This was a good thread. We made it almost an entire page before the children came in to digitally vomit their propaganda all over it.
For the “Europe is awesome” crowd, many of whom I believe have never been there and don’t know any Europeans: read this book
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18104725-the-almost-nearly-perfect-people
jamin wrote:
Good video.
What's kind of ironic is that he publicly criticizes his own university's tenure system, and knows he can't get fired for saying so -- because he has tenure.
What’s really ironic is that you jammed out to an Alanis Morissette song and now you think you know what the word irony means.
Freedumb wrote:
vvv wrote:
part of the blame, however, rests with the students and parents for be willing to pay the higher prices.
for example. schools realized that if they raised prices enrollment went up. Why? cause students thought the education must be worth it.
another ploy effectively used by smaller schools is to raises tuition but offer more in scholarships. of course, the tuition increase is greater than the scholarship - but the parents get to brag about how their kid got a $10,000 scholarship ....
I'd argue that's not the primary reason. Anotger possible reason for the exploding tuition costs, and the students willing to pay it, is the exploding amount of federal Lian guarantees. Tuition is a sponge that will dial up all available funds. The federal guaranteeing if student loans was a blunder.
This is it. A C+ or higher high school economics student could tell you that increasing the demand for something without increasing the supply will jack up the price.
If it were up to me, nobody not getting a STEM degree would be getting the same Federal loans that everybody gets now. We should be incentivising the education for career fields that are in the most demand, there's no reason that it should be the taxpayer's job to pay for anyone's English or political science degree - ESPECIALLY if we're giving out the most loans to people who are the least likely to pay them off (people in the most economic need).
twibble wrote:
This was a good thread. We made it almost an entire page before the children came in to digitally vomit their propaganda all over it.
For the “Europe is awesome” crowd, many of whom I believe have never been there and don’t know any Europeans: read this book
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18104725-the-almost-nearly-perfect-people
While an enjoyable book with interesting insight, he generally fails to appreciate how his nostalgia/homesick quality & his life being part of the upper 10% (and white) colors his perception of America ... it’s more of an antidote to the casual romanticization of Europe by liberal Americans than an authoritative assessment of the Nordic countries.
more teachers wrote:
EZ10Miler wrote:
I thought about that immediately when my town decided to allow for virtual education. That means less teachers right? So let's slash that workforce and re-direct that money to student services.
There is no reduction in teachers with virtual education. A teacher's workload is determined by the number of students they have to teach and grade. Pile on more students and the individual students gets less learning support.
No way. Let's say your city has 10 High Schools, a virtual Spanish teacher can instruct to every Spanish student in the district at every school at one time.
Test can be graded by, AI, machine or by low cost employees. The idea that virtual teaching would mean keeping the same number of teachers is asinine.
It's 2020 and a teacher from 1920 would be able to step feel quite comfortable. Time to modernize education.
Also as noted by the video, education is bloated and FAT and it's time for it get lean.
bubbadeeboos wrote:
twibble wrote:
This was a good thread. We made it almost an entire page before the children came in to digitally vomit their propaganda all over it.
For the “Europe is awesome” crowd, many of whom I believe have never been there and don’t know any Europeans: read this book
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18104725-the-almost-nearly-perfect-peopleWhile an enjoyable book with interesting insight, he generally fails to appreciate how his nostalgia/homesick quality & his life being part of the upper 10% (and white) colors his perception of America ... it’s more of an antidote to the casual romanticization of Europe by liberal Americans than an authoritative assessment of the Nordic countries.
I’m stunned. Did you read this? Or are you just copy and pasting a review/comment?
The author is British, married a Danish woman, and has lived in Denmark for 20 years. Over 90% of Denmark is white, no idea what you were going for with that comment. Though, you are somewhat proving my point.
“Top 10%”? That is one of the main themes he was trying to get across. There is no separation by %. There is no separation by anything. Everyone is the same. Culturally, you cannot have “twibbles shoe store”. You must name your store “shoe store”. Anything else would be indication of trying to separate or elevate yourself. Trying to do that ends in being ostracized. The outcome of this cultural and economic climate all of the Nordic people claim to be very happy in their socialist society. Saying they are dissatisfied would indicate they think they are better than others and that is completely unacceptable.
people r boring wrote:
You are literally illustrating the problem here.
"Top 10 universities" - for what? Learning undergraduate material? Developing the skills and knowledge for graduate professional or research programs? The quality of those graduate programs?
Whilst you raise valid question I don’t think I was illustrating the problem, I was trying to show that the U.K. has universities (or brands) that could compete with the US, whilst the fees were much lower for home grown students.
This doesn't reflect most. Let me offer a different - and from what I experience with my colleagues - realistic perspective. My wife and I are both college professors. We make 100K each. We have PhDs from top business schools, and we could easily leave our positions and triple our salaries in industry (high opportunity cost - e.g., consulting alternative - necessitates higher salaries for faculty). We put in 40-60 hrs week - which includes papers, reviews, teaching (this takes > 50% of our time), etc. We have flexible schedules, but we still need to put in the hours. We're both at a B (tier) private school in the US. Tuition/room and board is ~ $60K. The students have access to us (and all other faculty) any day/time during the week. We teach our classes (largest class is 40 students) and grade all papers - NOT TAs. We try to deliver great lectures and give neat, applied assignments. We constantly update our course material and "reinvent" courses every 2 years or so (earlier if needed). We have office hours, and we're (actually) in our office for these. Oh, and we respond to student emails from our phones. We're willing to prepare letters of rec on moments notice and do our best to place students in solid positions. On average, our students make $60K upon graduating. (As well, students have full access to dean. She responds to all emails and will meet any student if she is in her office.) Compare all of this to the experience of students at large public schools (e.g., no access to faculty, 200+ students in a class, TAs that often teach and always grade, lectures not updated for years, emails mostly ignored, office hours not existent or covered by grad student, elusive Dean that even faculty cannot reach, etc.). In short, that $60K gets you a lot where I am...not saying all can afford it or should try to find a way to afford it...just that those who can are certainly getting a solid return on their investment.
something wrong wrote:
The main beneficiaries of this scheme are administration and faculty., faculty less so than administration. They are selling an overvalued and overpriced product to students (aka loan conduits). I find it curious these beneficiaries vote one way to the tune of 95% percent. They are rent seekers extraordinaire,.
His brother spells it with just one T
WhyRegisterHere? wrote:
Jesus Christ, can you grubby right wingers keep your filthy paws off of ANY thread in this place? Your endless chants about the evils of socialism are so GD tired. You do realize, don't you, that people under 40 cannot be scared by your socialism boogeyman anymore right?
Also, the American university system is alone in the world as far as its costs outpacing inflation for decades now. THAT's you unbridled capitalism for you right there, fellas. The Europeans, those practitioners of economic practice that embraces certain elements of socialism for the good of their citizens, they offer outstanding university education to their citizens that doesn't threaten to bankrupt them in their 20s.
You clowns who parrot the right wing bullsh!t are just so full of garbage. You never see a tax cut for the rich that you don't love. You never see a tax loophole for the rich you don't love. You are supporters of the top .5% owning, well, everything, while the rest of us scrape by on slave wages.
You are selfish, dirty 'I got mine' types who couldn't care less about their fellow man. GTFO with your socialism boogeyman. Unbridled capitalism has brought this country to the brink of utter disaster you fools. Open your GD eyes.
Um, I'm a Marxist you knuckle dragger.
Your bi-polar view of the political universe clouds your "thinking."
University costs have gone way up. The main culprits as I see it are:
1) administration (there have been enormous increases in expensive personnel, deans and deanlets, each of which comes with a secretary who often has a salary in the range of assistant professor to professor! and they have to have projects to keep them busy, in addition to making bureaucratic work for all the profs and dep't chairs).
2) student support services (a very large group where employees exceed the # of professors!)
3) student facilities, lazy rivers, climbing walls, rec centers, and on and on
4) Information Technology (their budget has taken a rapidly increasing share of the total budget over the past fifteen years)
You say that professors at large public schools ignore their students, don't teach classes, and don't update their lectures. It's true that admins assign graduate students and adjuncts to teach 60+% of classes at a lot of schools, public as well as private, which is a bad way of doing things. But it's also true that most profs at large public schools conduct vast amounts of research and spend, nonetheless, a great amount of time teaching and working with their students.
EZ10Miler wrote:
more teachers wrote:
There is no reduction in teachers with virtual education. A teacher's workload is determined by the number of students they have to teach and grade. Pile on more students and the individual students gets less learning support.
No way. Let's say your city has 10 High Schools, a virtual Spanish teacher can instruct to every Spanish student in the district at every school at one time.
Test can be graded by, AI, machine or by low cost employees. The idea that virtual teaching would mean keeping the same number of teachers is asinine.
It's 2020 and a teacher from 1920 would be able to step feel quite comfortable. Time to modernize education.
Also as noted by the video, education is bloated and FAT and it's time for it get lean.
Administrative bloat and mission creep are all over universities and have been for the past thirty years with the MBA mentality among administrators, but this is not about the teachers and professors. We have seen in the Spring just how bad online education is. We cannot seriously do that extensively beyond this pandemic. Results were terrible at every level.
Is your university charging 60K per year? A quarter of a million dollars for an undergrad degree and you consider that a good deal? Jesus brother you are deluded. It's great that you provide actual instruction and availability for your students but that you find it acceptable that they and/or their families are dropping a quarter million into the hole for that makes my stomach churn. This system needs to crash to the ground and burn.
SouthCarolinaTea wrote:
This doesn't reflect most.
Let me offer a different - and from what I experience with my colleagues - realistic perspective.
My wife and I are both college professors. We make 100K each. We have PhDs from top business schools, and we could easily leave our positions and triple our salaries in industry (high opportunity cost - e.g., consulting alternative - necessitates higher salaries for faculty). We put in 40-60 hrs week - which includes papers, reviews, teaching (this takes > 50% of our time), etc. We have flexible schedules, but we still need to put in the hours.
We're both at a B (tier) private school in the US. Tuition/room and board is ~ $60K. The students have access to us (and all other faculty) any day/time during the week. We teach our classes (largest class is 40 students) and grade all papers - NOT TAs. We try to deliver great lectures and give neat, applied assignments. We constantly update our course material and "reinvent" courses every 2 years or so (earlier if needed). We have office hours, and we're (actually) in our office for these. Oh, and we respond to student emails from our phones. We're willing to prepare letters of rec on moments notice and do our best to place students in solid positions. On average, our students make $60K upon graduating. (As well, students have full access to dean. She responds to all emails and will meet any student if she is in her office.)
Compare all of this to the experience of students at large public schools (e.g., no access to faculty, 200+ students in a class, TAs that often teach and always grade, lectures not updated for years, emails mostly ignored, office hours not existent or covered by grad student, elusive Dean that even faculty cannot reach, etc.).
In short, that $60K gets you a lot where I am...not saying all can afford it or should try to find a way to afford it...just that those who can are certainly getting a solid return on their investment.
something wrong wrote:
The main beneficiaries of this scheme are administration and faculty., faculty less so than administration. They are selling an overvalued and overpriced product to students (aka loan conduits). I find it curious these beneficiaries vote one way to the tune of 95% percent. They are rent seekers extraordinaire,.
European higher education is highly state-supported. Fees are low, if they exist, while students are often given a small gov't living stipend and lots of subsidized housing, food, transportation, and other benefits, including health insurance. The facilities that I am familiar with are bare bones. They do not spend lavishly on rec centers and sports teams (there are few). But students can eat in a cafeteria for next to nothing and the profs can be outstanding. Research facilities are generally not the equal of the United States, but there are exceptions, access to things like CERN, for example.
Oh Grate One of Dangerous Misinformation on LRC, the Grand Troll of Trolls, COVIDIOT Extraordinaire, what TF makes you think I addressed my post there to you? I was speaking to the two or three posters directly above me who insinuated that government involvement in higher education was the thing that had made it so expensive. Get it right, and while you're at it lease consider the damage you do with your COVID misinformation posts.
Allen53 wrote:
Um, I'm a Marxist you knuckle dragger.
Your bi-polar view of the political universe clouds your "thinking."
past his prime wrote:
We could build a solid argument that health care and education are the two most overpriced goods in our culture. What do they have in common? Most people don't pay for them directly. The government is highly involved in the financing and support of both. Draw your own conclusions from there.
Uh...as a Canadian/American citizen, married to a French citizen and having lived in 5 different countries, I can tell you that what you're implying is totally the opposite of reality. Healthcare and education receive less government involvement/support in the USA than most comparable economies/governments, and are far more directly a paid for by the average American than by, say, the average Canadian (or Brit, or German etc). They are also way more expensive and difficult to access in the US than most other comparable countries. These are easy to research facts, and in my life experience and conversations with anyone from any other "developed" country in the world, anyone not from the US overwhelmingly rejects the idea that the privatization of healthcare and medicine is a superior strategy. To assert the opposite basically boils down to having imbibed partisan rhetoric in my understanding.
SouthCarolinaTea wrote:
This doesn't reflect most.
Let me offer a different - and from what I experience with my colleagues - realistic perspective.
My wife and I are both college professors. We make 100K each. We have PhDs from top business schools, and we could easily leave our positions and triple our salaries in industry (high opportunity cost - e.g., consulting alternative - necessitates higher salaries for faculty). We put in 40-60 hrs week - which includes papers, reviews, teaching (this takes > 50% of our time), etc. We have flexible schedules, but we still need to put in the hours.
We're both at a B (tier) private school in the US. Tuition/room and board is ~ $60K. The students have access to us (and all other faculty) any day/time during the week. We teach our classes (largest class is 40 students) and grade all papers - NOT TAs. We try to deliver great lectures and give neat, applied assignments. We constantly update our course material and "reinvent" courses every 2 years or so (earlier if needed). We have office hours, and we're (actually) in our office for these. Oh, and we respond to student emails from our phones. We're willing to prepare letters of rec on moments notice and do our best to place students in solid positions. On average, our students make $60K upon graduating. (As well, students have full access to dean. She responds to all emails and will meet any student if she is in her office.)
Compare all of this to the experience of students at large public schools (e.g., no access to faculty, 200+ students in a class, TAs that often teach and always grade, lectures not updated for years, emails mostly ignored, office hours not existent or covered by grad student, elusive Dean that even faculty cannot reach, etc.).
In short, that $60K gets you a lot where I am...not saying all can afford it or should try to find a way to afford it...just that those who can are certainly getting a solid return on their investment.
something wrong wrote:
The main beneficiaries of this scheme are administration and faculty., faculty less so than administration. They are selling an overvalued and overpriced product to students (aka loan conduits). I find it curious these beneficiaries vote one way to the tune of 95% percent. They are rent seekers extraordinaire,.
My wife has her research group and teaches at Oxford Uni. Her research is world class and her teaching feedback is favourable compared with her peers.
You and your wife make double what she makes, so the idea that you are underpaid is crazy
past his prime wrote:
We could build a solid argument that health care and education are the two most overpriced goods in our culture. What do they have in common? Most people don't pay for them directly. The government is highly involved in the financing and support of both. Draw your own conclusions from there.
The government is heavily involved to an even greater degree in most other western nations and they are both far cheaper than in the US.
Why not actually consider a study that explore ROI?
https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/College_ROI.pdf