Gov. Perry's Quizical Proposal of a $10,000 Bachelor's Degree

        In the midst of a massive budget cut in every government program imaginable, Governor Rick Perry has proposed that every public university in the state provide a Bachelor's degree, with textbooks, for 10,000 dollars a year. Ralph Haurwitz at the Austin American Statesman has published an article putting Perry's loose proposal into a clearer prospective.
        Currently, the average tuition, fees, and book costs for a Bachelor's degree at a public four-year state university are approximately 32,000 dollars. The cheapest four-year school, Sul Ross State Rio Grande College, is over 17,000 dollars in cost to receive a bachelor's. So not only does the cheapest school in the state have to bring down its costs by over 7,000 dollars, but the average university in Texas must do so by nearly 22,000 dollars, or about 70 percent.
        The clear solution to making college more affordable lies in the power of the community college. If students choose to get their basics taken care of at these institutions, they will save a lot of money in the long run. Three community colleges were cited for the cheapest Bachelor's degrees at 10,000 dollars for tuition and fees, and 3,000 to 5,000 dollars for books. Although they only offer a Bachelor in applied technology, they are by far the closest to Perry's goal. The problem is that due to the budget shortfall, this Bachelor's program is going to get cut out entirely in this next session. So the one program within striking distance of Perry's goal is going to be nixed, this seems a tad bit counterproductive. This brings us to the real problem or even hypocrisy in the governor's statement. While he is proposing a very idealistic state supported and funded initiative, his government is cutting almost everything down to nothing. how can a school be expected to provide a substantially cheaper education when it can't even afford to run smoothly with its current tuition and fees. In times of economic crisis this proposal is almost laughable.
        I want to leave you with the most striking numbers in the story. The University of Texas at Austin, the flagship university of the state, as well as the largest, provides a bachelor's degree at the cost of a whopping 96,664 dollars when room and board, transportation, and personal fees are added to tuition and books. That is more than double the tuition and fees of the school. This shows just how infeasible Perry's number really is. Even if he could cut all tuition and fees in the state to 10,000 dollars, additional costs at a place like the University of Texas would bring this number up to 65,000 dollars. So even if we got the 10,000 dollar price tag on a bachelor's, most students will end up paying much more than that number when all is said and done.