Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present • Hacker News Board

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#21

Post by walterbell » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

1996 wrote: post #15

College currently sell an "experience" with clubs, restaurants, football teams, fraternities, housing, a nice campus with trees and lakes, etc. This isn't free. It has pushed up the price of education. If education turns remote, I would expect prices to fall (and layoffs for the administrative staff), unless a similar experience part can be replicated online (which I strongly doubt) This is the exact opposite of work…

> most "experience" provided in the workplace (with nice offices, nice chairs, window view, in a nice campus with amenities like catering etc) will be footed by the employee in a WFH setting

Will these expenses be as tax deductible for WFH employees as they are for business? Is live/work zoning common?

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#22

Post by kungato » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

tester756 wrote: post #16

DreadY2K wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a current college student, and my school costs about $80k per year, counting tuition, room & board, supplies, etc., before financial aid. That would be $320k for 4 years, well over a quarter of a million. I'm personally getting a significant amount of financial aid, so that it will end up costing much less than that for me, but I know people who are paying full price. EDIT: I'm an undergrad at a 4-year university…

What do they teach there for 320k? Seriously, I do pay like 4.5K USD after conversion for 7 semesters of CS at weekends - 4 days / month and I cannot imagine that

My whole country pays 0 while the price if you repeat a year is 1200€

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#23

Post by sumoboy » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:31 PM UTC

So many of these teachers have become unqualified to teach remote classes since they can't adapt to virtual engagement to help students succeed. They don't answer emails, don't chat, leaving students lost. You get more from a youtube video in many cases. Remote teaching has made these teachers lazy IMO.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#24

Post by nradov » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:32 PM UTC

1996 wrote: post #15

College currently sell an "experience" with clubs, restaurants, football teams, fraternities, housing, a nice campus with trees and lakes, etc. This isn't free. It has pushed up the price of education. If education turns remote, I would expect prices to fall (and layoffs for the administrative staff), unless a similar experience part can be replicated online (which I strongly doubt) This is the exact opposite of work…

If working from home becomes the default then wages will fall because employers will be able to select employees who live anywhere. Working in a physical office constrains the labor supply to workers who live nearby (or are able to relocate).

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#25

Post by HaloZero » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #14

DreadY2K wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a current college student, and my school costs about $80k per year, counting tuition, room & board, supplies, etc., before financial aid. That would be $320k for 4 years, well over a quarter of a million. I'm personally getting a significant amount of financial aid, so that it will end up costing much less than that for me, but I know people who are paying full price. EDIT: I'm an undergrad at a 4-year university…

Obviously I believe you if you're saying that, but I've heard that nobody really pays these full sticker-prices and everyone's really getting some kind of aid unless they're literally a billionaire - is that not the case?

I don't think so? I did a lot of tax work for VITA and met a lot of parents. Mostly low income and low-middle income got full scholarships and grants but if you're middle class it highly depends on the institution. The larger schools with huge private endowment do cover a lot but a public school like any in the UC system? Nah. It's basically all loans which have to be paid back.

*My knowledge is limited to California in the United States. I know there exists programs in Georgia and other places that do cover full rides but I think they are anomalous and not the rule.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#26

Post by drfuchs » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:34 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #14

DreadY2K wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a current college student, and my school costs about $80k per year, counting tuition, room & board, supplies, etc., before financial aid. That would be $320k for 4 years, well over a quarter of a million. I'm personally getting a significant amount of financial aid, so that it will end up costing much less than that for me, but I know people who are paying full price. EDIT: I'm an undergrad at a 4-year university…

Obviously I believe you if you're saying that, but I've heard that nobody really pays these full sticker-prices and everyone's really getting some kind of aid unless they're literally a billionaire - is that not the case?

Typically, in the Ivy League / Stanford, a one-child family with annual income of over $150k to $200k (depending on the school) will pay full tuition. Really. And incomes of less than $65k-ish get you a free ride. Details vary.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#27

Post by brighton36 » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #12

brighton36 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with the human presence. There's so much unneeded bundling - these campuses have turned into prestige factories.

As opposed to which exactly the year and country?

As opposed to which... What? Colleges used to manufacture knowledge.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#28

Post by jbullock35 » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #14

DreadY2K wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a current college student, and my school costs about $80k per year, counting tuition, room & board, supplies, etc., before financial aid. That would be $320k for 4 years, well over a quarter of a million. I'm personally getting a significant amount of financial aid, so that it will end up costing much less than that for me, but I know people who are paying full price. EDIT: I'm an undergrad at a 4-year university…

Obviously I believe you if you're saying that, but I've heard that nobody really pays these full sticker-prices and everyone's really getting some kind of aid unless they're literally a billionaire - is that not the case?

It's not the case. It would be true to say that no one pays full price unless they have a lot of money. Harvard, not unrepresentative of other top U.S. schools in this regard, says that 55% of their students receive financial aid [1]. I infer that 45% are paying the full price of around $80,000 per year [2]. (Some of these 45% are doubtless funded partly by non-Harvard scholarships.)

Playing with Harvard's "Net Price Calculator" [3] makes clear that non-millionaires, let alone non-billionaires, may be asked to pay full price. A lot depends on the number of children, the number in college, and accumulated wealth (excluding retirement accounts and home equity).

Harvard students who receive federal financial aid pay (or their families pay) around $15,500 per year on average [4], which suggests that the distribution of payments may be bimodal: a lot of families pay $80,000 per year, and a lot pay a lot less.

[1] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid

[2] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works

[3] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...

[4] https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?166027-Harvard-Unive...

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#29

Post by jasonv » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

sumoboy wrote: post #23

So many of these teachers have become unqualified to teach remote classes since they can't adapt to virtual engagement to help students succeed. They don't answer emails, don't chat, leaving students lost. You get more from a youtube video in many cases. Remote teaching has made these teachers lazy IMO.

I agree, based on this:

My high-school aged son was taking two in-person community college classes this last semester.

When the SIP hit, his Spanish class just "ended". Nothing online, nothing from his teacher, it was just over. His math teacher worked diligently to keep things going, and I could see the adaptations the math teacher attempted to evolve his efforts with the unexpected conditions.

If the CC is only online in the fall, we'll find something else for him. I don't think v1.0 of online CC is worth spending my money on, based on the v0.9 beta.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#30

Post by mtgp1000 » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

This is good. I think the commoditization of college had profound negative effects on society. Historic trust in the academic system was abused in order to, at best, sell degrees to people who were unqualified for them, and at worst, to indoctrinate two generations of children (anything outside of STEM is heavily politically slanted - it's the long march through the institutions that the infamous Weather Underground spoke of).

If intelligence (and general ability) is truly normally distributed then you cannot award degrees to the majority of the population without lowering historic standards.