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USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

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Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#61

Post by InitialLastName »

renewiltord wrote: post #38

These degrees are worthless. The fields are worthless. And a constant ongoing propaganda campaign is waged to get people to pay for them. Helping along are an army of useful idiots who will pretend like this is academia when it is pseudoscience packaged up as a program to steal from unknowing young people. It’s time for us to publish expected income based on major and university. “God forbid someone study something f…

> The fields are worthless.

You realize we're talking about social work here, right? God forbid someone help people with their work rather than find ways to lubricate an advertising delivery system at a FAANG.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#62

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

nsxwolf wrote: post #58

Seems like people have been warned about this stuff for over a decade now and we keep hearing about it. When will students stop taking the bait?

When people can make middle class livings again without being shut out of a job for lack of a college degree.

My previous job I worked at required a Bachelors in business of any kind. I got it because I worked at the company and basically beat out external candidates even though I didn't have a degree. Know what it paid?

$15/hr.

This is why people are duped into college degrees.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#63

Post by aidenn0 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #57
aidenn0 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest difference in college since I went to school is that the gap between the cost of an elite school and a random state-school has narrowed significantly. I had a friend who paid his way through college with summer construction jobs and graduated with about $10k in debt. People who were willing to work part-time during the school year could graduate debt free. Tuition at an exclusive liberal arts scho…

UIUC instate total cost is 30k a year, including room/board. If you're working full time and living a poverty lifestyle you can graduate debt free easily enough, especially if you get prestigious internships.

Not sure about UIUC, but $3600 in in-state tuition for Purdue in 1999; ~$10k including room/board/books. Out of state was $8k more.

Purdue froze the in-state tuition at $10k some years ago, but did so by reducing the number of in-state students that were admitted; they need far more out-of-state (and out-of-country) students to subsidize that each year.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#64

Post by woeirua »

The only way to effectively address the college tuition bubble is going to be for Congress to pass a law that caps the amount of student loans that someone can draw to be proportional to their expected salary over X years on a per-school, per-program basis. That would put a lot of pressure on underperforming programs and schools to produce better value for their students, either by improving outcomes, or by reducing the cost of tuition.

Yes, regrettably some programs would go the way of the dodo, but we shouldn't be saddling our kids with crippling debt so that they can do four years of college and end up in the same place they were before they went to college from a career prospective. If people want to spend their own money to study underwater basketweaving, then so be it.

Also, federal loans should be extended to vocational training programs under the same stipulations.

Edit: the DOE should also have the ability to give programs/schools the death penalty (no loans) if they are found to be manipulating data used for these calculations.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#65

Post by jagraff »

woeirua wrote: post #64

The only way to effectively address the college tuition bubble is going to be for Congress to pass a law that caps the amount of student loans that someone can draw to be proportional to their expected salary over X years on a per-school, per-program basis. That would put a lot of pressure on underperforming programs and schools to produce better value for their students, either by improving outcomes, or by reducing…

Instead of a cap, why not just make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy? Let the market sort out the expected value of degrees based on the expected probability of bankruptcy

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#66

Post by [deleted] »

mrandolph wrote: post #45
echelon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

about halfway through it myself. I spend about 20-30 hours a week on it. It's definitely a challenging program but the value is ridiculously good. I've learned an incredible amount of incredible things. While it's difficult to manage both the program and other life obligations, I'll be a bit sad once it's over.

[deleted]

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#67

Post by cdgore »

adultSwim wrote: post #16

USC's Computer Science Master's is also a degree mill, particularly targeting foreign students who must pay full tuition in cash.

I've heard people say this since the program is so large, but the same could be said for any large research university that has a CS master's program.

Anecdotally, I got my master's degree in CS at USC and had a good experience overall. I definitely learned a lot and was able to fill in some gaps in my knowledge of CS theory and machine learning. I was also able to get offers from Google and Facebook from their on-campus recruiting programs, and I know several other people in my cohort that did the same.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#68

Post by bluedevil2k »

cobookman wrote: post #18
bluedevil2k wrote: post #7

And 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.

US Government gets paid back also through tax revenues on the salaries of the school, salaries of studends, expenditures of the schools to US based companies, etc. It might still be favorable for the US Tax Payer even if these loans end up un-paid.

I don't know what colleges you're looking at, but you're misguided if you think colleges spend 100% of the tuition they receive. Schools like Harvard, Yale, Duke, etc. have multi-billion dollar endowments that just keep growing. Many colleges have so much money coming in and are forced to spend to keep their non-profit status that they build opulent dorm rooms, buildings they don't need, and have more Vice Provosts than banks have Vice Presidents. My own alma mater has TWO art museums on campus!

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#69

Post by wbraun »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #26
vgeek wrote: post #5

Colleges 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…

The MIT 5th year masters program for EECS requires a thesis and for you to find a faculty thesis advisor that is separate from your academic advisor.

Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts

#70

Post by chucksmash »

vgeek wrote: post #5

Colleges 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…

FWIW, I don't think Harvard Extension School is a good example of this trend. It was founded in 1910 with a fairly egalitarian ideal to serve the people of Boston. Not quite a latter day cash-in.

I retook Calc I through the extension school six or seven years ago out of curiosity when I was considering doing an online Master's. Rigor was on par with my undergrad Calc I or perhaps a little higher and the quality of instruction was definitely higher. The lecturer (Eric Towne!) had a command of the people and history surrounding the concepts he was teaching and shared lots of fascinating context.

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