When it comes to education, politicians are especially good at just throwing money at the problem. Give universities what amounts to a blank check, and watch the problem get even worse!
The first provision calls for providing a full scholarship to any high school graduate majoring in math, engineering, science or technology. The scholarship would apply to any university, but students must work or teach in a related field for at least four years after graduation to qualify, Baucus said.
There are a lot of things that universities could cut spending on that would make them more efficient. For example, they could provide minimal student housing and food services, rather than the low-end hotel sort of feel that is increasingly common. They could stop spending money on student activities, encouraging students to go off campus and outside the university for recreation and entertainment. How about having a policy of doing only hand-me-downs from IT-intensive majors like Engineering and Computer Science for the majors that largely use computers for typing papers and Internet-based research? Why should Psychology and Political Science majors need anything more than a $300 used PC from the College of Math and Science or Engineering? How about only using endowments and such for doing beautification projects for campus buildings?
There are so many things that universities could do to cut out bloat from their budgets, but a lot of it is driven by parents. They want lavish furnishings for their kids. Many are convinced that without "the latest technology" their kid will fail even if their major has no practical need for a computer or any computer-based device made in the last five years. Let's start there before handing out any blank checks...
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I don't think the problem with the US Educational system is too few people going to college: if anything, I'd say that because we use College as an all-purpose gatekeeper to the vast majority of jobs, we have entirely too many students who have no business being there. This substantially drives up costs, and simultaneously cheapens the nature of a degree via grade inflation, etc.
Also, about recycling computers, while that's good in theory, there are lots of things which non-Engineers do which require a lot of horsepower: consider art/music majors, for example. I do agree that most people don't need the brand new shiny for their everyday work - but it's generally not the shiny which determines whether or not education is affordable (a high-end personal machine is $3K - how many credits will that buy?)