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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

#191
post #174

Earlier 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.

My dad was an lcsw and it’s nothing like what you’re describing. A lot of what he did was counseling people with very serious mental health issues and trauma, often with criminal histories. He was specifically involved in helping people find careers and housing that would allow them to build a stable life. These people had such difficult backgrounds that it took counseling just to get them to that point. I would also…

I clearly wrote an exemption for the most complicated cases. There are cases where all someone needs is for someone to point them in the right direction (navigating all the agencies and non-profits providing help is daunting).

My mom ran a daycare that partnered with a women’s shelter. Some of the cases were just a person who need a few months to sort out their life and rebuild.

Other’s had deep emotional trauma, little means of supporting themselves independently (e.g. lacking a high school education) and needed help with navigating the criminal justice system (either as a victim or a defendant). These folks clearly need a social worker with deep expertise in multiple areas.

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

#192
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems that all schools added a "data science" specialization a few years ago, but of course they can't suddenly become good at it if they haven't done it before. My master in a no-name French tech school was mostly a software development curriculum, with some DL and scikit-learn courses tacked on. That was for the paper, the actual skills came on the job and online.

France has great engineering schools that are very math focused.

Anyone with a French engineering diploma I would consider for a data science position.

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

#193
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would humanities, arts, pure reasearch and the like survive in this model?

Reduce the tuition, which last I checked is still a substantial portion of the total cost of education. How can a school charge the same amount of tuition, per unit, for different fields that pay substantially, sometimes orders of magnitude, different over the lifetime. For example: MBAs, JDs, Medical fields' tuition is much higher. Why is that not the case across the board?

Would this then force companies to pay according to what universities charge? How are those levels determined?

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

#194
post #175

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

My favorite idea for this issue is that the gov't should pay for college, except it should pay a multiple of the student's increase in earned taxable income averaged over the 5 years preceding and following the degree. High school students would have near zero income, so it would mostly be a multiple of their 5 year average income after graduation. This pays directly for what the gov't wants (increase in the student'…

id never heard this, but it makes a lot of sense.

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

#195

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.

Change it to 50% cover that must be paid via claw-backs from Administrative bloat salaries/bonuses, and it would make sense.

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

#196
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reduce the tuition, which last I checked is still a substantial portion of the total cost of education. How can a school charge the same amount of tuition, per unit, for different fields that pay substantially, sometimes orders of magnitude, different over the lifetime. For example: MBAs, JDs, Medical fields' tuition is much higher. Why is that not the case across the board?

Would this then force companies to pay according to what universities charge? How are those levels determined?

Those are determined by demand and supply. Why does a society want to produce experts in fields where there is no value.

Note, many/most people in software engineering have other interests. But they have not made a career out if it. So, if humanities interests someone, it can be a perfectly good hobby for many, till demand and supply evens up that leads to rise in salaries.

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

#197

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

I wish people who have a mission to do good could also do math and plan for their own futures. You’d think they should be protected a bit. Except protections would be scammed and we’d have to be ok writing scam losses off as well.

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

#198
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having a hard cap of 100k unless enrolling in a high paid field ( Dr , Lawyer, anything that requires a state sanctioned license) would be a good idea. I think you have a valid point, which probably got missed in the rest of your comment. Why are student loans not tied to the value of the program, which determines their ability to pay? I cannot get a $100K loan for a Corolla nor can I get $5 million loan for a $500…

How would humanities, arts, pure reasearch and the like survive in this model?

They might not. You have the degree program, and you have the classes. This sounds a lot like unbundling your cable channels. Maybe go for market prices per class. Some classes would be worth more than their averaged share of tuition today, others less. You could always turn class sign-up into an auction.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Take a lower paying course that benefits society for little or no cost to you or a higher paying course that will push you into the upper middle or lower upper class that costs more. The only losers here would be the colleges that no longer get to charge the same $300k for every degree they stamp. Where is my logic wrong?

There's a shortage of software engineers and we need more students to enroll in STEM. When deciding between an expensive STEM degree or a free liberal arts degree, students are incentivized to chose the free degree in your proposed solution.

There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money. ~ David "Pardo" Keppel

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

#200

Ehh eh. I went to a CSU for like 6k a year. If you want to be elitist and attend the most expensive school possible, you have to eventually pay for it. > Ms. Fowler, a 2018 graduate, enjoyed the program but owes $307,000 in total student-loan debt, including about $200,000 from the master’s degree. She said she earns $48,000 as a community mental-health therapist in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This translates into paying 3…

>The problem with Student Loan forgiveness is it would typically help the highest paid Americans. Most people with 100k plus in loans also make very good money. Why would that be a problem ? First, your "typically" needs a citation. The average student loan is about $40K. Second, it's not a problem to help struggling people if a percentage of people who are not struggling benefits too. Nothing is 100% efficient, and…

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/01/college-graduate-starting-sa...

Those with college degrees make more. So if you forgive student loan debt, you're giving a ton of money to people who are largely doing very well.

One can make a large variety of very stupid life-altering choices at 25, these people should have known better. I would say, again unless you're trying to be a doctor or a lawyer your student loans should be capped at 100k. That would eliminate most of the most outrageous behavior. I know for myself I took a modest 20,000 or so in loans and that changed my life forever. That allowed me to go to college, and escape my horrible family who like not paying bills and getting evicted.

If you forgive the student loans, the counter argument becomes get rid of the student loans and then people who are responsible with them. Like myself, no longer have a ladder out of poverty. Honest to God, I have no sympathy for someone who with a college education decides it would be a good idea to take out another $200,000 in loans in order to get into a low paying field. Likewise if someone went and took their inheritance and bet it all on bitcoin, I wouldn't want a law passed reimbursing them.

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