Tuition has outpaced inflation in publicly funded institutions because of shrinking state appropriations. Its pretty simple really. Somebody has to pay for education. If its not going to be the state, then tuition has to rise.
Can universities cut costs? Is there some degree of waste on some campuses? Absolutely, but you can only squeeze so much blood from a stone.
The reason why state funded schools are relatively cheap and private schools are relatively expensive is because of the difference in government funding, not because of some sort of wasteful spending, marketing, or evil scheming. Its because education is hard to do, and expensive to do right, and nobody wants to pay for it.
Incidentally, nobody really is bitching about private schools raising tuition.
Oh yeah, that's definitely the explanation. Tuition is high because the president of the college sits around in his office all day and lights his cuban cigars with rolls of hundred dollar bills, while wearing a tophat and monocle and scheming how to bilk the hapless freshman.
It couldn't possibly be that the cost of maintaining a university as a dedicated place of learning is just naturally expensive, what with the hundreds of content experts they employ and the hundreds of buildings they maintain. And it definitely is not linked in any way to publicly funded institutions having their appropriations from the state yanked back to pre-1993 levels.
Exactly. Schools don't sell content. They sell perspective on content. Almost any knowledge taught at any university is more or less publicly available if you know where and how to look. The questions are a.) which knowledge do you study, b.) what do you do with that knowledge, how do you separate the important bits out, and c.) how do we (everybody who you tell that you have a degree in X) know that what you learned is correct?
I think that this model can work for some people who naturally do better in self study, but I think the market for those people is much smaller than everybody realizes. Places like straighterline may succeed in their niche, but this is not ever going to replace the traditional university.
For the assessment piece alone, people who self study have a special problem that is much less prevalent in traditional institutions: People who don't have experience in a topic tend not to know if what they are doing to study it is correct, and that the learning outcome is correct. The learning outcome can be clouded by everything from lack of experience to misunderstanding a key concept to letting your beliefs about intelligent design and or the flying spaghetti monster get in the way. To work around this, assessment is key, and assessment across institutions is not easy, which is why it doesn't surprise me that your options to transfer credits from straighterline are somewhat limited.
Its also worth noting that MIT has had alot of its course materials online for years, completely for free. The only real difference is that you don't get credit for using MIT's stuff, but the same principles apply: you can use their stuff to do the grunt work cheaply and then maximize your time on the
Did anybody even stop to consider that the guy in the picture might be a white guy who just happens to be afflicted with reverse-vitilligo in his hands?
Right on. In Philadelphia its around 50% white to like 45% black. In y town 3 hours outside Phila. by car, its 99% white. Why would people give a damn about the distribution over the entire country? You might as well be asking what the distribution is over the northern hemisphere, or the entire world. Basically useless trivia.
"Big content can't expect to get anywhere unless they offer the consumer something better than what is already being offered. In many cases, this is something that is FREE to the consumer or is part of some larger bundle that yields Big Content slim revenues per viewed unit already."
That's not entirely true. Bottled water sellers make money selling something that falls out of the sky in most places for free. There can be a model that outcompetes "free" in a given market, but this isn't it.
What is the point of the pirate bay existing in a fractured legitimate market? illegitimately, it was one among many clearing houses, its selling points being reputation, reliability, community-based quality assurance, large catalog, and (i believe) to a lesser extent price (price includes barrier to entry). Legitimately, it will have none of those qualities, except *maybe* quality assurance. So why would anyone go there when they can go to whatever the next thepiratebay is.
"Granted, this is a good arguement why copyrights need revamping, especially for the digital age - does purchasing an electronic product give you the same rights as purchasing a physical one, what protections should be in place to allow digital consumers to safeguard their purchases and what needs to be in place to allow rights holders safeguard their rights. And it does highlight the flaws of Amazon's implementation with the Kindle, but it isn't worth the breast pounding drama people are attempting to turn it into."
Exactly. It would be nice though if this question would be answered. If I am purchasing a license, then fine, just let me know that before I buy. If I'm buying a book, then its a book. BUt don't market it to me as one thing and then treat it like another.
I own a Kindle, and although I didn't have an illicit copy of 1984 deleted from it, I bear Amazon no ill will. The Kindle is still an amazing device. I think Amazon made a serious mistake, and totally flubbed this, but the level of outrage that this is being taken to is breathtaking to behold. I would be willing to bet as well that most of the people getting worked up over this don't even own a Kindle anyway.
Not only that, but get this: people actually pay huge sums of money, I'm talking like $10/gallon for bottled water, a substance that literally falls out of the sky for free! Imagine if you could get ahold of THAT customer list.
We read Jack London's "To Build a Fire in 2nd Grade". 2nd grade for crying out loud! The story is about a guy who freezes to death because he can't cut open his dog and stick his hands inside the corpse to warm them up enough to be able to strike a match to build a fire to save his life. 2ND GRADE!
I think in essence it is up to the parents and teachers acting through governing bodies like the school board, PTA, parental complaints and so forth. The role of the bureaucratic agency at the federal level is 1. to make sure that education is relatively uniform throughout the country, so that we aren't getting beaten by the Russkies and also 2. to make sure that nobody takes it too far, ie having a small but vocal group hijack the curriculum to serve political ends, like mandating the treatment of creationism as if its a scientific theory or whatever the populist hot button political issue of the day is.
At least in theory.
What it boils down to is that the government isn't there to indoctrinate our children, its there to protect them from somebody out to ruin their education to make a political point, or because God told them to, or whatever reason crazy people have for these things.
Easy, instead of using airships, make them the size of basketballs. All they really need to do is contain some sort of 360 degree camera system and a wireless uplink. Instead of fixing them in one places, just develop some sort of AI to let them freely roam around with a rotor or something. Think Roomba in the sky.
And why shouldn't they? That is how computers are sold to them. Face it, computers are treated basically like appliances, which is to say, short of a prohibition from clobbering someone over the head with it, there is not much responsibility expected or implied. That's why when people get sued by the RIAA, they get sued for copyright infringement, not failure to properly operate their computer.
"did the person keep the computer reasonably up to date?"
Up to date? Yessir, I just bought it only 3 years ago. Cost me a pretty penny too.
"Can't expect installing patches the minute they are released but at least within a reasonable time span."
Nope. Didn't install any patches cause it never got any holes in the case. cup holder works just fine too.
"Did the person have anti-virus, anti-spyware or other security software installed, running and kept up to date?"
You betcha. Although its funny you should mention about the viruses. I think I caught a virus once and it made my yahoo run slower. Went away in a few days though.
"So yes you can hold someone responsible for what they did not do, when it is common knowledge that these things should be done."
My computer thinga-majigy doesn't require an operator's license, in fact, at Best Buy they sold it to me as though it was a tv with a typewriter attached that gets the yahoo, so anyway, what were we talking about?
Slashdot Mirror
"Most IT work is like a janitor (Sysadmin) or a construction worker (programmer)."
You forgot Digital Buttwiper.
Tuition has outpaced inflation in publicly funded institutions because of shrinking state appropriations. Its pretty simple really. Somebody has to pay for education. If its not going to be the state, then tuition has to rise.
Can universities cut costs? Is there some degree of waste on some campuses? Absolutely, but you can only squeeze so much blood from a stone.
The reason why state funded schools are relatively cheap and private schools are relatively expensive is because of the difference in government funding, not because of some sort of wasteful spending, marketing, or evil scheming. Its because education is hard to do, and expensive to do right, and nobody wants to pay for it.
Incidentally, nobody really is bitching about private schools raising tuition.
Oh yeah, that's definitely the explanation. Tuition is high because the president of the college sits around in his office all day and lights his cuban cigars with rolls of hundred dollar bills, while wearing a tophat and monocle and scheming how to bilk the hapless freshman.
It couldn't possibly be that the cost of maintaining a university as a dedicated place of learning is just naturally expensive, what with the hundreds of content experts they employ and the hundreds of buildings they maintain. And it definitely is not linked in any way to publicly funded institutions having their appropriations from the state yanked back to pre-1993 levels.
Exactly. Schools don't sell content. They sell perspective on content. Almost any knowledge taught at any university is more or less publicly available if you know where and how to look. The questions are a.) which knowledge do you study, b.) what do you do with that knowledge, how do you separate the important bits out, and c.) how do we (everybody who you tell that you have a degree in X) know that what you learned is correct?
I think that this model can work for some people who naturally do better in self study, but I think the market for those people is much smaller than everybody realizes. Places like straighterline may succeed in their niche, but this is not ever going to replace the traditional university.
For the assessment piece alone, people who self study have a special problem that is much less prevalent in traditional institutions: People who don't have experience in a topic tend not to know if what they are doing to study it is correct, and that the learning outcome is correct. The learning outcome can be clouded by everything from lack of experience to misunderstanding a key concept to letting your beliefs about intelligent design and or the flying spaghetti monster get in the way. To work around this, assessment is key, and assessment across institutions is not easy, which is why it doesn't surprise me that your options to transfer credits from straighterline are somewhat limited.
Its also worth noting that MIT has had alot of its course materials online for years, completely for free. The only real difference is that you don't get credit for using MIT's stuff, but the same principles apply: you can use their stuff to do the grunt work cheaply and then maximize your time on the
"There's little doubt that Dre should be held accountable for this. "
WHOA WHOA WHOA! Leave Dr. Dre out of this!
"Wow, I totally disagree. First of all, they may not understand that "Hotmale.com" isn't the same as "Hotmail.com""
Holy shit. This explains alot!
Did anybody even stop to consider that the guy in the picture might be a white guy who just happens to be afflicted with reverse-vitilligo in his hands?
Right on. In Philadelphia its around 50% white to like 45% black. In y town 3 hours outside Phila. by car, its 99% white. Why would people give a damn about the distribution over the entire country? You might as well be asking what the distribution is over the northern hemisphere, or the entire world. Basically useless trivia.
That was brilliant. I LOL'd.
What are you talking about? MacDonald's is Irish. Last time I checked, Irishland was in Europe. Idiot.
"There are many reasons to upgrade to Snow Leopard, for example a major one for some people will be Exchange support,"
pfft. Windows has had decent Exchange support since at least Vista SP1.
"Big content can't expect to get anywhere unless they offer the
consumer something better than what is already being offered.
In many cases, this is something that is FREE to the consumer
or is part of some larger bundle that yields Big Content slim
revenues per viewed unit already."
That's not entirely true. Bottled water sellers make money selling something that falls out of the sky in most places for free. There can be a model that outcompetes "free" in a given market, but this isn't it.
What is the point of the pirate bay existing in a fractured legitimate market? illegitimately, it was one among many clearing houses, its selling points being reputation, reliability, community-based quality assurance, large catalog, and (i believe) to a lesser extent price (price includes barrier to entry). Legitimately, it will have none of those qualities, except *maybe* quality assurance. So why would anyone go there when they can go to whatever the next thepiratebay is.
But at least skateboarders have someone to look down on: inline skaters.
"Uhh, that's what she said."
Who? Your Mom?
D'OH, Misplaced quote. The book we read was "To Build a Fire" in 2nd grade.
"That would equate to them blowing up your kindle."
Just wait until they recall "Hiroshima: The History of the Atomic Bomb"
"Granted, this is a good arguement why copyrights need revamping, especially for the digital age - does purchasing an electronic product give you the same rights as purchasing a physical one, what protections should be in place to allow digital consumers to safeguard their purchases and what needs to be in place to allow rights holders safeguard their rights. And it does highlight the flaws of Amazon's implementation with the Kindle, but it isn't worth the breast pounding drama people are attempting to turn it into."
Exactly. It would be nice though if this question would be answered. If I am purchasing a license, then fine, just let me know that before I buy. If I'm buying a book, then its a book. BUt don't market it to me as one thing and then treat it like another.
I own a Kindle, and although I didn't have an illicit copy of 1984 deleted from it, I bear Amazon no ill will. The Kindle is still an amazing device. I think Amazon made a serious mistake, and totally flubbed this, but the level of outrage that this is being taken to is breathtaking to behold. I would be willing to bet as well that most of the people getting worked up over this don't even own a Kindle anyway.
Not only that, but get this: people actually pay huge sums of money, I'm talking like $10/gallon for bottled water, a substance that literally falls out of the sky for free! Imagine if you could get ahold of THAT customer list.
We read Jack London's "To Build a Fire in 2nd Grade". 2nd grade for crying out loud! The story is about a guy who freezes to death because he can't cut open his dog and stick his hands inside the corpse to warm them up enough to be able to strike a match to build a fire to save his life. 2ND GRADE!
I think in essence it is up to the parents and teachers acting through governing bodies like the school board, PTA, parental complaints and so forth. The role of the bureaucratic agency at the federal level is 1. to make sure that education is relatively uniform throughout the country, so that we aren't getting beaten by the Russkies and also 2. to make sure that nobody takes it too far, ie having a small but vocal group hijack the curriculum to serve political ends, like mandating the treatment of creationism as if its a scientific theory or whatever the populist hot button political issue of the day is.
At least in theory.
What it boils down to is that the government isn't there to indoctrinate our children, its there to protect them from somebody out to ruin their education to make a political point, or because God told them to, or whatever reason crazy people have for these things.
Actually, the robot is a practicing Bhuddist.
"But hey, when someone asks you to make a robot to do X, how many engineers will step back and ask "Are you SURE X is what you want to do?""
Only the really good ones.
Easy, instead of using airships, make them the size of basketballs. All they really need to do is contain some sort of 360 degree camera system and a wireless uplink. Instead of fixing them in one places, just develop some sort of AI to let them freely roam around with a rotor or something. Think Roomba in the sky.
And why shouldn't they? That is how computers are sold to them. Face it, computers are treated basically like appliances, which is to say, short of a prohibition from clobbering someone over the head with it, there is not much responsibility expected or implied. That's why when people get sued by the RIAA, they get sued for copyright infringement, not failure to properly operate their computer.
"did the person keep the computer reasonably up to date?" Up to date? Yessir, I just bought it only 3 years ago. Cost me a pretty penny too. "Can't expect installing patches the minute they are released but at least within a reasonable time span." Nope. Didn't install any patches cause it never got any holes in the case. cup holder works just fine too. "Did the person have anti-virus, anti-spyware or other security software installed, running and kept up to date?" You betcha. Although its funny you should mention about the viruses. I think I caught a virus once and it made my yahoo run slower. Went away in a few days though. "So yes you can hold someone responsible for what they did not do, when it is common knowledge that these things should be done." My computer thinga-majigy doesn't require an operator's license, in fact, at Best Buy they sold it to me as though it was a tv with a typewriter attached that gets the yahoo, so anyway, what were we talking about?