Recently Paul Quinn College announced it will be adopting a new financial structure designed to reduce student debt while increasing real-world work experience. This “new urban college model” has several components, including lower tuition, use of free open source textbooks and Paul Quinn’s becoming the first urban work college in the country.
Paul Quinn wants students to graduate in four years with less than $10,000 in student loan debt by moving to tuition and fees of $14,275 for on-campus students and $9,775 for off-campus students. A work college requires students to spend part of their week working at the college, typically in a field related to the student’s studies.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is consulting with Paul Quinn on its move to open source textbooks and helping to create a course on entrepreneurship.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who has expressed concern over the rising costs of higher education, is consulting with Paul Quinn on its move to open source textbooks. He is also helping to create a course on entrepreneurship.
“I’m excited to be working with PQC and president [Michael] Sorrell to help remake the economics of the university experience,” Cuban said in a statement. “Our partnership will also include creating a unique approach to teaching entrepreneurship, with any and all materials available under an open source license for other institutions to use.”
The changes will go into effect beginning with the fall 2015 semester, and they will also include the opening of Trinity Environmental Academy, a charter school on Paul Quinn’s campus for kindergartners and first- and sixth-graders.
College officials said that the move to the new model came after examining student feedback.
“The new urban college model is the product of our board of trustees and this staff listening to our students and deciding that we could do more to address both their needs and the needs of our community,” Sorrell said in a statement. “We decided that it was no longer acceptable to pretend that higher education’s math equation added up.
“We think that our students deserve to receive two great academic experiences for the reasonable price of one. This is nation building.”
Paul Quinn College will be enacting its "new urban college model" beginning fall 2015.
