Only On Campus

Massachusetts legislators are finally doing what their peers in other states better plan on doing soon; cut student costs!

Two-thirds of the college students in Massachusetts carry debt of about $25,000 and there is concern that students and campuses cannot continue on their present path.

"That is one thing we are going to be looking at over hopefully this next year," said Sen. Michael Moore, chairman of the Joint Committee on Higher Education in Massachusetts.

Moore's goal is to lower costs for students to help reduce the debt but he concedes that state action still depends upon federal aid programs. That is still not yet determined.

Said Moore: "We have 150,000 people who work in the higher education field so now if we are going to see a loss of students, that means that they are going to have to necessitate laying people off or downsizing their work force."

A "Mini Med School" that doesn't require clinical hours or tests is being replicated throughout the country, University of Colorado says of its plan. The plan is now being expanded to include the clinical years.

A free eight week plan gives participants an overview of medicine without the homework, tests or degrees. Those who attend five of the seven sessions of the program will get diplomas, the university says. "Mini-Med School part 2: the Clinical Years" will be a pilot program and offered at the Amschutz Medical Campus only. The program, which will also follow an eight week format will not be simulcast to distance sites like the original Mini Med School has been in past years. But if it goes well the program will be offered at satellite locations like Boulder," the announcement said.

Though innovative, critics believe it will fuel more concern about actual training and recruitment of doctors. The clinical part of any medical program is as necessary as the classroom hours, said one former nursing instructor. Others suggest that trying to simplify and reduce time for any medical program of value is risky at best at a time when medicine demands the best practitioners this country can produce.

The thought that medicine can be absorbed without testing to demonstrate that it's a "do it yourself" field is hardly a future, others said.

A year's study by Daytona State College re-affirms what many in the reading public believe is true: few readers want to buy or use e-books.

The study was funded by a grant from the US Department of Education to evaluate students who bought traditional books, rented books, rented textbooks and purchased e-books. The introduction of e-books a few years ago offered what publishers and the reading public thought was a quick answer to those who wanted an easier way of dealing with text and other materials. It held the promise of saving students the higher cost of paper, binding and printing that continues to hinder modern textbook publishing today.

It also reinforced the view that people still prefer a paper option to hold and read at leisure; a published document instead of a screened version. Students who purchase e-books lose the opportunity to sell back their books at the end of the semester...a traditional way to recoup some of the cost for a required textbook.

A New York Times article and research shows that Asian corporations and companies from China, India and other economies are sending legions of managers and executives to western business schools and seeking grads from Pacific Coast colleges and universities.

"To sustain the high rate of growth in the emerging markets, there is a sense they need to develop world-class capabilities," said Harbir Singh, professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "That is really the core reason that people are upgrading their skills and making themselves globally competitive."

For Bin Yu, chief financial officer of Tudor, a leading online video distributor in China, the move to get more master's degrees in business, and executive MBAs for those already in the field is obvious.

Says Ms. Yu, "You have seen the trend of going for EMBA starting to pick up in the past 10 years along with the evolution of Chinese economic system as it gets exposed to the outside world."