The rising cost of higher education coupled with mounting student debt is the biggest threat to higher education. Though we hope that you chuckled over our April Fool's Day joke (see: Intead Applauds Opportunity U's New Tuition Pricing Model), we approach this challenge in all seriousness. Our young people are being crushed under a mountain of debt. This affects all of us, not just those students with loan payment plans. The economic and social impacts are a national challenge. We need a new approach to the higher education tuition pricing model.
The fictitious Opportunity University, with its student-focused pricing, offered one such model. While unlikely to catch on at institutions throughout the country, creative thinking will be imperative if we have any hope of reigning in the high cost of higher education. We weren't the only ones thinking about higher education costs and April Fool's Day. This cartoon appeared on the Guardian.com site on Monday, March 31, 2014. Ros Asquith created this terrific cartoon.
Tuition issues are not an American phenomenon, just as April Fool's Day is not a purely American holiday. Attention to harnessing the rising costs of higher education has global ramifications. We have been attuned to conversations globally. Articles and cartoons are in abundance and since we are digitally and graphically oriented by nature, we are particularly fond of the graphic images that capture the challenge.
The poster titled Silhouette Man Wonders WTF Is Wrong With Americans is from a series of Occupy* Posters, high-impact visual messaging designed for the street and internet sharing. This one is particularly thought-provoking and points to the societal benefit, socially and economically, of having an educated workforce. Higher GDP anyone?
This particular graphic was created in response to recent student protests in Quebec and a Scandinavian's response to those protests. While we've provided just a snippet of the poster below, you can find the full poster on the Occupy* Posters site. It's worth a look.
We want to continue to provoke discussion among our readers and colleagues. Those of us with a stake in international higher education are a thoughtful, creative, boundaryless group. Though our idea for tuition based on the price-per-service model may be a bit far fetched, we do think it's high time for new ideas and innovative models. Let's continue the dialogue together.
And here's one as a dialogue starter: What do we do about pay differential between tenured and adjunct faculty?
http://www.opportunityuniversity.org/new-tuition-plan
