commentaries

I agree that secondary ed is important to the state. I disagree that just sepnding more money is the solution. We need massive reform to the system and demonstrated improvements prior to more investment. What we really need is federal regulation of the predatory practices used by colleges simliar to the credit card act. Colleges encourage students to amass huge debt without any accountability. This is the next bubble to burst and it is not a govt bailout scenario. Secondary education is a personal choice and the colleges need to step up and make it more affordablle. Let's place the blame where it belongs...

The U of M has increased its graduation rate 12 percent between 2003 and 2008 — the sixth biggest gain of any public research institution in the country and the largest of any school in the Big Ten. This trend is encouraging and more improvement seems likely. Affordablilty is key to the U's continuing success and Rep. Bonhof is up to the challenge.

Actually, looking into cutting costs, improving the curriculum to match business needs and subsidising higher education is only one part of our educational system. Another important aspect is fostering a culture where parents support and nurture learning at home: kids with at least 20 books at home have an average of 4 years more of education, while parents that read to kids on a nightly basis have up to 6 years more on average. Also, getting good teachers, training them to get better and paying them appropriately is the third pillar to a good educational system. These three ingredients are common in the top educating countries in the world; like Finnland, Singapore and Denmark.

Higher-ed doesn't have to mean 4 year universities or colleges. We need a new system for mid-career professionals to gain new skills in a short period of time, very few heads of household have the time to take 4 years off from working and go back to school. Six months for an aggressive education program to gain high-tech, in-demand skills is a much more reasonable approach to solve the skills gap in this country. Expecting everyone to have the time, money and patience to sit through 2 years of lib ed requirements while only receiving a handful of useful (job applicable) courses is not realistic. We need a new higher-ed system and we need it now; the current system is not responsive enough, takes far too long and is much too expensive to fill the skills gap for the jobs of today and the future.

gandalf48, we actually already have a higher education system that prepares students for a profitable and useful career in less than four years — or two-year vocational portion of our MnSCU system. The problem is that far too many families, peers and high school guidance counselors think our a four-year liberal arts degree is going to get someone a great life. HOGWASH. I've known far too many four-year liberal arts graduates who never work in their degree field or work at jobs much lower than their education would permit. There are skilled two-year graduates coming out into fields that pay $25 per hour starting ($52K) and often with quick advancement. We need more technicians, those will special high-tech manufacturing abilities, etc. But, no, Mom and Dad don't think that is good enough, and the peers look down their noses at you, and guidance counselors and high school teachers — graduates of four-year liberal arts colleges themselves — can't see beyond their own experience and push kids in that direction no matter their talents or interests. The four-year higher education track is so expensive for three reasons — overpaid instructors, too-many layers of redundant administration because no one wants to actually work so they get an assistant whatever to do it for them, and buildings. Higher education as we know will be crumbling in a decade or two, replaced by online courses and other technology driven delivery methods. General ed courses of the first year or two should all be taught off campus. Only the third and fourth year when students really focus on their major with higher level courses would be on campus, especially in lab or similar settings. Some liberal arts degrees would need no on-campus time. What is holding back this transition — administration and instructors trying to hold onto their jobs in the face of technology improvements that have already changed many industries. Such people will eventually be as useless as a steam locomotive coal shoveler when diesel-electric locos replaced the steam engines.