Is there a point today to get a degree in the IT space? Universities are a thing of the past where the access to quality knowledge is ubiquitous. I mean most of thing that get you a decent job you can learn even on YT for free. Sure you are going to need some self-discipline and a lot of practice but it is perfectly doable. For $115k you could have plenty of funds to hire some pros to mark your home works or give some pointers.
I think only advantage of Uni is that you can get connections, but you can also get them by going to local meet ups.
USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
81–90 of 261 posts
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. I used to consider academia as a separate entity from the private sector, thinking it was full of altruistic individuals wanting to further the knowledge of humanity. Then I started seeing that most colleges operate as tax-exempt businesses with different marketing strategies, products and target consumers. They're just layers of bureaucracy while those delivering the most value (professors) regularly get tr…
In my experience its split within the university itself, with most of the actual academics being lower paid and about furthering knowledge and teaching. The other administrative departments are the ones with questionable utility and motives, its like they're being taken over by MBAs
It's not just MBAs it's M*, I have a close friend who works in the administration for a well known university, her department administration will not hire any junior person that doesn't have a masters degree, it doesn't particularly matter what masters degree they have, just as long as they have one.
In addition to requiring a masters degree, my friends admin department is way over staffed, having come from private industry my friend is shocked at how little people do. My friend has a boss whose screen they can see, and estimates that the boss puts in roughly 15mins of work per day and spends the rest of the time on Twitter & Facebook. My friend estimates that the headcount is roughly 3 times more than it would be in private industry
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#83Colleges 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…
> On LinkedIn I frequently see Harvard listed on profiles, but upon digging in, it is Harvard Extension School which mostly seems to offer certificates.
Harvard Extension started in the 1830s and became a formal division of the university over 100 years ago. They offer real degrees to "non-traditional" students. People that get admitted get the same student ID card that everyone else gets, has the same facility access, etc.
The biggest transgression is that Harvard gives those graduates a liberal arts degree in "extension studies" without naming the concentration.
People also seem to have issues with the fact that anyone that applies and meets the requirements is admitted as a student. But if you count the number of people that start with one of the "courses for entry" and compare to the number of people who actually get admitted, their admission rate would be even lower than, say, the Harvard Kennedy School (which by the way is willing to grant a master's degree to someone that doesn't even have an undergraduate degree).
Why it gets such flack for being "Harvard, but not really" doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Harvard College - the undergraduate school - is the super exclusive part. Harvard University - the collection of graduate schools plus the college - is huge with a wide variety of exclusivity and completely uncorrelated ability.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#84And 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.
Based on my understanding of PSLF, that's a feature not a bug
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#85Colleges 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…
Harvard Extension grad here. Even though most people taking Extension School classes are casual class-takers, the liberal arts degree programs for undergraduates and graduate students are well established ( https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/10/7/extension-schoo... ). While the Extension School does offer certificate programs, it's the Harvard Business School that has really benefited IMHO. They are really pushi…
What job can you get after liberal arts degree? I am guessing politics?
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Why does a 5th year undergrad extension make sense but not a non-thesis masters? They are effectively the same thing right? Additional classes?
I can only speak for MIT, but its 5th year Masters of Engineering program does require a thesis[1]. It makes sense for a lot of students at MIT since many undergrads take graduate-level classes anyway (since they can also fulfill undergrad requirements and are often more interesting anyway) so it's only slightly more effort to do the thesis and get the Masters.
In my own personal experience, I was already done with the graduate class requirement after my 4th year, so I only had to concentrate on doing the thesis during the 5th year (though I also enrolled in a couple electives of my own choosing). For me, that year was relatively more chill than my previous years.
[1] https://www.eecs.mit.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/me...
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s the reasoning behind this? Like librarians, firefighters and cops often serve as de-facto social workers… And sure they can’t handle the most complex cases. But a lot of times someone’s problem might boil down to something simple, like they just need shoes or a meal.
> Like librarians Funny you should mention librarians. It is not uncommon for any role which is titled "librarian" to require a masters of library science / information science. Example job ad: https://workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/default/mdf/recruitment/... * Other roles are commonly called "Information Specialist" or assorted similar titles (example: https://workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/default/mdf/recruitment/... ).…
Librarian is a very high status job for “alternatives” in New Zealand. Because of that, libraries can demand high levels of credentials for low levels of pay.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Harvard Extension grad here. Even though most people taking Extension School classes are casual class-takers, the liberal arts degree programs for undergraduates and graduate students are well established ( https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/10/7/extension-schoo... ). While the Extension School does offer certificate programs, it's the Harvard Business School that has really benefited IMHO. They are really pushi…
What job can you get after liberal arts degree? I am guessing politics?
very few people are paid for "poly-tricks"
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm happy you included that, my alma matter has also turned to this, the percentage of out of country compared to in state has changed drastically since I went there. I feel bad for the kids applying who in years passed would have been accepted but now aren't because of these perverse incentives.
Re: USC pushed a $115k online degree – graduates got low salaries, huge debts
#90Cheapest online US regional accreditation is WGU, which you can do at own pace so if you know calculus you can just write the exam. UK open u is probably the next cheapest but not by much. UoP is on regional accreditation path but only national right now. Everything else is going to be min $40k bachelor or $20k+ Masters but even Arizona pricey online deg is cheaper than this article or Florida U, both have real curri…
I'm going to take a minute to plug WGU I got my undergrad and grad from there and it is fantastic. I would recommend it for anyone that is already working and needs a piece of paper. They work on a competency based model where you either take a test, or do a project/paper (or both) for the class to pass it. If it takes you 3 weeks to study and pass the test it takes 3 weeks, if it takes 2 days you can pass the class…
It is also regionally accredited, which is important if you are hoping to go onto grad school or transfer credits to a different university later.
I am about 75% through the program and for someone who has been in the field for a while, it is really good. A lot of classes have just been taking a quick test to prove competency, but the discrete math and computer architecture classes were really interesting and useful.
That said, I'd be slightly hesitant to fully recommend it to someone who had zero prior programming experience. The fact that there are no assignments and only a handful of courses that require projects means you can graduate without having written a ton of code, and the code you do write is somewhat disjointed - a few Python courses, 2 Java courses (with a heavy emphasis on JavaFX), and a random C++ course that seemed pretty out of place. I don't that is the worst thing in the world, but if someone comes in cold and just checks all the boxes to get through the program as quickly as possible, they may find themselves ill-prepared for interviews and their first job.