Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education • Hacker News Board

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#251

Post by evolve2k » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #196

cableshaft wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colleges should be shaking in their boots for the next generation, because there's going to be a whole generation of parents that suffered terrible college debt they couldn't pay off and will likely be telling their children it's just not worth it (as opposed to the previous generation that had cheap college and a great economy and pressured all their children to go for that 'guaranteed better life'). I made it throu…

Also a generation of potential parents who won't be having kids because they can't afford to, largely because of student loan and housing costs. That's already hitting - the incoming class of 2023 (matriculating 2019) is the first cohort born since 9/11, and is tiny. A number of colleges are facing bankruptcy because there just aren't enough students to go around. And it'll only get worse. Birth rates were depressed…

Birth rates where? Just the US? Or globally or just Western powerhouse counties?

Side note: I remember being shocked the first time I found out that baby boomers and ‘the aging population issue’ weren’t actually global issues and only affected the counties who took the spoils post WW2 (aka western powerhouse countries).

Lots of other counties have very different population ages mixes for example Ireland and Turkey.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#252

Post by 0d9eooo » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #40

Once the role of professional college administrator became a thing, then they took over. They're paid more than the faculty now. And they run it like a body shop. To pay for their hyperinflated salaries and padded staff. I wish I were being pessimistic about this.

Speaking as a college professor, this is true. I started noticing really quickly that there was an implicit expectation that faculty be evaluated on their suitability and/or desire to move into administrative positions. This is fine, but it got mingled with professional administrators brought in from other institutions trained in business administration etc. Our president actually had no experience in higher ed prior to their appointment, it all being in large corporate business, and it was seen as a good thing somehow.

Everything has become very hierarchical, run as a corporation, focused on profit maximization, with those profits going progressively more and more to those higher and higher up the administrative chain.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#253

Post by N1H1L » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #121

mywittyname wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when MIT first started publishing their lectures online. I would watch them for my chemistry and physics classes and was astounded by the fact that the lectures were basically identical. Ivy league schools had this mystique around them and I always wondered what it would be like to be there instead of a community college. Turns out, the difference is absolutely not in the lectures or tests. At least, for f…

> The number of credible online degree programs has exploded in recent years. Could you supply some examples? I know of Western Governors University, but it only has limited majors. In particular, do you know of any online degree programs in materials science?

Not really. There is an online MS in Computers Science from Georgia Tech, that's really well regarded and will cost you approximately $8,000 for the whole degree.

A lot of materials science is highly experimental, so it's not super easy to teach advanced skills. I went to a top 10 materials science school for my PhD, and the absolute vast majority of what I learnt was self-taught. However there is a caveat - I self-learnt by doing, and failing multiple times. The advantage of a high ranked school is that the research facilities are top notch and professors bring in external grants, so the research facilities are always maintained at a high standard through overhead costs.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#254

Post by skwb » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

My big prediction for education is that a lot of research universities are going to move large lecture halls online (think chem 101, etc) with labs, seminars, and discussions with lower number of slots to abide with moderate social distancing requirements. It provides the primary educational content of lecture, and provides in person opportunities that students desire.

Once we see students and professors like this format compared to either all in person or all online, I think it will stick around. There's clearly a need for both improved efficiencies as well as the desire to have real human interaction, and I suspect this Fall we'll have the golden opportunity to really experiment with it.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#255

Post by _nnlt » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

bradstewart wrote: post #235

wutbrodo wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in AV development, and the number of refugees from the hard sciences is astonishing. I guess I don't blame them, but it's weird to have a physics PhD report to you and be able to use only a fraction of the skills she spent a decade and hundreds of thousands of dollars gaining. This isn't quite a complaint: adopting math and physics PhDs (first as a mentor and now as a TLM) that are seemingly unproductive has b…

"AV" being audio/visual, anti-virus, else?

Autonomous vehicle?

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#256

Post by frozenlettuce » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

bradstewart wrote: post #235

wutbrodo wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in AV development, and the number of refugees from the hard sciences is astonishing. I guess I don't blame them, but it's weird to have a physics PhD report to you and be able to use only a fraction of the skills she spent a decade and hundreds of thousands of dollars gaining. This isn't quite a complaint: adopting math and physics PhDs (first as a mentor and now as a TLM) that are seemingly unproductive has b…

"AV" being audio/visual, anti-virus, else?

Or autonomous vehicles, I'm also confused

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#257

Post by grubb » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

lcall wrote: post #225

Two accredited online ones that have interestingly sustainable models, and possible interaction with others, I think: BYU Pathway Worldwide and associated programs. It requires a Church affiliation but not necessarily membership (I think). I think tuition is much lower, bachelors programs (like IT, business, others) are available, programs excellent, and is also suitable for those who need to first become qualified f…

I know that standard BYU has the lowest tuition in Utah, lower than any state school, provided you are a tithe-paying member of the Mormon Church [1]. Otherwise they have a higher tuition, similar to the in-state/out-of-state changes for most state schools. Does BYU pathway tuition work the same way?

I don't have a ton of experience with Western Governor's, but the fact that unlike many online universities they are nonprofit is a good sign. Of course, whether they have access to quality instructors is an unknown to me.

[1]: https://finserve.byu.edu/students-parents/tuition-fees-deadl...

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#258

Post by xenomatic » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #197

nimbius wrote: post #64

Disclosure: i never went to college, I went to a trade school. Colleges really only started scaring the heck out of me when I started enjoying my career. After spending a day wrenching in a garage, we'd hit miller time and head down to the Soapbox Bar and Grill. Over the span of a month or two ordering buckets and shooting pool I learned our bartender Javon had a masters in biology and his fiancee Cortisha who bussed…

What is the job you do where somebody thinks you make flowers?

Botanist

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#259

Post by elliekelly » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

DataDaoDe wrote: post #81

basch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The job can be done better for much less. First and foremost, the lecture part of education is extremely inefficient. I know "watch the video" just doesn't work for some people, but charging for a live rendition of a repeated script, and then not valuing the person who watched the same recording equally, is absurd. Education needs to acknowledge a couple things. 1) Theres probably a "best" lecture or lecturer out th…

I've spent a fair amount of time and energy working and researching in this area. I'd agree with most of what you are saying. To point #1 I worked on a project that had almost the exact same design you mention (collaborate, git versioned edits of learning modules, etc.) - the biggest problem is the mounds and mounds of red tape and regulation that stifle any truly innovative solution. There are some movements for hig…

Could you describe some of the regulations you found burdensome? I work in regulatory compliance (in an unrelated field) and I’m wholly unfamiliar with the requirements for education.

A few months ago I saw a Lambda School tweet with a giant stack of regulatory filings and I’ve been wondering ever since why I don’t hear much about higher ed compliance. It isn’t one of the areas that immediately comes to mind when I think of “highly regulated industries” (banking, insurance, healthcare, etc) but perhaps it should be.

Re: Colleges at the breaking point, forcing ‘hard choices’ about education

#260

Post by staticautomatic » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #222

x0x0 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Student loans would dry up overnight if they could be discharged at bankruptcy. There were student loans before 1976, when they became non-dischargeable.

Yeah but college could be paid for with a minimum wage summer job. That change in 1976 was actually the cause of the steep rise in tuition. Can't really put the genie back in the bottle now.

I find this attitude disturbing. The only things stopping real change in America are people who don't want it to happen and people who have been tricked into believing it can't.