My experience bears out the gist of this article. In my area many High school graduations happened yesterday and the buzz was: let’s go to the JC for a couple of years to save money. They are asking what is the benefit of paying high tuition for undergrad course work that can be done at a JC for substantially less money?
The student can still get the prestige of the University degree even though half of his undergrad work was done at a JC.
To your point about foreign students being able to bring in enough money to keep the bubble inflated. I am skeptical because for many years in this area there has been a high ratio of foreign students to local students. How can we add more? I thought one of the big problems in higher education was there are not enough spots for the new students.
Just curious, is anyone in higher education talking about pay cuts or maybe shutting down for a month to save money?
Foothill Ranch, CA
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/19/is-higher-education-the-next-big-bubble/