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Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

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Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#121

Post by yardie »

furyg3 wrote: post #103
supernova87a wrote: post #2

I remember wondering aloud at MIT/Harvard putting their courses online for free for anyone to listen to, and saying, well what is the value add then of paying to physically go to college? I guess we're going to find out whether the networking, friends, social aspect is worth it. There's also something about the competitive aspect of seeing other people in person do better than you or have better ideas than you. Which…

For me, university was a bit more about direction-finding and serendipity. Few places can expose you to very different things in both a structured and unstructured way as college. When I started university I was a returning student with a budding tech career. I promised myself I would get a degree, but I wasn't totally sure what benefit it would be. I thought I already had the tech skills needed to do what I wanted t…

> I also don't know how to compare this story to the many stories of people who graduate with 80k in debt and can't find a job in field in which they studied.

I have a friend going through this scenario minus the 80k debt. The field might not exist in their location. She’s looking at relocating and losing custody of her daughter. Or working another job and staying put for her family. I’ve met a lot of brilliant people who’s ambition has been bypassed or delayed due to external factors.

Sometimes getting the brass ring means sacrificing more than you can give.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#122

Post by fluffything »

caseysoftware wrote: post #53

I think the fascinating thing about these lawsuits is that they'll revolve around two questions: First, what did the schools promise? And, did they deliver on it? I doubt it's spelled out in a contract but based on most schools' marketing, the "promise" includes instruction, state of the art classrooms & labs, access to professors, peers, extra curricular activities, dorms, a beautiful campus, and a number of other t…

The easiest court cases to win in practice involve schools promising students that their degree will land them a good job that will pay enough for them to pay back the student fees without problems.

These promises typically happen when people are doubting about signing the contract, and universities are more like "don't worry about the loan, you'll get such a nice job afterwards that you'll be rich and this will feel like pocketchange".

The student that finish university and aren't able to land a good enough job due to their education can sue and do often win.

That's much simpler to handle in court than the questions you are considering, but it requires actually finishing the degree.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#123

Post by geomark »

swiley wrote: post #19
gibolt wrote: post #4

As much as I wish it were better, most online courses offered by universities do not come close to the in-person experience. Their real goal/outcome is to increase access. Professors are trained (most at least) to teach in-person and have assignments and curriculums that match. They can't redo that appropriately to be equally effective within a week or two. Few could do it well given over a year doing online only. To…

Why was this downvoted? I failed a class and took the online version once so I got to see both sides. The online version had: 1) lots of busywork for the sake of busywork (to make up for attendance?) 2) much poorer instruction. Like everything felt like it was written by someone (really a group of people) who didn’t understand the subject very well, which was strange because the in person class was taught by a DR. wi…

Did you say that you took an online class once? And based on that one experience you have seen both sides?

Just askin'

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#125

Post by rgblambda »

intended wrote: post #85
gibolt wrote: post #4

As much as I wish it were better, most online courses offered by universities do not come close to the in-person experience. Their real goal/outcome is to increase access. Professors are trained (most at least) to teach in-person and have assignments and curriculums that match. They can't redo that appropriately to be equally effective within a week or two. Few could do it well given over a year doing online only. To…

Education has been disrupted. The disruption taught us that education is more than what we think of when we imagine the word studying. Khan Academy exists, and has existed for a while. The MOOC rush is over. We know the organic retention rates are abysmal. Online education was/is the holy grail of 2000 era layman ideas of education. Free, world class, available at your finger tips, at any time, educational content. Y…

>The MOOC rush is over. We know the organic retention rates are abysmal.

I don't think I've ever completed a MOOC. When I get what I want out of it I drop it. Now if I was paying for it or if completion was a requirement for a job or promotion I think I'd be more invested in completing the course.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#126

Post by intended »

sfj wrote: post #115
intended wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education has been disrupted. The disruption taught us that education is more than what we think of when we imagine the word studying. Khan Academy exists, and has existed for a while. The MOOC rush is over. We know the organic retention rates are abysmal. Online education was/is the holy grail of 2000 era layman ideas of education. Free, world class, available at your finger tips, at any time, educational content. Y…

Maybe VR will change things?

VR is still not R. At some point you want to recreate body language, relative positioning, and you want the interface to get away from intruding on the experience.

The whole point of things like technology is to make things easier, keyboards and mice make it possible to manipulate tools to increase the amount of actions we can execute by using programmed automation (for example).

VR just makes doing that more expensive.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#127

Post by intended »

11eleven wrote: post #118
intended wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education has been disrupted. The disruption taught us that education is more than what we think of when we imagine the word studying. Khan Academy exists, and has existed for a while. The MOOC rush is over. We know the organic retention rates are abysmal. Online education was/is the holy grail of 2000 era layman ideas of education. Free, world class, available at your finger tips, at any time, educational content. Y…

> In contrast, most people who get in, finish college. > In person education beats online education hollow. This isn't really true. "According to the National Center for Education Statistics, just 41% of first-time full-time college students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, and only 59% earn a bachelor’s in six years." https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/just-41percent-of-college-st...

As you yourself point out, 59% finish in 6 years.

In contrast, these are MOOC completion rates:

>Among all MOOC participants, 3.13 percent completed their courses in 2017-18, down from about 4 percent the two previous years and nearly 6 percent in 2014-15.

www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/01/16/study-offers-data-show-moocs-didnt-achieve-their-goals

They add:

>Certainly 55,000 people got access to education they might not otherwise have had. But "rather than creating new pathways at the margins of global higher education," the authors write, "MOOCs are primarily a complementary asset for learners within existing systems."

They do allude to a construct called "Verfied Students" which I have no idea about, which have higher but significantly varying completion rates.

> And among the "verified" students, 46 percent completed in 2017-18, compared to 56 percent in 2016-17 and about 50 percent the two previous years.

I have never encountered how that cohort was constructed, however if we are to start breaking down sub groups of students from general numbers, your data shows that non-profit and public institutions have near 60% graduation rates at 6 years.

In general a random student will more will likely graduate from a college, than a random person starting a MOOC.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#128

Post by xnyan »

eternauta3k wrote: post #101
tluyben2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not understand this in the first 2 years of uni; I was in a very easy going high school before uni (this had something to do with my grades as well) as in, I did not have to attend classes, so I was used to just going to the exams. Which was great because I could make money writing software while others were sleeping in class. When I went to uni I just continued that pattern; it alienated me from my peers and a…

Small classes are the best. I had an intro to the Standard Model class which had 4 students and the teacher... possibly the most enjoyable class I've had. There's no other occasion where a teacher will dedicate so much time to you.

I had a very intense 6 person class learning Russian 12 hours a day for three months. One of the most incredible experiences of my life.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#129

Post by xnyan »

Olreich wrote: post #109
intended wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the popular view on HN. I take the opposite stance - being in person makes a huge difference, possibly one not appreciated by the demographics here. People continually reduce the experience to “sitting in a box and ingesting information. But a classroom is much more than that - it’s the ability to interact with other students, to deal with real world issues and practice even basic skills like asking questions…

I don’t disagree with anything you said. I think it strongly argues for university being highly inefficient compared to optimal education strategies. University cohorts should probably be smaller, with smaller class sizes and more stringent entry requirements to work toward the ideal 1:1 student:teacher ratios. Sure it’s more expensive, but if you get 2 std deviations out of it, that’s huge. For certain gen ed classe…

This can’t happen (in the United States) until there are alternate ways of making a decent living for normal people who can’t self-teach math and programming skills. College is a mandatory job “certification” for a lot of office and other types of jobs so college has to be approachable enough that almost anyone can be accepted.

Re: Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

#130

Post by [deleted] »

11eleven wrote: post #118
intended wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education has been disrupted. The disruption taught us that education is more than what we think of when we imagine the word studying. Khan Academy exists, and has existed for a while. The MOOC rush is over. We know the organic retention rates are abysmal. Online education was/is the holy grail of 2000 era layman ideas of education. Free, world class, available at your finger tips, at any time, educational content. Y…

> In contrast, most people who get in, finish college. > In person education beats online education hollow. This isn't really true. "According to the National Center for Education Statistics, just 41% of first-time full-time college students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, and only 59% earn a bachelor’s in six years." https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/just-41percent-of-college-st...

[deleted]
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