I'm Scott Schultz, a candidate for MSU Board of Trustees seeking the GOP nomination for the next election. My race will be determined on Aug. 23 at the GOP Convention in Novi, Mi.
As part of my platform I'm saying the Board of Trustees should immediately freeze all tuition costs for all students. Second, we should look at ways to decrease tuition commensurate to levels similar to other schools across the U.S. and in other countries who have "accredited" academics. We need to stop building new "brick and mortar" in the new age of "online" education. I pledge to never vote for a tuition or room and board increase in my eight year term, if elected. I also pledge to not seek re-election as 8 years is enough in my judgment.
I quote from a book written by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called "Breakout":
"The average cost of a college education has increased twelvefold, or 1,120%, since 1978, according to Bloomberg — four times the rate of inflation."
The example proffered forth by Mr. Salman Khan and Mr. Bror Saxberg notes that at "this rate the unsustainable model of higher education could be on the verge of collapse."
I further reference, but not quote from this portion of the book — "Mr. Sebastian Thrun, a VP at Google, and a Professor at Stanford has a few world-changing inventions under his belt. He helped create the self-driving cars that have safely navigated six hundred thousand miles of California roads — a breakthrough helping Google's Street View technology."
Further, he and Google's director of research Peter Norvig, a teacher of Stanford's computer science course on artificial intelligence, decided to offer an online version of their course, called UDACITY, for free, unsure of how many people would sign up for it. Before they knew it, more than 160,000 people globally had registered.
Thrun noted to the Wall Street Journal, the book continues, "I had forgotten to tell Stanford about it ... Stanford said, 'If you give the same exams and the same certification of completion [as Stanford does], then you are really messing with what certifications really are. People are going to go out with the certificates and ask for admission [at the university] and how do we even know who they really are?' He responded: 'I don't care.'"
I'll conclude with the results: "By the end of the semester, 23,000 of the original 160,000 had completed the full course. The best Stanford student was ranked at #411. The results were stunning to all parties."
UDACITY announced a program aimed at a very different group — a partnership with Georgia Tech to offer a master's degree in computer science for $7,000, beginning to end.
In my judgment, a virtual university like UDACITY is a model we could learn from. I encourage you to look at it.
For the record, when I attended MSU my cost was the unholy sum of $17 per credit hour! At that time, frankly, I had no clue how I'd pay for it either! At $460 per credit hour, and with job prospects as they are — this price simply is not justified in my judgment.
Thank you, and I look forward to your response.
Scott Schultz, MSU
BA, MSU School of Journalism, 1979
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