That's a great way to tarnish all USC alumni. I hope they give the school an earful for this disgusting practice.
How does this tarnish USC's other degrees? 99% of alumni don't have degrees in social work.
USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
21–30 of 261 posts
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#22Colleges have been quietly expanding the last 10-15 years with programs like these. They do it discreetly, sometimes with different campuses across town or simply online. From what I've seen, they may be an entirely separate school so as to not be reported on the same way (a 7% acceptance rate and high job placement rates at blue chip firms makes a difference when the major currency of universities is prestige), sinc…
OTOH, you have schools like (the actual) Georgia Tech offering an online MS in CS for an affordable price: https://omscs.gatech.edu/
I wish they had something like this for undergrad.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#23Colleges have been quietly expanding the last 10-15 years with programs like these. They do it discreetly, sometimes with different campuses across town or simply online. From what I've seen, they may be an entirely separate school so as to not be reported on the same way (a 7% acceptance rate and high job placement rates at blue chip firms makes a difference when the major currency of universities is prestige), sinc…
OTOH, you have schools like (the actual) Georgia Tech offering an online MS in CS for an affordable price: https://omscs.gatech.edu/
This is the university that started it all. They've had the program for about a decade now, and they do a ridiculously good job. [1]
It's a rigorous degree, they only admit a limited number of students (so your application has to be reasonable), and it's completely affordable. It's also indistinguishable from their on-campus MS in CS. It doesn't say you took it "online" after you graduate. Georgia Tech is a pretty outstanding school, so this looks good for places that care.
If you want an MS in CS and want to do it from home, this is the one you want.
[1] Anecdotal, but I know five colleagues that have taken it and have nothing but praise for the program. The two I am closest to used for the following cases:
1. A CS grad working in the field used it to explore machine learning a decade after college. They had no previous experience with the field and then shifted into a deep learning role shortly before graduation.
2. Another close friend was a graduate working in radio research and wanted to learn CS fundamentals (OS, distributed, etc.). They're still doing radio work, but they used it to get an expanded role and a pretty substantial raise.
Both were very happy with the program. Both completed the program while working full time, though they admitted it was a ton of work.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#24That's a great way to tarnish all USC alumni. I hope they give the school an earful for this disgusting practice.
I don't know that USC was that prestigious outside of the sports/marching band arenas. But charging the same price for online is horrible. Honestly, though, it says a lot about CSUs that you can go there, borrow two thirds less, and still make more money than a USC grad.
"..it says a lot about CSUs that you can go there, borrow two thirds less, and still make more money than a USC grad."
For the same degree?
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#25And almost all got loans backed by the US government that they won’t be able to repay and will fall on the US taxpayer to cover. Essentially USC bilked the US taxpayers out of millions, with these poor students serving as the unfortunate middlemen. Solution: make the universities have some skin the game - cover 20% of the principal on defaulted loans.
Given the price inelasticity of college, the money to cover these defaults would probably just come from other students. They'd just hike tuition to cover the risk. A much better solution is to revoke the ability of students at specific schools/programs to qualify for federal student loans if the outcomes of the program are poor. Turn off the spigot of money, and they will cleanup their act really quickly.
There was a push with the Common Data Set (https://commondataset.org/) to help increase transparency to potential students, but it runs into a Prisoner's Dilemma, with poor outcome organizations opting not to participate.
The Department of Education should have a vested interest specifically in the way that you mention, and they did set up a site that communicates historical outcomes of majors at a per school level at https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/, but it gets little visibility in the college marketing funnel that is filled with for profit enterprises like US News and Niche-- plus the marketing (admissions and/or athletics) departments of colleges themselves.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#26Colleges have been quietly expanding the last 10-15 years with programs like these. They do it discreetly, sometimes with different campuses across town or simply online. From what I've seen, they may be an entirely separate school so as to not be reported on the same way (a 7% acceptance rate and high job placement rates at blue chip firms makes a difference when the major currency of universities is prestige), sinc…
All non-thesis CS master degrees are a bit suspect. They are basically a few more courses, usually at night for professional students, but increasingly online. I'm not really sure what kind of value they add beyond looking good on a resume.
Thesis masters are increasingly rare these days as American schools allow you to jump straight to a PhD program (Europe is a bit more rigid here). The other kind of Masters degree that is increasingly popular is the 5th year undergrad extension, which makes a lot of a sense (MIT started the trend here, other schools have followed).
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#27USC's Computer Science Master's is also a degree mill, particularly targeting foreign students who must pay full tuition in cash.
Most CS masters programs are this way. They are a way to get into the H1B lottery.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#28Colleges have been quietly expanding the last 10-15 years with programs like these. They do it discreetly, sometimes with different campuses across town or simply online. From what I've seen, they may be an entirely separate school so as to not be reported on the same way (a 7% acceptance rate and high job placement rates at blue chip firms makes a difference when the major currency of universities is prestige), sinc…
All non-thesis CS master degrees are a bit suspect. They are basically a few more courses, usually at night for professional students, but increasingly online. I'm not really sure what kind of value they add beyond looking good on a resume. Thesis masters are increasingly rare these days as American schools allow you to jump straight to a PhD program (Europe is a bit more rigid here). The other kind of Masters degree…
During the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash there were even tech support jobs asking for a masters degree. This has basically gone away with the tight STEM labor market. But it was one of the reasons I wound up getting a BS in IT instead of going straight from grade school to tech support.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
OTOH, you have schools like (the actual) Georgia Tech offering an online MS in CS for an affordable price: https://omscs.gatech.edu/
This is the university that started it all. They've had the program for about a decade now, and they do a ridiculously good job. [1] It's a rigorous degree, they only admit a limited number of students (so your application has to be reasonable), and it's completely affordable. It's also indistinguishable from their on-campus MS in CS. It doesn't say you took it "online" after you graduate. Georgia Tech is a pretty ou…
The failure rate is very high from what I hear. Which i guess is the best way to tell if a program is legit.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#30Colleges have been quietly expanding the last 10-15 years with programs like these. They do it discreetly, sometimes with different campuses across town or simply online. From what I've seen, they may be an entirely separate school so as to not be reported on the same way (a 7% acceptance rate and high job placement rates at blue chip firms makes a difference when the major currency of universities is prestige), sinc…
All non-thesis CS master degrees are a bit suspect. They are basically a few more courses, usually at night for professional students, but increasingly online. I'm not really sure what kind of value they add beyond looking good on a resume. Thesis masters are increasingly rare these days as American schools allow you to jump straight to a PhD program (Europe is a bit more rigid here). The other kind of Masters degree…
I've spent a lot of time interviewing data scientists for an entry-level position lately, and it's pretty shocking to hear them describe their master's "capstone project", which often consists of a group project with some pre-cleaned data. A few calls to sklearn later, bam, an M.S.