In Texas, Public Officials Offer More Ideas for Cutting College Costs

In Texas, Public Officials Offer More Ideas for Cutting College Costs: "

Unwelcome surprises continue to come for public-college professors and administrators in Texas. In his state-of-the-state address this week, Gov. Rick Perry called on colleges to set up undergraduate programs in which students could earn bachelors’ degrees for a total of no more than $10,000, textbooks included. But the state’s higher-education officials said they had “no idea” how such a cheap program could be created. In the meantime, community-college leaders—already in shock after a draft budget in the state Senate proposed shutting down four of the state’s two-year colleges—got their calculators out and started guesstimating how they would deal with another of the draft’s suggestions: that the state cut its support for health benefits for community-college employees from 83 percent to 50 percent.

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