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Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

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Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#141

Post by jboog »

jerf wrote: post #52
jawns wrote: post #28

The reason there is such a large premium for on-campus education versus online universities is because on-campus education is an experience as much as it is a service. If you're only interested in mastering the content, then online learning may be the place for you. That's why we see so many people pursuing online courses for their master's degrees and when they return to school later in life. They just want the cont…

The problem is, if you're going to fall back on that perspective, Real Life (TM) has all those things too, and it will continue to do so, for essentially free. There will be clusters of that sort of thing somewhere, just as there are "retirement communities" and "bedroom communities" and such. Universities certainly aren't bringing anywhere near enough value for their marginal improvement on those matters vs. what wo…

Why is everyone acting like every school charges Ivy League prices?

Most state schools are affordable. Mine is a top school and charges $9k a year in tuition for in state.

You can get all of the social, in person experience at almost any state school. You might not get a job at Google or Mckinsey but you also won't take on 6 figure debt.

The problem is everyone wants to go to the private/out of state schools with sky high tuition and only marginally better academics. Then there's majoring in unemployable fields but that's another story entirely...

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#142

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

jawns wrote: post #28

The reason there is such a large premium for on-campus education versus online universities is because on-campus education is an experience as much as it is a service. If you're only interested in mastering the content, then online learning may be the place for you. That's why we see so many people pursuing online courses for their master's degrees and when they return to school later in life. They just want the cont…

A lot of anecdotes in this post.

Do you think your experience generalises to the whole university population? Was the entire journalism school working for the campus newspaper and did they derive real benefits from it with regard to post-university outcomes?

Or does it stand to reason that, on average, half of people who go to university on-campus have a below average experience of it?

For every post saying something like yours, there’s another post about how a person didn’t go to university, or dropped out early, and claim to have benefitted from not wasting their time at university.

Sweeping generalisations are never going to capture the whole of possible experience, and I believe there’s room for on-campus, off-campus, and way more on the job / apprenticeship style training, and other types of learning I probably don’t even know about.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#143

Post by zomglings »

paulcole wrote: post #11

Investors should step in and pay the kids off (since these lawsuits are either guaranteed losers or will take years to settle). Then in exchange take a % of their future earnings. Vary the % and timeline based on the degree they're seeking.

I actually kind of like this idea - following the mold of coding bootcamps.

The only concern I have with this is tying monetary incentives to education. As a society, I think we benefit greatly from the diversity in learning paths that people choose to follow.

Once you attach a price tag - higher percentage of future earnings for majors like literature, philosophy - you are getting closer to turning the university system into a STEM robot factory.

A large part of the reason that some young people choose to go into esoteric fields of study is that their monetary outcome is not real to them at the point that they enter college.

To be fair, I bet there is a significant difference in the proportion of students from wealthy economic backgrounds who enter these esoteric fields compared to that of poorer students. And if it is the wealthy who are studying these kinds of subjects, then the approach you suggest will not seriously affect the diversity of subjects being explored.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#144

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #140
jawns wrote: post #28

The reason there is such a large premium for on-campus education versus online universities is because on-campus education is an experience as much as it is a service. If you're only interested in mastering the content, then online learning may be the place for you. That's why we see so many people pursuing online courses for their master's degrees and when they return to school later in life. They just want the cont…

Unfortunately, online education isn't popular because folks don't want the experience, especially if you are returning to school later in life. The reality is that many colleges are geared towards a non-working, single, young adult student. This is reflected in classroom times and coursework. (I had a class require volunteer work and short-term participation in college groups). You simply cannot work a 9-5 job and at…

I was under the impression remote / online leering was most popular with older learners?

Aren’t there schools that specialise in this segment.

This post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23353796 mentions University of Phoenix for one, and I’ve know more than a few people here in Australia who claim to have enjoyed their remote / online courses as older learners.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#145

Post by RHSeeger »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #117
ben7799 wrote: post #10

This is just the straw that is popping the college bubble. My Alma mater has 15 administrators who make 2-3x more than the President did when I graduated. The President makes $5 million+. The VP/Dean of HR makes > $1 million. Administrators took a 5% pay cut. Lots of professors are furloughed or laid off. The school did all kinds of shenanigans to hang onto as much tuition/board/food money as they could. Students are…

Those who want to learn more about the alumni complaints can go to this web site: https://renewrensselaer.org/ It's really sad the plunder.

I attended RPI and recently had to recommend to a friend that they not send their child there. It made me sad. But the way the administration, and Shirley in particular, have been treating the students and the school has been so horrible.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#146

Post by willcipriano »

californical wrote: post #129
willcipriano wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it’s not reasonable to demand universities operate at a loss to provide the remote education at a rate less than it costs them to operate I feel its not reasonable to ask students to pay more than fair market value for what they receive regardless of operational costs. They should refund up to what similar online schools charge today. If it costs the auto dealer as much as a new BMW to deliver a used Toyota, that is…

If the grocery store is charging too much for oranges, do you take them to court too? Or do you just go to another grocery store...

I can more easily change grocery stores than I am able to change colleges. Credits aren't often 100% transferable, also a degree from another school may be less valuable but also less costly, therefore the money I already spent on the more expensive degree may be lost.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#147

Post by adminprof »

tengbretson wrote: post #119
adminprof wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what assurances you have of this guarantee you give. As so far it seems like when funding is cut, faculty (teaching and research) and academic departments are cut and financial aid is reduced, rather than major cuts in administration. So it's worth discussing what administrative units are cuttable, or come to the realization there is no free cuts to make to administration without sacrifices to some existi…

If we can't trust these organizations to make the right (and obviously needed) cuts in order to still realize their value to society in the face of reduced funding, then they don't deserve to be the ones teaching our children in the first place.

I think we just keep going back to the same issue -- people agree that administration is too big. But if you break it down to actual positions or administrative units, it's not clear there is any agreement. There is no such thing as "right cuts" because that implies it's clear which parts of administration should be cut.

Same with government. Government waste is bad? Of course! Trim unnecessary government spending and pork barrel? Yes!! And which branches and positions should we cut? The Right Ones!! [cue nothing actually happens]

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#148

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

coryrc wrote: post #134
jawns wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint to your argument is that if it is so easy to create those types of communities for much less money than what universities are charging, why hasn't it happened? I would guess that it's a combination of 1. not being as easy as it seems and 2. network effects. Because of the latter, you would basically have to persuade a large number of students to make the switch at the same time for them to feel as if…

It's illegal to create living communities for young people. You are allowed to discriminate against people younger than 55, but not against any other age criteria. It's another example in the unending list of losses in this generational war.

What does this mean, and can you provide examples?

What do you mean by young people?

I thought intentional communities were a thing in many / most developed democracies?

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#149

Post by Avicebron »

coryrc wrote: post #134
jawns wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint to your argument is that if it is so easy to create those types of communities for much less money than what universities are charging, why hasn't it happened? I would guess that it's a combination of 1. not being as easy as it seems and 2. network effects. Because of the latter, you would basically have to persuade a large number of students to make the switch at the same time for them to feel as if…

It's illegal to create living communities for young people. You are allowed to discriminate against people younger than 55, but not against any other age criteria. It's another example in the unending list of losses in this generational war.

Genuine question, is it illegal if the people are older than 18? Possibly with resident adults acting in some supervisory role. I'm imagining dorm like satellite communities for collective remote online learning.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#150

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

gbear605 wrote: post #128
7thaccount wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "experience" is vastly overrated with the one exception that it helped me meet my wife.

Sounds like a pretty big exception

Well, presumably the parent would have met some other, or maybe the same, wife elsewhere.

Unless we’re to believe they on-campus learning is positively correlated with getting married, which seems absurd.

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