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The unbundling of Harvard has begun

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Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#41

Post by namdnay »

helen___keller wrote: post #15

This is a strange choice of title because Harvard is easily among the institutions that will be least affected by the pandemic. While it may be true that for the world's elite that the value prop of Harvard is rubbing elbows with other elites, it's also true that for the rest of us the value prop of Harvard is merely having it on your resume. There's no shortage of talented students who'd love Harvard on their resume…

> Use your time to start an online business

What does that even mean? It make me think that for this guy “starting an online business” means setting up a dropshipping website or something equally scammy

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#42

Post by throwgeorge »

impendia wrote: post #26
roenxi wrote: post #10

I'm not sure if this gentleman has a thesis but Harvard online education is worth not much. The whole value proposition of Harvard is that you socialise and bond with the sort of people who get in to Harvard. You probably have the phone number of whoever runs Goldman Sachs [0] and you know the President of Whereveristan's daughter because she was in your class. The little things in life. It is possible but unlikely t…

> It is possible but unlikely that Harvard has Secret Math Here is an entire undergraduate course in abstract algebra, taught by retired Harvard professor Benedict Gross. http://matterhorn.dce.harvard.edu/engage/ui/index.html#/1999... I know Gross personally, and have heard him lecture several times; although I haven't watched these lectures in particular, I'm guessing that that they're just about as good as it gets.…

lol i don't understand your point "harvard doesn't have secret math - the proof is all of these publicly available math lectures from world renowned mathematicians"

the value of harvard math profs isn't reaped by the undergrads, it's reaped by the grad students that work closely/directly with these profs. i'm not 100% sure of this but benedict gross probably isn't holding several hours of office hours every week for his undergrad algebra classes (although he might for the grad sections).

now the knock-on effect, obviously, is that the very good math phd students that pursue and are admitted to harvard do provide a lot of value for the undergrads (since they're TAing/holding office hours for those undergrads). but those same harvard phd students then go get tenure track positions at mediocre schools where office hours are held by profs. so it all evens out as far as undergrads go :)

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#43

Post by namdnay »

xyst wrote: post #12

~$80K per semester at Harvard. I now understand why almost every graduate of Harvard tends to bring up the fact they graduated from Harvard on nearly every conversation. I went to a public school and my 4 year tuition cost is equivalent to half the cost of single a semester at Harvard. I only graduated a couple of years ago so inflation is negligible. Guess who I work with the most and still earn the same wage (if no…

It really depends what job you do. We’re lucky enough in tech that companies don’t necessarily pay based on diploma, but I can guarantee that if you’re in traditional big corporation world, a Harvard grad will be payed a good 20% more than someone who went to an average university

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#44

Post by jghn »

roenxi wrote: post #10

I'm not sure if this gentleman has a thesis but Harvard online education is worth not much. The whole value proposition of Harvard is that you socialise and bond with the sort of people who get in to Harvard. You probably have the phone number of whoever runs Goldman Sachs [0] and you know the President of Whereveristan's daughter because she was in your class. The little things in life. It is possible but unlikely t…

Living in the area I've had pockets of Harvard grads in my life over the years. It's been eye opening in this regard. The opportunities provided to them for having "Harvard graduate" on their resume and/or the connections they made while they were there gave them a leg up in so many ways. Sometimes profound, sometimes subtle, but always there. As an example, I had an ex-gf who had been an undergrad there but moved to NYC to pursue a career in theatre. Instead of the usual waiter/bartender type side gig she was able to do SAT tutoring through a service which only hired Harvard grads, and as it turned out that was their only required qualification. Turns out rich New Yorkers would pay a huge amount per hour to have their children tutored by "Harvard grads". She was making more money than I was as a software developer while working far fewer hours. Granted, software wasn't the sort of wages we see today but the effect was real.

I've taken classes at Harvard Extension out of convenience, but even in cases where it's "the same class" at no point did I tell myself it was the same experience.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#45

Post by qwerty456127 »

The first time I've read "Harvard announced that it would continue 100% online learning in the Fall but keep tuition prices the same" I thought this means you can watch all the lectures for free and only have to pay if you care to visit them offline, get the assignments and the diploma. Apparently this is not the case although many Harvard courses actually are available online for free.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#46

Post by raxxorrax »

roenxi wrote: post #10

I'm not sure if this gentleman has a thesis but Harvard online education is worth not much. The whole value proposition of Harvard is that you socialise and bond with the sort of people who get in to Harvard. You probably have the phone number of whoever runs Goldman Sachs [0] and you know the President of Whereveristan's daughter because she was in your class. The little things in life. It is possible but unlikely t…

I think this is a very good development. The price of education should be inflated as much as possible so everyone can receive high quality education.

While it is good to have like minded people come together, nepotism is not desirable. Having direct contacts to mentors is worth a lot, but I doubt it can justify the price.

The focus on the best of the best has become focus on the richest of the rich.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#47

Post by kingkawn »

watwut wrote: post #34
secondcoming wrote: post #5

"I'm Brett... and Twitter power user" I can't believe a grown adult considers this some sort of qualification. As for "education-based communities on the backs of (social) media empires"... what a horrible thought. Imagine getting your education from a Twitterati or Fox News-backed organisation. "Psychology is the most underrated major in tech." Maybe for someone with a psychology degree who's looking for a "Silicon…

> Psychology is the most underrated major in tech. That particular tweet continues with "UX, growth, management, etc all boil down to understanding how people think." And you know ... my tech education did missed even basics of user interfaces or reasonable level of management/organizational/team dynamic info. Just a basic information on how to select colors or generally make things look decent. Does not have to make…

Then go find that info it’s all easily available

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#48

Post by 214610 »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #35
kanobo wrote: post #19

PSA: The 80k price tag is the sticker price. The actual average cost of Harvard is < 15k when you account for aid and parents bargaining down the price. So please try to negotiate the price if you are actually considering paying 80k.

It appears that most families making under 65k USD/year pay nothing to send a child to Harvard. Families making up to 150k USD/year are expected to pay a maximum of 10% of their income. The sticker price is what Harvard charges rich people. Harvard has a massive endowment, and probably doesn't really rely too heavily on tuition anyways.

What % of students with family incomes under 65k/yr are admitted to Harvard vs the % of students with family incomes greater than that?

According to: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit...

“ The median family income of a student from Harvard is $168,800, and 67% come from the top 20 percent. About 1.8% of students at Harvard came from a poor family but became a rich adult.”

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#49

Post by euix »

anonunivgrad wrote: post #13

A big function that universities play is circumventing some arguably bad interpretations of labor law. In the United States, it is essentially illegal to hire based on the results of an intelligence test. This is the result of various cases interpreting and applying the disparate impact doctrine. But no one bats an eye when you send your recruiters to only the "elite" universities or when your company is overwhelming…

That's how it works in China and other East Asian countries, if you ever read the history of Korea, government offices were essentially monopolized by Yangban in the late Joseon dynasty. Which was basically an aristocratic class of test takers.

Meritocracy over a period of time warps into its own form of elitism.

Re: The unbundling of Harvard has begun

#50

Post by swagonomixxx »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #29
secondcoming wrote: post #5

"I'm Brett... and Twitter power user" I can't believe a grown adult considers this some sort of qualification. As for "education-based communities on the backs of (social) media empires"... what a horrible thought. Imagine getting your education from a Twitterati or Fox News-backed organisation. "Psychology is the most underrated major in tech." Maybe for someone with a psychology degree who's looking for a "Silicon…

Even worse: "Twitter is where all the action happens in the tech industry"

"Tech Twitter TLDR".

As if there is only one "tech Twitter" that you can concisely summarize in a "TLDR".

For another, why would I care what users on Twitter say? Is there some proven law that sentiment of Twitter users (mostly bots? I don't know) is now the sentiment of the masses?

I'm not denying that there are many students that are angered by Harvard not agreeing to lower tuition costs for online learning, but what does "Tech Twitter" have anything to do with that?

Has any one of these prospective Harvard students written something expressing their disdain at Harvard and the extremely overpriced American higher education industry?

"Twitter is where all the action happens in the tech industry".

Absolutely not. It's where a lot of people mumble garbage about random things. Are there some people on Twitter who don't do this? Of course. However, the large majority of Twitter is a cesspool and it should not be taken as a first-tier source of information.

There's just so much wrong with this post.

Emoji's everywhere, before practically every sentence and in every section. Tip to the writer - if you want to be taken seriously, do as serious journalists do, and let your prose convey the emotions you want them to convey to the reader. Emojis simply have no place in any journalism of any kind, unless you're a "Twitter power user" I guess.

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