According to a recent analysis by the Rio Grande Foundation, Doña Ana Community College (DACC) is New Mexico’s low-cost leader when it comes to higher education. This is certainly praiseworthy and laudable, but it brings up even more questions.
1) What can other institutions of higher ed learn from DACC?
2) How can those institutions maximize student (and taxpayer) value by leveraging the resources of DACC and other low-cost providers:
3) What information can and should the schools share to explain why some are so much more efficient than others?
4) Would students be better off if funding was directed to them in the form of a voucher rather than “trickled down” through the higher ed bureaucracy?
Higher education is just one area of New Mexico budget that is in need of serious reform, but it is a worthwhile place to start. We can take a moment to congratulate DACC for doing something right and hopefully learn what that something (or those somethings) are.
You forgot to note that private colleges are much more expensive than public colleges.
All the money in the world won’t get a kid to learn…it just creates apathetic teachers. Children can learn with a chalk board, too. Children need to be excited about learning and see the value of it…and we need trade schools, vouchers, charter schools. We need Jeb Bush’s plan. It worked in Florida, it can work here. something’s got to be done. Half the NM kids drop out of high school and do what? Become dependent on the system to take care of them either in jail or who knows where? So it’s expensive to create this scenario?