UT Rejects Rick Perry's Plan To Treat Students As 'Customers' In New Proposal

In a 17-page-report released on Wednesday, the Liberal Arts dean at the University of Texas rejected Rick Perry's much touted plan to treat students as 'customers' in order to reduce costs.

Randy Diehl blasted several of the proposed reforms to the University of Texas system which include judging teachers on student evaluations and making research more limited unless for direct financial gain. These initiatives have been heavily promoted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (a think tank associated with Perry) who have criticized the UT system for raising tuition 86 percent over the last ten years.

Inside Higher Ed has more:

"Though they may appear attractive at first glance, several of the proposals stand to undermine successful initiatives that already promote quality teaching," Diehl wrote, arguing that the university -- with its six-year graduation rate of 81 percent and in-state tuition of $10,000 per year -- was a national leader in providing an efficient, high-quality education. Some of the proposals in the foundation's seven "Breakthrough Solutions" were untested or found to be ineffective in states where they they been attempted, wrote Diehl, and enacting them threatened the university's status as a top-tier university "in which research and teaching are inextricably linked in ways that are crucial to both missions."

A spokesman for Rick Perry, Mark Miner, rebutted Diehl's proposal.

"The status quo that some Texas universities try to protect -- with rapidly increasing tuition and four-year graduation averaging just 28.6 percent -- is not keeping pace with our state's needs," Miner told the Austin-American Statesman. "University faculty and their allies should join the reform efforts and recommend ways to innovate, improve graduation rates and enhance accountability and efficiency at Texas colleges and universities. Resisting reform and accountability is an unsustainable recipe for mediocrity and stagnation."

According to Deihl, however, higher education is measured in fundamentally different ways.

"The higher education experience is not akin to shopping on iTunes or visiting Banana Republic," he wrote in the report.

Comments

[genrel1248]

08:58 AM on 07/10/2011

Comparing Texas to the Banana Republic shows just how ill informed this academic is....They dont grow bananas in Texas.

[frharry]

07:14 PM on 08/06/2011

No but they certainly produce more than their share of nuts!

[GranE]

10:10 AM on 07/09/2011

Rick Perry is a very able ribbon cutter for the new McDonalds opening down the street, but he has the mental capacity of a gnat when it comes to education. He stopped public funding for public universities in 2001. Our legislature which is 99% republican, goes along with what he wants on everything because they are no smarter. He made himself the head of every agency in Texas so no one would challenge him. Texas is #45 in the nation in education which is like being behind 12 other countries on the planet and he wants is to make a buck for his own pocket or he shuts it down. He attached a piece of legislation to a bill he knew would pass, to block access to his travel records for a period of 18 months after the event to keep the press from finding out what he is doing. He's a real stand up idiot elected to office by the ignorant and uneducated population. I'd like to say something nice about this man, but darned if I know where to look, everything he does is secret.

[rlharbi]

06:27 PM on 07/08/2011

Rick Perry is one of the dumbest guys who ever held the position of Governor of Tx. Even though he doesn't have any power in our state (except veto power) he continues to muddy up everything he touches. I'll be glad when his shoulder padded suits are gone.

[Just a passerby]

09:08 PM on 07/10/2011

Even dumber than shrub?

I'm impressed.

[Barista]

05:49 PM on 07/08/2011

Here's more on the Rick Perry:

http://www.billwilsonwriter.com/index.php?p=1_29_THE-IGNOBLE-RICK-PERRY

[geewilikers]

11:07 AM on 07/08/2011

UT has had to raise tuition because state funding of public education in Texas has not kept up. Rick Perry will be known as the anti-education governor. He has set back education in Texas at least a decade or more.

[Asabe]

04:58 AM on 07/08/2011

If students will be treated like customers, then education will become too expensive for people to afford. This plan should be reviewed and if possible rejected, if its too expensive, Texas will just be breeding more and more uneducated ignoramus.

[atexasdem]

01:33 AM on 07/08/2011

Perry is an aggy and a former aggy cheerleader. If you don't understand, your not from Texas.

[luzmorales]

07:56 PM on 07/07/2011

Trying to make Perry and his ilk understand how alien these proposals are to meaningful long term learning is like trying to explain the shortcomings of being stupid to the stupid.

[healthanalyst]

12:00 AM on 07/08/2011

He's a graduate of Texas A&M go figure. And its not only UT he's messing with, its his own alma mater. guy is a fruitcake. But, he got voted in, so you can blame the idiots that turned Texas Republican.

The inability of the state legislature to properly fund the UT and A&M system caused the tuition to go up. They'd rather keep taxes non existent for the oil companies (they destroyed cotton and cattle).

[Mrshowell2001]

07:28 PM on 07/07/2011

Okay, does this guy look eerily similar - and as stupid - as W?

[rlharbi]

06:28 PM on 07/08/2011

That's how he got in. Old George hand picked him!

[ilikemusic]

07:12 PM on 07/07/2011

As a recent graduate who can't find any work that doesnt involve me asking what toppings you would like, college/university is a complete waste of time. Young people should be discouraged from wasting several of their best years going in to debt while achieving nothing.

[Corey Leamon]

11:10 PM on 07/07/2011

As a recent graduate who DID find meaningful work within a month, college changed my life and was worth every second. I achieved a great deal. Perhaps you didn't use your networks, resources or apply yourself properly.

[Deep77]

11:58 AM on 07/08/2011

Yes, we should look at your experience and see that college is a "waste of time". Nevermind the the fact that unemployment rates for college students is much lower than both the national average or the unemployment rate for people without a college degree.

[abbienormal]

11:26 PM on 07/08/2011

It is troubling that an "educated" person such as ilikemusic doesn't know this.

[martha p]

06:40 PM on 07/07/2011

I think it is APPALLING that University of Texas has raised their tuition at all!!
Do you realize how many oil wells they own??? ALOT.
They should be offering free education for all Texans, yet, they can't get enough.
And Rick Perry is a Joke.
This great state is in bad shape with the Greed and Idiocy running rampant.

[healthanalyst]

12:03 AM on 07/08/2011

They can only use money from the Permanent University Fund for capital projects. That's buildings. And they have to share it with more entities than just A&M (A&M and Texas took on by legislative order a lot of smaller what would be state university system colleges). It didn't help the legislature did nothing to help cut the tuition increases in the 90s. I paid $125 / semester because the legislature thought it was a good thing for the state to have costs that low. Now they'd rather keep the fat cat bankers in Dallas and the oil shills happy.

[Monroe1959]

05:59 PM on 07/07/2011

I'm reasonably sure Gov Perry prays to himself at the end of the evening. Unfortunately, this is what passes in conservative circles as "strong, decisive" leadership. He and Gov Krispy Kremes of NJ were split at birth. Of course, it wasn't a 50-50 split.

[LenR]

05:52 PM on 07/07/2011

imagine what happens to Texas football if the same cavalier "customer" attitude is applied. Perry would be lucky if all the alumae did was boil him in oil.

[dmeekthemimi]

04:39 PM on 07/07/2011

Perry is such a clown!! I hope he runs for president so we can get rid of him!! That way HE can feel some portion of what it feels like to be unemployed and trying to get a kid through school!!

[geewilikers]

11:11 AM on 07/08/2011

All of Perry's shady dealings were kept secret when GW was president. They are all going to come floating up to the surface if Perry runs for president. It's going to smell like dead fish for a long time in Texas from all of the negative publicity that is about to hit the fan.

[rtgmath]

02:23 PM on 07/07/2011

The "business" model for education is, in my opinion, totally inappropriate. I know that it is in fashion in many places. I have experienced the model's effects.

The idea of "cheaper", "more", "self-service", "ala carte", and so on do not reflect the mentoring or the relationships that teachers and students can build. Learning is more than a shopping experience, more than a trip to the customer service desk, more than an online class taught by an instructor hundreds of miles away with a programmed outline and rigid dates and inflexible material.

But that is the way we are going, I fear. Test everyone to see if they can fill in the correct space. Base teacher pay, bonuses, or future employment on standardized cookie-cutter, one-size fits all Q&A. While we are at it, load up the teachers with more work so they cannot do more with the students.

The Republican Model which even now is destroying the public sector, has destroyed employment, and is destroying the economy, will destroy education as well.

[suleimom]

06:39 PM on 07/07/2011

The intention is destroy education. It is easier to control and mislead an uneducated populace.

[CKA2010]

06:54 PM on 07/07/2011

All you have to do is watch FOX news to see that is true suleimom!

[Dr EB]

07:21 PM on 07/07/2011

These are excellent points. In my opinion it has nothing to do with improving education and would be a disaster. I have graduated from two universities in Texas and know a little about the governor.

There are ways that colleges and in some instance schools on the K-12 level are held accountable. ABET, Inc. (www.abet.org) is the accreditation body or organization for engineering and engineering technology majors. I been through the ABET accreditation process as a student and faculty member in Texas. SACS, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (www.sacs.org), is responsible for the colleges and universities in most of the south. School systems (K-12) can lose SACS accreditation like Clayton County, Georgia did in 2007. I went through a SACS accreditation process recently. A school will not want to lose its accreditation. If it does the school can lose a lot of federal funding.

As for the costs, the state should end tuition deregulation.