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

Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

thestar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 329 posts

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#101

Post by game_the0ry »

x87678r wrote: post #77
game_the0ry wrote: post #29

A couple of years ago, I was looking into MOOCs for tech education, Udacity's nano degree in particular. I remember stumbling across a video on Youtube where some Udacity folks were discussing the merits of online education with college professors and admins. What stood out to me was how vehemently the college folks were against online education. They were visibly livid - there was no way substituting a live class ro…

Go on a gap year when you can backpack around the world. This is literally the worst time to have a gap year. If you're stuck at home you might as well study.

> If you're stuck at home you might as well study.

Exactly. It's a good opportunity for self directed study.

I would spend time doing something productive, not traveling.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#102

Post by war1025 »

game_the0ry wrote: post #29

A couple of years ago, I was looking into MOOCs for tech education, Udacity's nano degree in particular. I remember stumbling across a video on Youtube where some Udacity folks were discussing the merits of online education with college professors and admins. What stood out to me was how vehemently the college folks were against online education. They were visibly livid - there was no way substituting a live class ro…

I had a professor who was adamantly against any recordings of his lectures because he felt that it was a move by the university to cheat him out of pay by reusing content.

Not sure where I land on that, but I would guess it's not an uncommon sentiment.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#103

Post by thecleaner »

I would think the same thing. This seems weird that Massive Open Online Courses are so expensive. I would think that having so many subscribers or a global distribution channel would enable one to drop costs significantly like one tenth of original or something thanks to the volume. In a world where workers need to constantly upskill themselves so as to stay relevant I am quite surprised why online education is being priced so high.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#104

Post by Uberphallus »

non-entity wrote: post #3

I started looking at going back to school around a year ago and online is basically the only way that will ever happen realistically. While most programs do charge a bit less for tuition, the amount of money they're charging for recorded lectures and a credential is almost comical. On top of that many programs, including some of the better looking ones (i.e. from flagship state schools) still differentiate between in…

I was considering MSc EE at Boulder, but the 20k price is way off the mark, especially being used to European prices.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#105

Post by fsociety »

Dwolb wrote: post #41
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt that the community around courses could be improved, but I think it's also a matter of enthusiasm. People are probably a lot more enthusiastic about Rocket League than about some online degree. (Whether that's how it should be is a different issue...) Anyway, that naturally leads to higher participation in communities etc. So I don't know if online course makers even have that much influence over community b…

For sure but then the question I would have is can we take cues from enthusiasm around Rocket League and bring those into the community? The real time ranking system I think is the root of a lot of this. It allows people to know where they stand and they can look to the community on how to improve their game.

I think gamification is a misunderstanding of why communities are built around games and people encouraged to improve their skills to rank up.

Instead why not organize a catch-all chat for people to talk, like a Discord. Let people talk off-topic and organize to play games and such as a class if they want.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#106

Post by kerkeslager »

x87678r wrote: post #77
game_the0ry wrote: post #29

A couple of years ago, I was looking into MOOCs for tech education, Udacity's nano degree in particular. I remember stumbling across a video on Youtube where some Udacity folks were discussing the merits of online education with college professors and admins. What stood out to me was how vehemently the college folks were against online education. They were visibly livid - there was no way substituting a live class ro…

Go on a gap year when you can backpack around the world. This is literally the worst time to have a gap year. If you're stuck at home you might as well study.

You can study without paying tens of thousands of dollars.

There are also tons of productive uses of time that can be done during the pandemic. Now is a great time to volunteer.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#107

Post by fiftyfifty »

game_the0ry wrote: post #29

A couple of years ago, I was looking into MOOCs for tech education, Udacity's nano degree in particular. I remember stumbling across a video on Youtube where some Udacity folks were discussing the merits of online education with college professors and admins. What stood out to me was how vehemently the college folks were against online education. They were visibly livid - there was no way substituting a live class ro…

The problem with gap years is you loose an additional year of income at the college graduate level on the backend, that's a pretty big missed financial opportunity. With the economy in the state it's in now, it's unlikely most college students will be able to land decent paying jobs during a gap year, if they can find a job at all. Better to just finish the degree as quickly as possible and be ready to enter the work force as a college graduate when, in a couple of years, our economy should be in a strong rebound.

We have 3 college students in our household. We've had these conversations many times in our house over the last few months. The above is the conclusion I've come to for my own kids, that a gap year is basically a waste of time in the current economy. The last thing I'll add is we are saving some money on online classes, room and board makes up roughly $10,000-$15,000 of the cost of sending a kid to college, having the kids at home doing online classes at least saves us that.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#108

Post by catalogia »

josephorjoe wrote: post #16
stblack wrote: post #8

Schools still have a very large proportion of their fixed costs to cover. Schools and their lecturers need to invest in perfecting onlive delivery. Therefore it's not particularly realistic to expect schools to chop their top-line so soon. This is clearly a transitory and uncertain period. With time, possibly less time than schools hope, they will be forced to adjust prices downward.

For profit institutions do not get sympathy for their fixed costs.

You might be confusing private nonprofit universities with for-profit schools.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#109

Post by amadeuspzs »

CivBase wrote: post #26
electriclove wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What meeting platform did your school use? Which school?

My university was using Adobe Connect almost a decade ago. It is way better than video call apps like Zoom.

I couldn't disagree more. Connect is written in Flash and has serious stability issues. For better or for worse Zoom is stable and intuitive for adult learning.
Post reply on HN