It seems that in today’s current world, keeping capital and financial resources both fluid and flowing is key. Stocks can jump or drop in a matter of seconds and selling products online allow constant monitoring and, if need be, adjustment of the prices in response to the demand.
However, it raises the question whether or not we want this same set up for our colleges. Now, colleges struggle with the poor American economy, budget cuts and state schools are quickly losing state funding – to a point in California where a task force evaluating the state of California’s community colleges called the system seriously underfunded – and schools are looking for new kinds of revenue streams.
A Call for Deregulation of Online Course Tuition
State schools in Florida therefore want to lose governmental restrictions on capping tuition increases at 15 percent per year. Instead, they want to be able to charge “market rate tuition” for their online classes. They then will have the freedom to charge their online courses and certificate programs at the rate that other universities are in order to remain competitive.
This could possibly lead to steep tuition increases for their online programs, which would be charged at rates ranging from 11,000 dollars and 57,600 dollars. State schools, however, estimate that the profits from charging the new, competitive rates would create 27.5 million additional dollars in revenue for the schools.
A New Pilot Program Introduced for Online Course Costs
Despite the proposed benefits of the system, Florida’s board of governors still were concerned; and put the schools’ proposal of deregulation on the questioning block last week. They were concerned about the universities about their use of private companies (as opposed to state-run companies) to facilitate the online courses and the possible ethics of steeply raising the costs of some programs.
However, the universities managed to make their cases and convince the board, as the governors decided there were willing to give the new system a try. It approved a the current pilot program underway for al limited number of schools that will test out this new revenue model. In the pilot program schools can offer a maximum of five courses at their market rate prices.
Traditional Courses Benefit from the New System
The traditional programs will not be affected, and will be maintained under state cost regulation. They also will benefit from the increased costs at the different programs, as the new money from the online courses will be put to upkeep of the traditional classes, faculty salaries, and maintenance of campus buildings. Also, rather than increase costs at many schools will, under deregulation schools are also planning on steeply cutting costs to some programs in order to draw out-of-state students.
A Turning Point in Higher Education: Setting Precedents for the Future
However the issue brings to the forefront the calamity that higher education is in at this point in time. Choices made by the schools now are choices that will shape the future of higher education. Deregulation of state schools could be the perfect solution to the universities’ troubles, or it could just mean more trouble for the already put upon student.
Read more about the deregulation of online course tuition.