MATC Matters

Wisconsin State Journal, Tuesday, Jan. 30-

Barhorst: MATC a tuition value

Barhorst is president of Madison Area Technical College. Susan Lampert Smith raises a provocative question in her Jan. 25 column: Is a college education more expensive than it is worth?

If you pick the wrong major for your bachelor’s or master’s degree, she argues, you could end up never seeing the payback in the form of higher earnings.

A bumper-sticker response you’ve probably seen is, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

There’s truth in that, but if you are serious about a better return on your higher education dollar, here are three good ways to lower your college costs, raise your earning potential, and make your tuition investment pay off faster.

UW degree at MATC price

Madison Area Technical College is the largest single source of transfer students to the University of Wisconsin. In the 2004-05 school year, 636 MATC students transferred to the UW System, including 230 to UW-Madison - more than transferred from any UW two- or four-year campus.

A full-time MATC liberal arts student pays an estimated $1,886 per semester in tuition and fees, compared to $6,730* (note correction below) at UW-Madison. MATC tuition is at least 18 percent lower than at the only two- year UW campus in the MATC District, UW-Baraboo.

Students from MATC succeed at virtually the same rate as other transfer students to the UW. The first-year grade point average of all students transferring to the UW System is 2.9. It’s 2.8 for students transferring from MATC.

It is easier than ever to make MATC your on-ramp to UW. The Connections program allows students to take their first two years of classes at MATC, enjoying UW- Madison student privileges while paying MATC’s lower tuition. Or, qualified MATC students can earn “guaranteed transfer” to UW-Madison by working with an adviser and earning enough credits, with good grades, in the right classes.

Top off bachelor’s degree

Last year, 2,367 of MATC degree credit students had already earned a bachelor’s degree or higher. Another 4,794 had previous associate degrees, certificates or at least some college coursework.

Many of these students are topping off their bachelor’s degrees at MATC to improve their employability.

Go for the gold

Three-quarters of the job openings in Southern Wisconsin require education and training beyond high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Many of these are the emerging “gold collar jobs” that require a combination of technical knowledge, business savvy, science and math skills and liberal arts.

A career-focused, one or two-year MATC program can be the key to these gold collar jobs. Ninety-seven percent of our degree program graduates are working within six months, three-fourths of them in their fields of study.

When we call MATC “real world smart,” it means our students learn what they need to succeed in a fast-changing job market. Not only that, but by leveraging an MATC education into a new career or a higher college degree, real world smart provides real world value.

*PLEASE NOTE CORRECTION:
This comparison erroneously cited the annual tuition for UW-Madison rather than the tuition for a single semester, which is $3,365.