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Posts Tagged ‘Online Courses’
October 11th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
A Scintilla of Sense from Occupy Wall Street?
Posted by Print

Well, sort of. One of the most common complaints from the unwashed masses gathered in urban centers throughout the nation has been the astronomical cost of their student debt. And they have a point. As Jenna Johnson notes at the Washington Post:

Two-thirds of the Class of 2008, graduated with debt and an average of $24,651 in student loans. Since then, graduates have faced some of the worst job markets in recent history. In August 2010, the amount of student loan debt ($829.785 billion) outpaced credit card debt ($826.5 billion) for the first time.

The cost of a good college education is probably never going to be cheap. But that doesn’t mean that it has to be as expensive as it is now. The dilemma for the union-backed, government-expanding protesters, however, is that it is precisely those two forces — organized labor and big government — that have driven the inflated costs of a college degree. As Conn Carroll writes at the DC Examiner

[The] University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is doing all they can to make it harder for the state to lower tuition by blocking the development of online courses:

“We believe that if courses are moved online, they will most likely be the classes currently taught by lecturers,” reads a brief declaration against online education on the website of UC-AFT, the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, “and so we will use our collective bargaining power to make sure that this move to distance education is done in a fair and just way for our members.”

More convenience, less cost, better professors (otherwise you’ll just take a different course with a more capable instructor), and theoretically limitless access. What’s not to love? Plenty, if you’re tenured mediocrity is on the line. No word yet on any concern for the students from the AFT.