Two decades after colleges got politicians to declare a college education a 'right' (fuzzy correlation/causation statistics showing a college education meant higher lifetime earnings made that part easy), schools that have put up lots of new buildings and had the culture turn on them due to bits of high-profile chicanery like charging $89,000 for a two-year program in "environmental journalism", are fighting back the same way government fights back when they overspend and the public doesn't want to pay more in taxes to cover it; they start trotting out high-profile sacrificial lambs.
Basically, if you want an education that actually has some value, you will have to pay more than someone in the humanities.
Accountants at schools that have implemented this are thrilled that no one in the business or science programs has balked so far. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been charging engineers an extra $50 per credit, basically $1500 a year, to get a degree that might actually have job prospects. Donde Plowman, College of Business Administration Dean, told Alicia McCarty at USA Today, "It's been a lifesaver. We can be excited for the future."
Not in science. You're paying an extra $1,500 per year so that Fine Arts and Philosophy students can pay less because they won't be able to get a job that pays well, which really does not make a lot of sense. Should you continue after your get a bachelor's degree, you will starve during graduate school and finally get a Ph.D. Then, if you want to continue in academia, you will likely starve as a post-doc for another few years.
Meanwhile, the National Science Foundation will spend another $5 billion trying to convince people who want to be doctors that they should become scientists instead, meaning even more Ph.D.s competing for the same jobs.
But it basically means, since the unlimited student loan gravy train is about to grind to a halt while fat schools cannot cut staff enough to run like a business, that poor kids are going to be least able to go into science and engineering. Science will become a major for the rich, not the smart.
What did the University of Nebraska-Lincoln do with its desperately needed tuition increase for certain majors they had to have because they were so underfunded? They built a career center and renovated a student lounge.
Should Science Subsidize Basket Weaving?
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