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I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

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Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#101

Post by araes »

Loughla wrote: post #82
beloch wrote: post #61

1. Apprentice in a good trade and you can earn more than the average professor. Seriously, my plumber makes more than than the prof who taught me quantum physics. 2. If you're at all cut out for college, you can get scholarships. 3. Even if you're not brilliant and just persistent, you can get loans. University administrators and their associated bureaucracy have been expanding for quite some time now. It's actually…

I agree that higher education administrative costs have gotten higher since the 90's, BUT (and that's a big but), as far as your $20 goes, there's a reason you've been rung through the ringer. The institution didn't do that to assert dominance over you. They did it to be in compliance with the law and audit requirements. No one wants to track down $20. They have to because of rules imposed on them from outside forces…

TL;DR: You were subjected to a $2000 ordeal over a $20 charge because the audit and compliance system is broken and has no concept of measured response. Because layer after layer of bee watchers have been hired at six, seven, or eight figure salaries to ensure that every other layer of bee watchers is properly covering their asses in case that deli sandwich you bought turns into a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the good bees have left, and no one has noticed that each spoon of honey costs a hundred grand, while tasting oddly like corn syrup.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#103

Post by Loughla »

araes wrote: post #101
Loughla wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that higher education administrative costs have gotten higher since the 90's, BUT (and that's a big but), as far as your $20 goes, there's a reason you've been rung through the ringer. The institution didn't do that to assert dominance over you. They did it to be in compliance with the law and audit requirements. No one wants to track down $20. They have to because of rules imposed on them from outside forces…

TL;DR: You were subjected to a $2000 ordeal over a $20 charge because the audit and compliance system is broken and has no concept of measured response. Because layer after layer of bee watchers have been hired at six, seven, or eight figure salaries to ensure that every other layer of bee watchers is properly covering their asses in case that deli sandwich you bought turns into a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the good bees ha…

Right, wrong, or indifferent, how do you suggest we ensure tax money is appropriately spent, outside of audits?

And I think you vastly overestimate the cost of staff accountants, business office staff and compliance officers at colleges and universities. Those 'bee watchers' aren't making six, seven or eight figure salaries. More like 35,XXX-55,XXX; a very reasonable figure for accountants.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#104

Post by voidlogic »

steveklabnik wrote: post #52
voidlogic wrote: post #41

>>I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree That is very true for some degrees, but I laugh when potential C-S students say this. My first year of undergrad at well performing state university, I took loans and worked at the schools IT support center, 7.50/hr. The following summer I worked as a "Application Development Intern" and made $10/hr. For the following three years I worked part-time at a local software consulting f…

How long ago was this? It matters, a lot. Tuition doubled at my school while I was there. I ended up with ~$72k in debt. And it wasn't any Ivy-league school.

I was a college freshmen in 2004. But I have family members doing something similar now. Consider the interns making 18/hr and working 25 hr a week. That is just over 23k a year which is very respectable for a student.

I think besides where you go to school mattering for tuition, people forget about housing. Where I went to school students today pay ~$300/mo per head for sharing an apartment or house. Welcome to the upper midwest, obviously we can all think of places where housing is far more expensive.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#105

Post by epa »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #35
alphaoverlord wrote: post #27

This blog post seems like a jumble of ideas that are neither consistent or connected. It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?). It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each…

Considering that it is their first degree, I made the possible inaccurate assumption that this person was just getting out of the US equivalent of high school. My thoughts at that age were pretty jumbled too. Many of my peers didn't really have any idea why they were in college until maybe their third year. It wasn't until they had the benefit of having gone through such a program and looked back on it to appreciate…

It depends who you are, i think this is all relative. Not talking myself explicitly, but for some people graduating high school is a major accomplishment in their life and is something that took a multi-year effort and was completely optional. Imagine a teenager who is the first one to graduate from high school in their family, who had numerous pressures to drop out (baby, lack of money, etc).

But I do agree with you that many people are unsure why they are in college until they are able to reflect on it after the fact. I think that happens a lot in life where you learn about yourself by looking at prior events.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#106

Post by araes »

Loughla wrote: post #103
araes wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR: You were subjected to a $2000 ordeal over a $20 charge because the audit and compliance system is broken and has no concept of measured response. Because layer after layer of bee watchers have been hired at six, seven, or eight figure salaries to ensure that every other layer of bee watchers is properly covering their asses in case that deli sandwich you bought turns into a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the good bees ha…

Right, wrong, or indifferent, how do you suggest we ensure tax money is appropriately spent, outside of audits? And I think you vastly overestimate the cost of staff accountants, business office staff and compliance officers at colleges and universities. Those 'bee watchers' aren't making six, seven or eight figure salaries. More like 35,XXX-55,XXX; a very reasonable figure for accountants.

Ha, no issue with the red herring of accountant pay rates, just with the number of them there are. The ones I have real issues with pay for are the mucky mucks near the top [1], the increasing numbers of them there are [2], and the effect they have on tuition costs [3].

On reform, I'd say something similar to the IRS approach on taxes. Spend effort where there's a return on investment. IE, they're not going to audit people below the poverty line because they're sane, and the cost of the audit will be more than the return on back taxes. Similarly, don't audit $20 lunches, because five minutes of my time is worth more than the average we'll discover in errors.

In addition, an overall lower audit rate, but with randomized chance of audit that increases logarithmically as the charge goes up. Kind of similar to how the FAA checks pilot logs.

[1] http://www.post-gazette.com/image/2014/05/18/20140519college...

[2] http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2...

[3] http://watchdog.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir...

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#107

Post by bduerst »

oh_sigh wrote: post #24
sirdogealot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so fake about it? Completing a list of criteria and scoring well on standardized tests is pretty much all that qualifies somebody for a "degree" from any one of our current post secondary insitutions. When you wrote "fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system" I assumed you were talking about the Universities and Colleges of the world.

What's so fake about buying 100,000 followers on twitter? It means you're famous, right?

What does being famous on twitter have to do with creating an education accreditation system?

Maybe Twitter could use a better accreditation system for being famous - is that what you're implying?

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#109

Post by steveklabnik »

voidlogic wrote: post #104
steveklabnik wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long ago was this? It matters, a lot. Tuition doubled at my school while I was there. I ended up with ~$72k in debt. And it wasn't any Ivy-league school.

I was a college freshmen in 2004. But I have family members doing something similar now. Consider the interns making 18/hr and working 25 hr a week. That is just over 23k a year which is very respectable for a student. I think besides where you go to school mattering for tuition, people forget about housing. Where I went to school students today pay ~$300/mo per head for sharing an apartment or house. Welcome to the…

Weird. I started in 2000, and I just went to the University of Pittsburgh, which isn't exactly an expensive city.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#110

Post by at-fates-hands »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #35
alphaoverlord wrote: post #27

This blog post seems like a jumble of ideas that are neither consistent or connected. It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?). It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each…

Considering that it is their first degree, I made the possible inaccurate assumption that this person was just getting out of the US equivalent of high school. My thoughts at that age were pretty jumbled too. Many of my peers didn't really have any idea why they were in college until maybe their third year. It wasn't until they had the benefit of having gone through such a program and looked back on it to appreciate…

There's so many good points in your post.

The one thing which benefited me the greatest when I came out of college is the ability to think critically. I was able to form my opinions, examine things in a scientific manner, and make conclusions based on research and a logical thinking process. Something I wasn't even close to handling when I was 18 years old - which goes to your point about teenagers taking time to find themselves. It took me at least 2 years before I actually realized the opportunity college gave me.

And yet, for all of the questionable classes and lackadaisical professors, I still came out with a much stronger set of tools to look at and examine the world around me and communicate those ideas in a coherent manner to my peers.

These are the kinds of tools you simply cannot put a price tag on.

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