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Who'd Go To University Today? (spiked-online.com)
Are students being short-changed by their $60,000 degree courses? And does a university education in 2018 represent good value for money? A slew of recent government and think-tank reports aim to tackle these questions. And the answers they give are not encouraging. From a report: The Public Accounts Committee announced this month that the value of the UK's student-loan system is falling. Last year, the government sold a tranche of the student-loan book at a major loss. The portfolio had a face value of $4.4 billion, but was sold for just $2.1 billion: a return of 48p in the pound, according to the public-spending watchdog. Clearly, the current method of funding higher education represents a bad deal for the taxpayer.
But do universities offer good value for students? Not when you consider the fact less than half the money that students pay in tuition fees is actually spent on teaching, according to a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute. The rest of the money from tuition fees goes into other services and parts of the administration. These include admissions procedures, marketing, vice-chancellor pay and programmes to boost access for poorer students, as well as therapeutic services like mental-health provision and exam-stress counselling.
Universities today have far too much bureaucracy, fat-cat VC's salaries are far too high, and a great deal of what administrators spend money on is a hindrance to education. University bureaucracy is often at the forefront of coddling students, encouraging them to see exams and hard work as threats to their mental health. It is troubling to see that students are not only plunging themselves into debt at such a young age, but also that much of that debt does not go towards their actual education.
But do universities offer good value for students? Not when you consider the fact less than half the money that students pay in tuition fees is actually spent on teaching, according to a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute. The rest of the money from tuition fees goes into other services and parts of the administration. These include admissions procedures, marketing, vice-chancellor pay and programmes to boost access for poorer students, as well as therapeutic services like mental-health provision and exam-stress counselling.
Universities today have far too much bureaucracy, fat-cat VC's salaries are far too high, and a great deal of what administrators spend money on is a hindrance to education. University bureaucracy is often at the forefront of coddling students, encouraging them to see exams and hard work as threats to their mental health. It is troubling to see that students are not only plunging themselves into debt at such a young age, but also that much of that debt does not go towards their actual education.
To answer the question quickly: There are still a lot of countries where education, including at universities, is free or very inexpensive. People there will continue to visit universities in large numbers.
Not quite everyone goes to University to mate. Actually, there weren't any women in the physics department that I went to. And I would surely not have studied some bogus pseudo-science just to get into a department where women represented the majority.
any more than fancy dorms are the cause of rising tuition.
Per the article I linked above tuition is going up because we slashed federal and state subsidies. I'm so tired of this lie being repeated...
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Yeah, I'd like to see a link on the trades with entry level $80K
He didn't say entry level, so I'm assuming he is talking high end for both jobs with or without degree. Some numbers for good paying jobs without a degree: https://careers.workopolis.com...
You don't have to drive a Ferrari, and you don't have to go to Yale. You can choose a car and a school that's affordable.
I'm about to start my Master's degree at Georgia Tech, one of the best schools in the country for my field. It'll cost $10,000 - 20% tax credit = $8,000.
For my bachelor's I could have spent less for the same school I went to. I paid a total of $24,000 - $6,000 tax credit = $18,000.
A lot of schools have a cap on the tuition per semester so you can do 24 credits for the same price as 12. Many allow credit by examination. What I suggest to people now is to spend a 6-12 months studying before you officially enroll, then take the tests or submit the work so you get 9 credits in your first month of paying. Those kinds of strategies can bring the total cost for a bachelor's degree down to $9,000 after the tax credit.
I got my bachelor's at WGU, which is a state school. Halfway through school my income doubled partly because the final exams for some classes are industry certs like Cisco CCNA. So as a junior I had already earned several well-known certs as part of my classes.
Please, tell me where University still costs only $60,000...
I got a degree for $20k in the early y2k at the local state college.
Got it.
The first hit on google: "According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2017–2018 school year was... $9,970 for state residents at public colleges."
https://www.collegedata.com/cs...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Americans love to rant about how they think money is wasted in higher ed, but this article is from the UK. Not everything compares directly as their costs are a bit different.
As a full-time staffer at a major public research university in the US, I'd like to mention one cost that was not in the summary: building and grounds costs. Even if you don't want perfectly manicured lawns, you still need to maintain a level of safety on the grounds and make sure the buildings are collapsing on themselves. Many schools have faced year after year of reduced state and federal funding, and they have to pay these bills somehow. This isn't just an image thing either; a lot of grounds maintenance is about safety.
It is also worth noting that tuition helps pay for the costs of keeping the lights on, maintaining temperatures in rooms and labs, etc. Even as we go to smart(er) thermostats it is still not a trivial matter to provide efficient heat in the winter and cooling in the summer. Schools aren't allowed to bill these costs to grants.
Are executives overpaid at our schools? Almost without question. But the amount of the tuition revenue that goes to their pay is pretty small compared to other costs that the schools have to face.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I've averaged 20 credits a quarter for six quarters, finished my community college in 1 year, and am on track to finish a double major in CS and Math by the end of my third year. What allowed me to do that was already having a strong foundation in programming from years of experience, and being good at Math. I also went into it focused, and knowing what I want to do. No credits wasted on switching majors, or exploratory classes.
Similar to the GP's suggestion I spent about a month or so refreshing on mathematics and taught myself trigonometry so that I tested straight into Calculus. This has meant that every credit I have taken has gone towards my degree, no need to build up taking low level college math credits that don't count for anything but electives.
My toughest quarter was 23 credits, with 3 math courses, physics, and assembly programming and maintained a 3.97 GPA. Nothing particularly savant, and have never cheated, but I have made sacrifices and prioritized my education. Some classmates go out and get drunk on the weekends, showing up to class with hangovers, and I spend my time studying my subjects in more depth, or exploring other subjects of interest.
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]