I propose that the US government replace its student loan program with a very low tuition online university system.
As we wrote in our article NEA Report Card: F, the education problem has been growing in America for decades, as the costs of educating our children skyrocket and students are churned out of the public education system and universities with less and less actual education.
Man-on-the-street interviews reveal that college age Americans have little or no understanding of American history or the political process. They appear to be focused on leftist political issues, like man-made global warming, and if any of them question their leftist professors or the nonsense they spew in classrooms, they are automatically flunked from the course.
Of course, Democrat Party presidential candidates are upping the ante in votes-for-handouts campaigning, offering free college educations to all young Americans in exchange for making them president. None of the Democrats inform the electorate who will pay for all of that free education in the face of a $22 trillion debt, and it fails to solve the problem of churning armies of knuckleheads out of our universities. Greater government support of the current university system would only exacerbate the problems we are suffering now.
The major problems with the current system are:
1) costs have artificially skyrocketed (liberals inflating university tuition) and the taxpayer is left holding the bag for most of it while students incur decades of debt; and
2) anti-American leftists dominate the current university system and classrooms, leaving indoctrinated students with very little usable education and mush for brains.
In other words, the current system fails to educate our children while burying them under a mountain of debt.
Proposal
I propose a new higher education option, patterned somewhat after the current online degree programs offered by several universities, or similar to the CLEP and DANTES higher education programs being utilized by a handful of students.
In this age of digital access it is feasible to launch a program that provides students with online classes, with lectures by top experts in every field and stunning graphics, videos and demonstrations of the principles and concepts being taught. A basic 2 year core curriculum will ensure that all students receive across-the-board instruction in math, science, English, history, American politics, etc. Then specialization will occur in 3rd and 4th year online courses. This is essentially how colleges and universities are supposed to offer classes now, but they have strayed far from their mandate, entreating students with useless courses in little more than socialist propaganda, with tragic results.
Third and fourth year specialization courses in the government-offered online university should emphasize productive degree programs initially; science, engineering, language, history, chemistry, education, pre-medicine, pre-law, etc., with some liberal arts programs being added as the system is more fully developed to accommodate their greater need for interactivity.
It appears that new online programs being offered by many universities have greatly reduced the problem of cheating on coursework and exams, a major problem in the brick-and-mortar system as well. Biometrics and other identity-confirming techniques will ensure that the coursework is being completed by the actual student.
Results
Students can take these online courses at their own pace, and take the exams as soon as they have completed each course.
Costs, which will be only a fraction of the current $500 billion, can be shared by students and the taxpayers. Students can pay a low flat fee for each course, freeing them from the current enslaving burden of student loan debt, and the federal government can dramatically cut its higher education budget and finance the remaining cost of the online university system.
This will replace the current Student Loan program, which supports and promotes a bloated, ineffective higher education system that is little more than a propaganda arm of the global socialist movement. It will also eliminate the current nearly insurmountable hurdle of student debt, cruelly hanged around the neck of most graduating students in America.
This proposal will provide higher education for anyone who wants it, and anyone who is self-motivated enough to do the work. It doesn’t get any easier, cheaper or better than this.
By James Thompson. James holds a doctoral degree, and is a political commentator and professional ghostwriter.
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