The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much • Hacker News Board

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#111

Post by jkestner » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 6:25 PM UTC

DougWebb wrote: post #98

jkestner wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the year-off strategy is a good one. Too many people go back to grad school almost just for a re-do. 18 is too young to pick a career - I switched majors twice in the first two years. I want to formulate a better set of options and incentives for my kids. To start, I could chip in for some tuition if they take a year off, or just minimally support them for that year as long as they leave home. The pull of pee…

18 is too young to pick a career Pretty much everyone throughout human history, outside of recent Western history, would probably disagree with that. By 18 you were expected to be a self-supporting adult. I think 18 is too young to pick a career only if you wait until you're 18 to start thinking about it. If you're encouraged and allowed to explore your interests earlier, you should have a pretty good idea of what yo…

After further discussion offline, I came to that conclusion too. Before college, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do that had no connection to reality or my temperament ("Building spacecraft is like model rockets, right?"). Doing practical work and going on field trips gave me the real taste of careers, and if I had gotten some of that in high school or sooner, yeah, I would've been looking at schools based on the major I ended up with, and done better, faster.

I was given free reign to explore my interests, but maybe not actively encouraged, especially where you need to go meet professionals in their workplace. I'll try to correct that with the next generation. A car factory or construction site can be just as fun as the zoo.

And if work is fun and part of a balanced diet, there's less need to 'detox' from life for a year, or four years.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#112

Post by nilkn » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 6:29 PM UTC

jakejake wrote: post #69

reuven wrote: post #57

American universities aren't just about education. Or even research, for that matter. They're often about providing a "life experience" for undergraduates. So you have a huge investment in sports, entertainment, and living facilities that are basically unheard of in other countries. Plus, all sort of administrators and advisors who help students in a variety of different ways. These add up to a great experience, and…

Some people treat college like a four year vacation with planned activities. In which case the price is really quite cheap. Looking back, I was guilty of this attitude at various times.

As a typical kid in the US, it's virtually impossible to ever go anywhere on your own without getting a car. And the chances are high you won't get a car anyway, because your parents can't afford to buy you one and, well, how exactly are you supposed to afford your own car as a jobless kid?

The only way is to get a minimum wage job and suck out a considerable amount of time from your high school studies and extracurriculars, all just to have a car. But educational achievement is ranked very, very high in priority in the US, so a lot of kids who understand that are going to choose to just forgo the car completely if their parents can't get them one.

To top it off, most kids in the US have, up until college, never experienced a walkable microcosm of society, outside of shopping malls. The idea of living in this little walkable world is so exciting that it becomes worth the cost. It's like taking a (short) lifetime of observing all the systemic problems with American life and then finding a new little world that recognizes all those problems and fixes every one.

In that sense, in the US, going off to college comes with this tremendous sense of relief, where you feel like finally, for the first time, life is starting to make sense. Almost all college students will ask themselves repeatedly on first matriculating, "why the hell wasn't life like this in high school and earlier?"

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#113

Post by namlem » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

mikebelanger wrote: post #95

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one? PKU? Qinghua? Shanghai Jiaotong? It is not such an easy choice anymore, and the universities in Beijing have poor facilities compared to Shanghai, making it difficult for them to attract shanghainese to come here to Beijing to study. Even chinese students these days want heated and air conditioned dormitories, a shower in their dorm (at least on their floor! Definitely not in a separate building), and clea…

I like how you're insinuating that current Chinese students are acting entitled by wanting heating and air conditioning in their dorms. Whereas in Canada/US, heating/air conditioning in dorms is considered a basic :P We really are spoiled in the West.

Tons of dorms in the US still have no air conditioning.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#114

Post by brianbreslin » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

My father is a university administrator, and he told me this theory years ago, that the costs were due to excess bureaucracy.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#115

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 7:49 PM UTC

namlem wrote: post #113

mikebelanger wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how you're insinuating that current Chinese students are acting entitled by wanting heating and air conditioning in their dorms. Whereas in Canada/US, heating/air conditioning in dorms is considered a basic :P We really are spoiled in the West.

Tons of dorms in the US still have no air conditioning.

imagine some place hotter than Atlanta without AC. That damn Yangtze river line: the north of it gets heat in the winter, the south of it gets AC in the summer, it isn't as accurate as you'd think.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#116

Post by makeset » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

chrisBob wrote: post #67

reuven wrote: post #57

American universities aren't just about education. Or even research, for that matter. They're often about providing a "life experience" for undergraduates. So you have a huge investment in sports, entertainment, and living facilities that are basically unheard of in other countries. Plus, all sort of administrators and advisors who help students in a variety of different ways. These add up to a great experience, and…

The extra features are all based on how US students choose a school. Here undergrads go to the school with the beautiful student union, the gym with a juice bar and climbing wall, and want to live in a room near the nicest 24 hour dining hall with made to order stir fry and sandwiches. Having granite countertops in the dorm room also helps. This is just how the select the specific university though. The target group…

Amenities, even granite countertops, are at least of some actual personal use. Applications to a local college apparently doubled last year because their football team was on a winning streak.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#117

Post by jsprogrammer » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 8:01 PM UTC

muzz wrote: post #109

jsprogrammer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mentioned the large increase in administrators.

Yes this amorphous group of "administrators". Wonder why no article ever mentions the actual job titles/functions of these administrators? I suspect they are largely athletics-related, and by not providing details the authors can rely on readers to assume that these "administrators" are instead useless bureaucrats.

Are you arguing that tuition costs for everyone should rise so that there can be more athletics-related personnel?

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#118

Post by sheepmullet » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 9:12 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #99

yodsanklai wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's take my compilers class as an example. I go to a 75 minute lecture 2 times a week and I do about 4 hours of homework a week. I do this over 18 weeks. That's only roughly 120 hours of study over the course of a semester. That's only as many hours as most full time employees work every 3 weeks! The comparison doesn't seem fair. First, I suppose you have others classes at the same time. And if you don't, you're…

> Are you sure that you'd be able to do that? supervised education helps you to pace yourself, focus on what is important and to keep motivated over the long run. The actual content is maybe the least important. I'm 100% sure. The motivation is all there. Why would I be in this class if I had to be coaxed into learning about it? I think I can learn more in one long sitting than piecing away at any given topic. That's…

"I'm 100% sure. The motivation is all there. Why would I be in this class if I had to be coaxed into learning about it?"

So then why aren't you going through the lex and yacc sources in addition to your compiler class work? It's not like you have to ask for permission.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#119

Post by sheepmullet » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 9:31 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #36

MCRed wrote: post #21

I think a more interesting question is, how has the ROI of college changed over the past 40 years? The cost has gone up much faster than inflation. The number of people going to college has also risen dramatically. This means there are a lot more college educated peers competing with you in the workplace. This means that the college degree is not as rare, and thus has lower scarcity value. Finally, I think it's quite…

One criticism I have of education systems is that they structurally encourage only superficially studying content. Let's take my compilers class as an example. I go to a 75 minute lecture 2 times a week and I do about 4 hours of homework a week. I do this over 18 weeks. That's only roughly 120 hours of study over the course of a semester. That's only as many hours as most full time employees work every 3 weeks! And t…

"Here's a question to you: if I handed you a résumé, without a bachelor's degree, but instead included my github profile and a list of books I've read cover to cover and some open source contributions, am I going to get the salary I am worth?"

Depends a whole lot on your GitHub profile. For example to determine compiler knowledge I would expect to see a basic compiler implemented end-end as well as a reasonable contribution to an existing compiler and a few write ups/design papers.

Repeat for the other 15 odd important areas of study, and add in a few internships etc to show you can work well as part of a team and yes I would certainly hire you and pay you well. But this amount of work will take 2-3 years in any case.

Re: The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much

#120

Post by m3talridl3y » Sun, Apr 05, 2015, 10:33 PM UTC

Someone needs to build a "spartan" college. Use the cheapest construction materials+. No sports teams++. No extracurricular activities+++. No degrees that aren't in STEM.++++

+ - Does the round glass section contribute to learning in some way? What am I missing? http://newsroom.unl.edu/releases/downloadables/photo/2012091...

++ - If your sports team starts to win, people will wonder why your crappy 10-year-old sports stadium hasn't been demolished and rebuilt. It's 10 years old already! We need at least 30% glass panel coverage on the exterior! Get with the times already!

+++ - You want a robotics club or a harry potter reading club or a javelin-throwing club? Fine, but find your own funding.

++++ - If you really think you're the gods' gift to mankind when it comes to ancient Egyptian art, then by all means, get admitted to an ivy-league-status establishment. The last thing the world needs are more junior-league art majors.