If this child is going to take your money, then she needs to take your advice too. If she’s not willing to be reasonable and take your advice, then she gets none of the money. There’s no undergraduate degree on the planet worth $250,000. The whole idea is absurd, and somebody needs to say that out loud.

This girl can work, and she can go to a state school and get a great education for about a fourth of that price. Since you’re in Texas, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the University of Texas or Texas A&M. They’re great schools. And at that price range, I’m sure it would allow you guys to pitch in and help out some.

But seriously, a quarter of a million dollars for an undergrad degree? I don’t think so!

With such columns running in the NYT, perhaps it’s now officially all right for liberal and progressive types to admit (or at least consider the possibility) that higher education has been undermined by the twin notion that almost everyone ought to go to college and that all students should get pretty good grades so they’ll feel good about themselves.

Textbooks play their own part in this carnival.  For one, it’s not clear what textbooks are for in 2011.  Some students won’t buy them, preferring rent-a-texts, e-books, library reserves, Wikipedia, SparkNotes, et al.  Other students won’t read them because they can pass anyway after a Google click-a-thon.  Thus, M. W. Klymkowsky says, “Clearly, the issue of whether to use a textbook is complex,and it is dependent upon course and curricular goals. Students(and colleagues) expect a textbook; yet often, the textbook is not used, except as a reference.”

Jane Shaw, President of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, goes even further, suggesting that a textbook may often be nothing more than a security blanket for the professor.  In an email, she says, “I think that most faculty members still want a textbook because it provides an instantaneous organization for the course.”

Still, there are some courses students can’t pass without the textbook, and those are the jackpot for publishers and authors.  At $100+ per book, constant revisions and new editions, websites, CDs, and DVDs keep that money pump humming.  James Stewart made so much money from his Calculus textbook that he built a showplace home/performance space for an estimated $30,000,000 after auditioning architects such as Frank Gehry.

In an email, Evergreen Valley College’s Sterling Warner says, “Publishers . . . like the idea of electronic textbooks—not because they will serve students as well or better than paperback texts (or reduced costs per textbook).  No, publishers are asking for paper and electronic rights to reprint works because they can make greater profits.”  Warner continues:

I see publishers rushing after the glitz, bells, and whistles (maybe even clickers!) placing pedagogical substance second. Soon they’ll all be using Go-Daddy girls to use a bit of sex to straighten out slumping sales . . . .”

Enter Zachary Mason, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, computer scientist, artificial intelligence theorist, and author of the celebrated The Lost Books of the Odyssey.   Mr. Mason has just launched a new company in what seems a virtuous attempt to shrink textbook prices by using a mixture of new methods and new technology.  Zach, a very bright and talented man, is interested in hearing from all the players in the textbook casino:  teachers, administrators, students.  If you have ideas and/or needs you would like to share, just shoot me an email at dclemens@mpc.edu and I will forward your contact information to Zach.

Go-Daddy girls need not apply.

As this semester begins, college loans are nearing the $1 trillion mark, more than what all households owe on their credit cards. Fully two-thirds of our undergraduates have gone into debt, many from middle class families, who in the past paid for much of college from savings. . . .

If you want to get a name as an economic seer, try this one. The next subprime crisis will come from defaults on student debts, starting with for-profit colleges and rising to the Ivy League. . . .

Still, there’s a difference. With mortgage defaults, banks seize and resell the home. But if a degree can’t be sold, that doesn’t deter the banks. They essentially wrote the student loan law, in which the fine-print says they aren’t “dischargable.” So even if you file for bankruptcy, the payments continue due.

Hence these stern words from Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers. “You will be hounded for life,” he warns. “They will garnish your wages. They will intercept your tax refunds. You become ineligible for federal employment.” He adds that any professional license can be revoked and Social Security checks docked when you retire.

Read the full article because it is worth the read.

Stotsky answered:

What a strange question: Does our society devote too much time and money to education? We spend much more on K-12 schools now than ever before but get so much less in return mainly because our high schools have long failed to address the real range of adolescents’ interests. We have oversold the worth of a college degree to compensate for a high school diploma with little academic or career meaning.

Finland offers all students leaving ninth grade the option of a three-year general studies high school or a three-year vocational high school.

Possibly half of the students now enrolled in our public universities and four-year colleges would be more motivated to study and develop better work habits in programs of their choice that could have been available to them in high school. As for many of the dropouts in ninth and 10th grades, their long-term costs to society could have been avoided if they had been offered programs in high school that appealed to young adolescents more interested in practical activities than the reading and writing required in authentic college-level courses.

If Race to the Top and Common Core’s high school standards had aimed at strengthening the high school curriculum so that a high school diploma meant more than it now does — and the percentages of remedial math and reading courses at public colleges were drastically reduced — that would have been a major step forward. Instead, the U.S. Department of Education seduced most states into adopting reading and mathematics standards that in effect mean most high school students declared “college ready” will be even less prepared for authentic college-level work than those now going into nonselective post-secondary institutions.

Other developed countries offer adolescents a choice of curricula. Finland, for example, offers all students leaving ninth grade — the end of compulsory schooling — the option of attending a three-year general studies high school or a three-year vocational high school, with about 50 percent of each age cohort enrolling in each type of high school. The “comprehensive” American high school has outlived its usefulness, but our policy makers have chosen to weaken its academic goals and ignore its career-forming capacity rather than serve the diversity of adolescent interests, talents and needs in grades 9 through 12 — at a much greater cost to the students, their families and society.