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It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

randalolson.com

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Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#131

Post by TheCoelacanth »

misterS wrote: post #106

> Most students take 12 credit hours per semester and only attend Fall and Spring semester. That’s 24 credit hours per year. 24 credits a year?! I am curious, is this really the norm in the US? At the universitiy I attended in mainland Europe you were excpected to do 30 credits each semester, so 60 CP a year.

US credits and ECTS credits don't mean the same thing. A US credit is roughly equivalent to 2 ECTS credits in terms of amount of time spent. Additionally, 12 credit hours is an unusually small amount of credits to take. That's usually the minimum amount to qualify as a full-time student. If you want to graduate in the normal amount of time you have to take more like 16 credit hours per semester.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#132

Post by alecdbrooks »

gohrt wrote: post #69
h1karu wrote: post #10

I'll just leave this here: http://www.geekation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Geekatio...

Perhaps Noam Chomsky should stop drawing a salary from those tuition-paying students.

As a professor emeritus at MIT, he doesn't. [0] It isn't clear how much faculty salaries contribute to the problem anyway, so I don't think it's hypocritical for professors critiquing tuition increases to accept a salary.

[0]: http://web.mit.edu/policies/2/2.3.html#sub1

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#133

Post by gedrap »

I am finishing my last year at Uni of Manchester (UK), and coming from a poor family in Eastern Europe.

On one hand, it really sucks that I can't really afford to focus mainly on education because I have no plan B regarding money and have spent enough time being totally broke. It was a bit crushing experience when I knew I could do much better, if I could spend more time on it.

But on other hand, that experience of working my up definitely helped me to grow up as a person. Which maybe is much more valuable, then the technical skills and the degree?

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#134

Post by dobbsbob »

WriteYourRep wrote: post #111
dtmooreiv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did you do this?

I worked my way through university from 2006-2010. I was able to pay for my freshman year due to a gift from grandparents and random saving (2005-2006). Spring 2006 I got a full time job with the university. I worked for the school because they give great benefits to full time employees. My tuition was cut from ~6k/semester to ~2k. I was making more than minimum wage, nearly double at the time at $13/hour. This helpe…

How did you do assignments? I was given about 2hrs work per lecture, and usually a long term project as well so would do around 5-6hrs of after school work often longer if I was stuck on some essay writing. Phil essay/argument to write, 2 chapters in Phys to do, 2 Math chapters, write a polisci essay and read 3 chapters, then churning out a small program while working on the midterm larger program was a typical night.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#135

Post by smm2000 »

Fomite wrote: post #109
RyanZAG wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. "

The vast majority of people have no aspiration towards being an academic administrator, and academic administrators aren't exactly a powerful voting block.

But disabled veterans are a voting block and they vote themselves extra services on campus and those services come with administrator. Repeat this process with every disadvantaged group and you have tremendous bloat.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#136

Post by dalke »

gohrt wrote: post #66
primitivesuave wrote: post #4

I had a well-paying software internship for most of my time in college, and still left college with ~$30k of debt. Even while making $600/week, it wasn't possible to manage living expenses and tuition payments without taking loans.

$30k total debt, to enable your future career, is nothing to be complaining about. That's ~$50/month service.

It's certainly something to be complaining about. It may enable a career, but not always, and the career may be enough to pay off a loan, but not always. At the very least, $30K of debt is a lot to have hanging over one's head for years.

Consider also those who are 3 years into the degree and decide that field isn't for them, and they want to leave school - that's nearly $20k down the toilet which will be hard to pay back.

BTW, your logic applies equally well to indentured servants. (Years of labor enables free passage to the US and the chance for one's own farm at the end.) Since I don't like the concept of debt bondage, I distrust logic which supports it.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#137

Post by randomdata »

mason240 wrote: post #18
glenra wrote: post #11

That chart assumes the only option available is to work minimum wage jobs. Which seems nuts, especially when one takes into consideration the possibility of working full-time during the summer at a real job in one's area of specialization. What you need to chart this is some measure of how much college students actually are earning over time, not a measure of the lowest wage it's legally permissible to pay them.

That was actually my first thought as well, but came to an opposite conclusion: it's even harder now for students because there are no jobs above MW. Today there are MW jobs, and there are middle-class 40/year jobs, but there not much in between. I'm 30 so I don't know for certain about the past, but the only higher than MW job I could find when in school 4 years ago was delivering pizza.

> there are no jobs above MW.

I'm not sure that the math works out. 4% of those with high school educations, but not a degree, work a minimum wage job. That works out to about 8M people. At the same time, there are ~14M people enrolled in college. So even if we assume every single one of those 8M minimum wage jobs are filled by people who are in college, that still leaves 6M people who are either unemployed or making more. And if we make that assumption, that also means everyone who is not enrolled in college and has a high school education is making more than minimum wage.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#138

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

davidf18 wrote: post #127

In years past, states contributed a much larger proportion of public school budgets than they do today. Much of that money now goes towards Medicaid. Much of that Medicaid money does not go towards the poor but rather middle class who go to nursing homes. They spend down their assets and transfer them to their children. Hence, at least partially because of the middle class not buying nursing home insurance, the publi…

This is where I'm reminded of my disconnect: City College of NY was my "safety school." Back then it was $800/semester and I would have been commuting from our apartment in Brooklyn, so no meals/residency costs.

This situation has gotten insane.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#139

Post by theorique »

glesica wrote: post #72
theorique wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive. It's certainly not due to inflation in quality of education. More and more classes are taught by graduate students and adjuncts rather than actual professors (who are mostly focused on their research programs in order to earn tenure). There are probably a few factors. - increased student expectations of 'fun', leading to new facilities (dorms, student centers, etc…

- increasingly top-heavy administration (hey, let's add another $300K Assistant Deputy VP of Student Diversity, etc) providing a path for faculty to 'advance' in their careers I'd like to point out that much of the administrative bloat has occurred because of new (bipartisan) laws forcing colleges to provide more services. There are services for veterans, services for the disabled, services for victims of crimes, ove…

Good point. My comment snarked at the faculty a bit, but I'm sure the rank-and-file don't love the top-heavy bloat either.

It's great for the mid to late career faculty member who wants to take the next step and become an administrator. It's less so for those whose areas of interest are lower priority and must tighten belts.

Re: It’s impossible to work your way through college nowadays

#140

Post by theorique »

traviscj wrote: post #94
theorique wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to ask ourselves why college is so expensive. It's certainly not due to inflation in quality of education. More and more classes are taught by graduate students and adjuncts rather than actual professors (who are mostly focused on their research programs in order to earn tenure). There are probably a few factors. - increased student expectations of 'fun', leading to new facilities (dorms, student centers, etc…

> It's certainly not due to inflation in quality of education. More and more classes are taught by graduate students and adjuncts rather than actual professors (who are mostly focused on their research programs in order to earn tenure). UGH! These kind of comments make me so angry. Sure, lots of graduate students are sub par due to inexperience or distraction or pure, simple busy-ness, but lots and lots of professors…

Fair point. The mere fact of having earned a PhD does not automatically make a person a great teacher, and lacking one does not make a person a bad teacher. I certainly had a few full professors who were phoning it in every class, droning over their 20 year old lecture notes.

However, in my undergraduate experience, the most interesting and memorable classes were taught by active professors with many years of teaching experience, who also had a good research program. It helped a lot when they would teach class material, and also connect it to what was current in their field of research.

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