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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

#201

Post by rsj_hn »

999900000999 wrote: post #115
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don't get to use it. You could drop off in the first semester by that logic and it would have saved most of her money.

You can also file for bankruptcy 3 years after driving the car off the lot.

Do you get a low interest rate loan guaranteed by taxpayers when you bought that car? With provisions that payments would only be required after you got a job and that they would be capped as a percentage of income? And did you know that the loan was non-dischargeable when you took it out?

If you can say yes to all of the above, then you shouldn't be able to discharge it in bankruptcy, either.

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

#202

Post by csee »

BizarroLand wrote: post #127
eindiran wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This creates an incentive structure that is exactly the opposite of what you want.

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?

The logic is wrong because you've assumed a negative or zero correlation between societal usefulness and earnings when the correlation is actually a positive one.

Maybe a social work degree has positive externalities that far exceed the earnings. But there's also a lot of crap that doesn't, and incentivizing the landslide of crap and disincentivizing the skills that are in shortage will do a lot of damage.

Stuff that pays well tends to be stuff that's actually valued by society. Structural engineers and surgeons get paid lots of money because they actually value add and their skills are in short supply.

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

#203

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#204

Post by csee »

passivate wrote: post #10
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.

Yep, Additionally we could also push for tuition-free community colleges to reduce the need for for-profit colleges in the first place.

That's a great idea as long as we're not subsidizing activist disciplines such as gender studies. I'd be happy for my tax money to be going towards free computer science courses at a community college.

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

#205

Post by csee »

jamestimmins wrote: post #146
literallyaduck wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should aggressively target universities who commit this type of fraud and seize their assets, buildings, real estate, donations and endowments to recoup the taxpayers money.

Where is the fraud? I acknowledge the unethical behavior, but that's distinct from fraud.

It's a confidence game being played on 17 year old kids who don't know any better. I agree it's a grey area and the fraud label may not fit, but it's fairly close to the truth.

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

#206

Post by EduToss »

parm289 wrote: post #123

Perhaps a bit off topic, but seeing the breadth of general discussion about online CS masters programs in this thread, figured I'd ask the HN crowd: How is a program like the Penn MCIT Online degree[0] viewed by engineering and product hiring teams in industry? I am looking at transitioning from venture capital investing to SWE (and potentially product, given my business background) and this seems like a good option…

Throwaway as have done work slightly related to this industry.

I looked in to MCIT online but the outcomes appeared to be very mediocre. One of the testimonials was a student who got a job in sales at a tech company.

A big tell is if you go to their outcomes page it is a bit embarrassing in the lack of anything to boast about. https://online.seas.upenn.edu/degrees/mcit-online/outcomes/

First testimonial: "Halfway through her first year in MCIT Online, Xunjing Wu is considering applying for a product management role."

Pay $26,000 to consider applying for a role.

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

#207

Post by csee »

TimPC wrote: post #118

Degrees are often used as proxies for an IQ test. To get into school X you must be at least Y smart. As long as we ban IQ tests for employment employers are going to keep using this as the best practical proxy. It’s going to have these kinds of bad effects where people need to get $115k degrees to get a $50k job since some people will do so despite the nonsensical ROI. We need to remove the law banning IQ tests in jo…

What law is this?

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

#208

Post by azth »

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.

A better solution is for the universities to completely absorb the loss and never receive the remainder of the loan instead of it being on taxpayers' shoulders. This way at least they'll think twice before offering worthless degrees for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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

#209

Post by xyzzy21 »

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.

It's the EXACT SAME financial disconnect between risk and reward that cause the 2008 crash. AKA Moral Hazard.

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

#210

Post by Jensson »

csee wrote: post #207
TimPC wrote: post #118

Degrees are often used as proxies for an IQ test. To get into school X you must be at least Y smart. As long as we ban IQ tests for employment employers are going to keep using this as the best practical proxy. It’s going to have these kinds of bad effects where people need to get $115k degrees to get a $50k job since some people will do so despite the nonsensical ROI. We need to remove the law banning IQ tests in jo…

What law is this?

You aren't allowed to discriminate based on race, and as we all know some races do better on IQ tests than others. Basically this rule:

> A selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than four-fifths (4/5) (or eighty percent) of the rate for the group with the highest rate will generally be regarded by the Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact

https://www.uniformguidelines.com/uniformguidelines.html#18

It means that for tests with disparage impact you need good evidence that it is actually relevant, good luck proving that for IQ tests. So either you need to design an IQ test which doesn't favor any race, or you need to design an IQ test which looks like work so you can convince a court that it is relevant for the job. College can be seen as an example of the later.

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