Maybe now Gov. Walker will be able to get his college degree…
A new self-paced, competency-based program for finishing a college degree online, and ostensibly making college more affordable and accessible, was announced Tuesday by Gov. Scott Walker and two top University of Wisconsin System officials.
The new UW Flexible Degree is touted as a transformation of higher education in Wisconsin, and an economic engine to drive up the state’s per capita income by producing more college graduates trained for higher-paying jobs.
The new path to a degree will allow adults to start classes anytime, work at their own pace and earn credit for what they already have learned in school or on the job once they prove college-level competencies, UW officials said.
I’m betting Gov. Walker won’t finally finish his college degree, so he hardly seems like the person I’d want running point when it comes to education reforms here in Wisconsin.
Since Gov. Walker does not have a degree, he’s not qualified to work with UW on making post-secondary education more flexible and affordable?
It seems like his career turned out pretty well for a college dropout if you ask me.
Let’s talk about how well Gov. Walker’s career turned out once the Milwaukee County John Doe and federal investigations are complete.
If Scott Walker really wanted to make post-secondary education more affordable, then perhaps he wouldn’t have cut over $40 million from the UW System’s budget this budget year.
“cut over $40 million from the UW System’s budget this budget year”…while giving the state the options for making those changes in the bloated compensation of professors in the system.
Other people are watching the scam that was WEA Trust. It was not just the teachers that were fleecing us blind. Another example of something liberals screwed up, by the way…
As for the John Doe investigation, do you recall (heh…it’s funny to say “recall” because you guys like recalls…) the invesitgation was initiated by the County Executive’s office?
Jeff, wrong on who started the John Doe investigation. I heard the same Walker talking point you’re parroting about how Gov. Walker’s office initiated the John Doe, but like so many things that come out of Walker’s mouth, it simply isn’t based in reality.
$40 million this year? That’s about the hit to one campus, Zach, among the 26 campuses in the UW System.
Walker’s hits amount to hundreds of millions cut from the UW System budget. Of course, so did Doyle’s hits before that. And before him, Tommy T. began the decades of destruction.
The total impact now is devastating. The reputation lag time in academe is about a decade. So folks, if you have UW degrees, use ’em fast, because they won’t mean what they did.
Yeah, sorry for not being more clear.
To be clear:
The hit was $46 million this year, i.e., this calendar year, i.e., in January. By then, of course funds already are almost entirely committed for the rest of the academic year, so that hit still will be felt this fall, in addition to. . . .
The hit of more than $100 million in this budget year, your term, which runs from July through June — because Walker slashed more than $250 million in this state budget, which is biennial. So, again, the impact of more than $100 million of that hit is yet to be fully felt by UW students.
yeah, but would his credits would transfer?
You might guess a few things about this, based on knowledge of Walker’s ways of spin.
This is really just new marketing of what many campuses in the UW have been doing for years. Google some of these buzzwords and “UW,” and you’ll see these programs on their websites — except, perhaps, for the “start any time” concept. That’s chaos. But many courses already start at many different points during the year, many already are self-paced (“asynchronous” is a buzzword for that), many already are offered in one-credit components, and many, many, many already are offered online; indeed, many majors have been entirely available online for years. And competency tests to waive prereq courses are really old news. But Walker must have needed something for a news release today, and he knew that dumber newspapers that long ago abandoned serious education “beats” would buy this — and even make it a top story! with a great, big headline! (See: the JS.)
Maybe Liberty University will give Walker one of their useless honorary degrees.
$46 million is the secondary hit that Gov. Walker had to take from UW to cover a deficit in his balanced budget less than a year into it:
http://bloggingblue.com/2012/06/02/recall-memo-june-5-another-walker-budget-deficit-fixed-via-cuts-to-uw-system/
The two-year state budget cut $250 million from the UW System, prompting cost-cutting measures at all campuses, including larger class sizes. Higher tuition helped offset less than a third of state funding cuts.
An additional $46 million was cut from the UW System this year because of a state budget shortfall.
Jeff, the one area of education that is subject to near perfect competitive restraints is the university, college, tech school area. Any student can literally select similar schools anywhere in the world. Market dynamics determine salaries and UW right now is no longer competitive. They are losing teaching and support staff on a regular basis to competitor institutions who are willing and able to pay more. I’d think you’d love this market driven economic microcosm! So I suggest that your bloated salary statement is more a product of your bloviating than a real world issue.
As a side note, to reduce costs, the UW system is increasing their reliance on part time faculty. Just another indication of slippage from the top tiers of higher education.
BTW: what does WEA Trust have to do with the university?
Unable can imply that the e-mail records that were requested could not be supplied by the County Executive’s office at that time.
Landgraf and Bice’s innuendo is irrelevent.
Hmmmm…..innuendo?
No. Bruce Landgraf stated it as a fact, not as an opinion, and apparently a judge agreed.
Jeff, don’t you find it at all disconcerting that several of Scott Walker’s closest aides have been indicted on criminal charges, while a total of 13 people have been given prosecutorial immunity?
Ed, did you read my post? WEA Trust was just one example of the public unions fleecing the taxpayers.
WEA Trust fleecing the taxpayers? Proof? Criminal convictions would qualify as proof. Not much else will.
WEA Trust fleecing someone? How odd, then, that schoolboards are going back to WEA Trust now that the other insurance companies who roped them in with lower rates are raising those rates, just 1 year in. Now that sounds like fleecing, and I’m sure no-one could have seen that coming.
Of course I read your post! But you didn’t actually answer my question…what does WEA Trust have to do with the University? ANOTHER example of the public unions fleecing the taxpayer? Where was the first example in your discourse? Are you saying that the UW system is fleecing the taxpayer? The taxpayer is barely supporting the UW system at this point which is a major shortcoming that the last three governors should all be called to task for.
Once again Jeff is WRONG Many school districts are actually switching back to WEA Trust for their health insurance post-Act 10.
I’d love to see proof of this supposed “fleecing.”
“The new UW Flexible Degree is touted as a transformation of higher education in Wisconsin.” Oh, it sounds like a transformation, all right … and not in a good direction. Slash funds for our great public universities, then water down academic content by granting credit for life experience, and when that’s all done, wonder why a degree doesn’t mean much any more.
Jeff, I’ll join the crowd repeatedly asking you here: What the h*ll does WEA have to do with the UW System?
Do you understand that WEA = K12, and that UW = college, post-K12?
No, apparently you don’t understand that — and as that is so basic to a level of understanding necessary to have anything to contribute here, that must be why you went away.