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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

#181

Post by Broken_Hippo »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #144
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, some folks enjoy them. I'm not arguing this at all: It is just that it is hard to say that folks actually prefer them if they cannot comply with a standard university's requirements - class times, for example. Which really is the reason the colleges would go after older learners.

I'm going to guess that there are a few schools that do specialize in this segment - I know Ivy Tech in Indiana use to make an attempt. Not every campus offered non-traditional class times, not all degrees were offered at those times, and I'm not sure you can get more than an associate's from there.

There are other weird quirks as well. So many people cannot drive to the school locations (and keep their jobs) and many jobs simply won't work around a college schedule, especially not one that changes from semester to semester. (To be fair, 'traditional' college students have this problem all the time, but it is easier to switch jobs when young than when one has a family and insurance to consider).

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#182

Post by nitwit005 »

mac01021 wrote: post #169
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…

Can someone explain to me the economics driving salaries for presidents of public/nonprofit universities up to $500k-$1M? Are the people in these positions in possession of a skill that non of the people who would gladly hold the post for $150k have? What is it? They're hired by a board of regents, right? What is the BOR looking for that they value so highly?

Let's say you can increase your own salary, and no one is going to stop you from doing so. While some may not want to because it's a non-profit, others will happily nudge their pay upwards.

Eventually the universities that hesitated to raise their pay will be well below the pay of the others, and feel forced to raise their pay to something comparable to attract decent talent.

Same sort of trend occurring with CEO pay, just with a lot less hesitation because no one feels like they're robbing a charity.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#183

Post by bambataa »

btilly wrote: post #122
adminprof wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While in general I agree that there are too many administrators at many universities, this type of argument is ineffective without pointing out exactly which administrators. And I find that once you try to do that, no one agrees which administrators should be cut. Do you want to cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion? Or the administrators responsible for tech transfer? Or the Dean of the Coll…

While in general I agree that there are too many administrators at many universities, this type of argument is ineffective without pointing out exactly which administrators. And I find that once you try to do that, no one agrees which administrators should be cut. Do you want to cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion? Or the administrators responsible for tech transfer? Or the Dean of the Coll…

> For a start, let's cut any administrator that was not considered needed for the proper running of a university 30 years ago.

What makes you so sure universities were sufficiently well-run 30 years ago? And what makes you so sure other people agree with you?

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#184

Post by PeterisP »

caseysoftware wrote: post #161

I think this will boil down to: a) What did the college promise? b) Did the college deliver it? Since there's unlikely a formal contract involved, they'll have to make a case with the public marketing and value prop which includes peers, access to professors, dorm life, state of the art labs, extracurriculars, a beautiful campus, alumni network, job fairs, etc. Most of these colleges have spent years devaluing the co…

In general, declared states of emergency are a valid reason to get out of the "Did the college deliver it?" question as long as they attempted mitigations that are reasonable given the restrictions.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#185

Post by hagy »

vkou wrote: post #137
zbrozek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was obvious while I was a student that the ratio of administrators to faculty was ridiculous. And the growth rate ratio between them was 3:1. At no point was it clear to me what real value they were adding. I was the captain of a more capital and real-estate intensive than average student group, and it was absolutely infuriating to try to figure out how to get anything done. There was always some new bureaucrat co…

> Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount. Take two teams, one with 6 people that produce a lot of value, and one with 50 people that produce... Let's say the same amount of value. When the manager of the team with 6 people, in the same org, starts getting paid three times more than the manager of the team of 50, you'll stop seeing managers fight for headcount. All of the economic incentives in the…

I agree, but quantifying value add is very hard. If we were just comparing small companies against each other then it would be straightforward to just look at each companies profit. But when you look at a team within a company, how can we say what that teams value add is?

Say we considered a simplified case and focused on a single engineering team that is solely responsible for a single product. Just looking at the revenue generated by that product is insufficient since it excludes the contributions of sales, marketing, business development, etc. in driving that revenue. And practice most engineering teams are dependent on other engineering teams for providing shared services and infrastructure.

Its also insufficient to just consider current revenue of a product. We also need to consider the potential future gains from a product, which is unknown.

And quantifying value add gets even harder when we start looking at individual people. Considering individual contributor engineers, there are numerous ways that one can contribute, ranging from developing new features, diagnosing and fixing bugs, writing and updating documentation, mentoring, interviewing candidates, etc.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#186

Post by mattr47 »

wasdfff wrote: post #177
asciident wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also everyone quotes Ivy League MSRP prices as if every student is paying them. In reality, Ivy League financial aid is the most generous, and the actual tuition paid over the past couple decades has been decreasing, unlike public schools where it's been increasing significantly.

At USC something like over 2/3 of kids are on some form of aid.

Aid = student loans.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#187

Post by usaar333 »

LanceH wrote: post #157
usaar333 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, they can return some money but who knows how much was already allocated, especially with distance learning continuing. I got no refund from my kid's preschool for similar reasons. This is a really uphill legal battle

Then they can file bankruptcy and students can stand in line as creditors. "I already spent it" isn't a legal defense for taking money and not delivering services.

Except it really is when it comes to Force Majeur.

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#188

Post by irskep »

at_a_remove wrote: post #139

Reddit's "AskReddit" subreddit had a question recently hosted with a title something along the lines of "How did your college financially screw you over in this crisis?" The answers were varied and often ... "shocking" is the wrong word, because I have come to expect a kind of compulsive money-grubbing from many universities ... perhaps "flinch-inducing." Certainly the local subreddit for my city discussed similar mo…

This is the thread the parent comment is talking about, I think.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gqb30j/uni_stude...

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#189

Post by hagy »

darwinwhy wrote: post #170
mac01021 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain to me the economics driving salaries for presidents of public/nonprofit universities up to $500k-$1M? Are the people in these positions in possession of a skill that non of the people who would gladly hold the post for $150k have? What is it? They're hired by a board of regents, right? What is the BOR looking for that they value so highly?

College presidents/chancellors don't do as much administrating as they do fundraising from alumni and donors. This is more true the higher up in university prestige you go. The amount of value they bring in from donor contributions far outweighs their salaried cost.

Exactly. University presidents easily pay for their salary many times over just through their fundraising activities. Presidents aren't chosen for their administrative prowess, but instead for their professional network and informal connections. Further, most people that could serve as president could easily draw a much larger salary in the private sector and many were formally C-level executives at larger companies where were paid such a salary. For them, becoming a university president is more about prestigious and service to an institute they value than it is about maximizing compensation.

I think the problem to focus on is the large and ever growing number of administrators and staffers throughout universities. One stat that always makes my eyes bulge is that while student enrollment and professors have both grown by about 50% between 1970 and 2010, yet the number of administrators have grown by 85% and administrative staffers grew by 240%! [0] If anything, administrators and staff should've decreased due to productivity improvements from technology.

There is so much fat to be cut from administrative ranks.

[0] https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septoct-2011/administ...

Re: Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures

#190

Post by hagy »

malandrew wrote: post #178
zbrozek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was obvious while I was a student that the ratio of administrators to faculty was ridiculous. And the growth rate ratio between them was 3:1. At no point was it clear to me what real value they were adding. I was the captain of a more capital and real-estate intensive than average student group, and it was absolutely infuriating to try to figure out how to get anything done. There was always some new bureaucrat co…

> To be quite honest, I see the same thing in my professional work. Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount. If this were the only reason, the invisible hand of the market would address this problem most of the time. Add too many administrators that add no value and you end up with a higher cost structure than your competitors and are not able to provide the same value. Most of the time people deman…

Regular market forces don't hold for college tuition for a number of reasons. Chief among these being that many students are paying with loans. Secondly, some students and their families view education as a veblen good, whereby higher price implies even higher value.
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