striving for an innovative framework to reduce costs for students. In one program, certain high school juniors will start doing a dual-enrollment program at a community college. Upon graduation, students will complete one full-time year at community college before going to the University of Texas at Arlington for one year to complete their degrees.

Other Texas colleges are making a low-cost degree option available, but they are unlikely to appeal to most students. All of the programs are designed to accommodate niche groups of students — for example, adults returning to school or particularly focused high school students or students who want to pursue particular fields of study, such as science or math.

The attempt to reduce college costs is honorable, but they’re unfortunately limited in scope, and they’re doing little to change the actual cost of a typical college degree. The average cost of a year of education at a public college in Texas will still be more than $8,000 a year in tuition alone.

These programs are a good start in solving the problem of egregious college costs, but it would be better if these programs would actually lower the cost of college for all students, rather than decreasing costs for a select few students. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that programs that start in high school or that work on such a limited basis have the potential to have any long-term affects on the cost of college.

Also, some people are questioning the value of these low-cost degrees. This speaks to the fact that people value things that are expensive — the “you get what you pay for” mindset that people apply to education.

We also have doubts about some of these programs. For example, at Angelo State University in West Texas, students can combine three minors into one bachelor’s degree for an overall cost of less than $10,000. Administrators at this college envision this degree as an option for adult students looking for a way to get a broad, yet academically rigorous, education. However, the combination of several minors isn’t necessarily equivalent to an academic major, which usually requires more high-level courses than minors do.

It’s laudable for Texas to roll out more options for students to complete their degrees at a lower cost — currently, there are no such options at public colleges in Pennsylvania beyond merit or need-based scholarships and the option to complete part of a degree at community college. Hopefully, other states will follow Texas’ lead and attempt to lower costs — and hopefully, those changes will benefit all of their students.