College: Degrees for $10,000? - Editorial: West Virginia Gazette

Florida has announced that 23 state-run colleges soon will offer $10,000 degrees, and some Texas schools already have complied. A Texas master plan is titled "Anatomy of a Revolution? The Rise of the $10,000 Bachelor's Degree." It notes that three-fourths of families now think college is out of reach. In California, Assemblyman Dan Logue has introduced an "Affordable College Act" to achieve the $10,000 level. Such cost-cutting strategies depend heavily on online learning courses in which a few teachers reach thousands of students -- rather like the famed computer courses of Khan Academy. It's controversial, and some critics sneer that it will bring "Wal-Marting of education," weakening the value of degrees. The Texas master plan says: "The ground has shifted beneath the feet of traditional public higher education." http://wvgazette.com/Opinion/Editorials/201302150198