Thursday, January 22, 2009

Outsourcing in Michigan

This week CCAP is featured in the Mackinac Center’s “Michigan Privatization Report.” CCAP researcher, Jim Coleman, discusses the potential savings of outsourcing remedial and introductory level instruction to private 3rd parties.

1 comment:

capeman said...

I don't know about Michigan, but here where I work, a big state university, the remedial courses are not that costly. I don't think the university makes a big profit on them, they would rather not do these courses if they could avoid it. My department certainly feels that way.

The state -- again where I live -- does not subsidize these courses. It is very misleading to assume that they do subsidize them in this kind of report.

The in-state tuition charge for these courses is less than what an outfit like the University of Phoenix charges for a typical course -- I don't have enough information to break their rates down for "remedial" work.

If the students don't want to pay the already-low in-state tuition, they can get these course at the even cheaper community colleges.

If they really think that the bargain online course is such a good deal, they should take that, pass the placement exam at my university, and then everyone can be happy.

Oddly enough, that doesn't seem to happen too often, the online stuff is not what it's cracked up to be.

I don't swallow the idea that remedial courses can be subcontracted to for-profit outfits as a money-saving measure.