Education

I was hearing again on the radio that there is a movement to allow more students to waive or reduce their college loans for free. I think that’s a complete slap in the face to people like myself who didn’t rack up any debt in college but chose the lowest cost options when attending college.

The problem with waving college is that it’s both unfair and rewards wasteful spending. Why economize at college if the government is going to waive your costs it just away? I took a lot of steps to save in college – including attending Community College then a college I could commute to from home. When I attended SUNY Plattsburgh, I waived all optional fees that I could, bought the smallest meal plan I was allowed and parked on the street rather than pay the parking fee. I didn’t have my own laptop, instead I used the computer lab or typed up papers on my parents old typewriter (in 2006). I did work study and then worked down in Albany, taking off semesters and commuting from home.

I certainly support making college more affordable by increasing government support for public colleges and rewarding schools that stay within a spending cap with additional aid. Steps should be taken to make it easier for students to opt out of optional fees, and providing additional discounts for online classes that don’t require providing a physical plant such as a classroom with desks, heating and lighting. Larger class sizes are also possible online, saving on staffing costs.

Public colleges could reduce tuition and fees to an affordable couple thousands a year if they aggressively persued efficient online learning with a much smaller physical plant. While some classes and laboratories are best done in person, most universities have significant physical plant and they don’t have to be constantly upgrading. Colleges can make do with older buildings, older technologies and still provide a cost effective education to students.

Students that got into significant debt should be held accountable for their actions. Instead of bailing them out, we should focus on driving down college costs – not just by increased funding but also reduced spending at colleges.

There has been a lot of talk about making college education free for students. Usually the proposal involves either a new tax on the rich or cobbling together existing funding streams, adding a little extra money here and there, and saying that college is now free. The prior idea often is dismissed as politically impossible, and the later idea while implemented is misleading at best, as usually it involves little additional funding and doesn’t cover the cost of fees and housing during college.

But maybe the answer exists today with the infrastructure built during the pandemic — remote learning. Let students get full college experience via Zoom or other video lecture. There is no limit on class-size for Zoom lecture, a classroom could span a whole state or even the world for relatively little money compared to old ways of educating. Online tests and quizzes can be automatically graded by a server. Papers and essays could be submitted electronically for review by the professor and adjuncts. For other quizzes and tests, where there is a concern about cheating, local High Schools could be used in the evenings with paid test proctors to administer the tests in a secure environment. Likewise, High Schools could be used in group discussions in the evenings, connecting with the professor over Zoom.

There once was a bias against remote learning and remote work. But the pandemic has struck many of those prejudices down, showing it can work. While part of human connection is lost over Zoom, already many traditional classes were taught in large, impersonal lecture halls. The remote learning infrastructure could be made so much cheaper that it would be easy for states to fund unlimited learning and certification of people wanting to learn new skills to advance their careers, improve their knowledge, or learn more about a subject.

Already, there are many colleges like MIT and Penn State that offers free online lectures and textbooks. It’s a good start, but there is no formal testing or certifications after participating in such courses. But adding this component to learning process could be a very economical way for states to provide free learning to all their citizens. People could gain new skills throughout the careers, advancing the work force and allowing their citizens become more knowledgeable about the world.