Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unimpressed by online classes, college students file lawsuits for refunds

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 292 posts

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

#141

Post by qntty »

madsbuch wrote: post #52

I guess this is a consequence of building an educational system that is for profit and where student pay a (substantiel) part of their tuition. European universities have also closed, yet I still have to hear about any complaints. In fact, it seems like the Corona crisis will boost university applications in Europe - If you can't have your gab year and find work you might as well just study. In the US it seems like w…

While students do pay ridiculous tuition at private universities, very few universities in the US are actually "for profit". The administrators might make insane salaries but there are no investors profiting except in the case of hedge fund managers playing with multi billion dollar endowments.

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

#142

Post by lotsofpulp »

yc-kraln wrote: post #34
skocznymroczny wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this might not be received well by the HN crowd, but I feel like the classes and networking are secondary, the main value of a reputable college is having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

I think it's almost exactly the opposite. No one cares what college I went to, but the network I built during my time at University is still paying dividends.

Top tier universities offer both. Proof that you can get in, and once you’re in, a network of others who also can get in.

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

#143

Post by ashtonkem »

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…

College has never gone through an event like this at the scale it currently is at. The idea that every American should attend college is a relatively new one; during the last pandemic in America only a tiny percentage of Americans went to college.

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

#144

Post by imtringued »

pr0duktiv wrote: post #21
pm90 wrote: post #14

To be honest, I’m more worried by the effect it is already having on immigration and the calls from certain politicians to “reduce Asian students”. Besides the disgusting racism involved in that view, as someone who attended Grad School in US, I can confidently say that Asian Immigrants are some of the brightest and hardest working students I met and I was incredibly happy at this country’s future that the student po…

Hm, at least speaking for my uni (ETH Zurich), lots of grad students from Asia come here for cheap tuition & good PhD salaries, but almost all Chinese grad students I asked want to go back to China afterwards. Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.

On the other hand this is a far more effective policy in combating inequality than simply handing out foreign aid.

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

#145

Post by ghaff »

cblades wrote: post #133
agumonkey wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the place and people (i wasn't very well when I was in college), MOOCs can be better in many metrics. - less anxiety being in IRC than in class - more focused (less distracted by people inviting you, peer pressure) - more communication with other students and teachers - automatic grading systems being very exciting to keep improving solutions rapidly

You didn't claim they weren't, but I just want to point out how each of those points is very, very subjective. For me: - I'd much rather be in-person, where I can better gauge what others are communicating and more readily have two-way communication about the material. - I'm way less focused when on my own computer, on my own time. - I find I communicate way less purely online than I would in-person. - Automatic grad…

The main thing MOOCs do well is a solved problem with or without MOOCs--namely lecture videos.

Discussion boards are mostly a tire fire; they're mostly useful for dealing with platform problems. They can probably be better when you restrict access to a qualified class but they don't really scale.

>Automatic grading sucks, especially for programming

I'd probably say automatic grading sucks, "even for programming." At least automatic grading can evaluate outputs of non-trivial programs. Programming is one of the few areas where autograding works for non-trivial, not multiple choice, questions.

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

#146

Post by SamuelAdams »

madsbuch wrote: post #52

I guess this is a consequence of building an educational system that is for profit and where student pay a (substantiel) part of their tuition. European universities have also closed, yet I still have to hear about any complaints. In fact, it seems like the Corona crisis will boost university applications in Europe - If you can't have your gab year and find work you might as well just study. In the US it seems like w…

Well back in 2008 US universities actually saw an increase in applications for programs. It was (and still is) fairly easy for students to get federal and private student loans (which could be deferred for 1-3 years), so the line of thought was if they could not find a job anyways, they might as well use the time to ramp up their credentials.

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

#147

Post by ashtonkem »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #11
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…

I know this might not be received well by the HN crowd, but I feel like the classes and networking are secondary, the main value of a reputable college is having a reputable college you can put on your résumé.

They’re not unrelated. Part of going to an elite school is the ability to network with older elite school members; this is literally what fraternities are for.

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

#148

Post by gbrown »

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…

> Professors are trained (most at least) to teach in-person

Generally, professors are not trained to teach at all. They’re trained to research.

That being said, I was already teaching a hybrid online and in person course, so the transition was (at least from my perspective) pretty seamless. We’ll see how the students feel after we receive evaluations.

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

#149

Post by ashtonkem »

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…

In retrospect, the idea that MOOCs could come anywhere close to replacing colleges was folly. While not universally available, the tools for self education have been available for a long time in major metropolitan areas, and we know that serious self education there is a relatively rare thing.

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

#150

Post by gbrown »

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…

Surely you realize that this is not a universal experience...
Post reply on HN