Live data from Hacker News

As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

voiceofsandiego.org

81–90 of 147 posts

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous." This is also a sales pitch, playing to the far-right. (virtue signaling)

You think virtue signalling is playing to the far right? Care to define... any of your terms?

As others pointed out.

"Virtue Signaling" is often a term of derision placed from the right onto the left. But is often done just as much on the other side. It's part of the 'right's vocabulary of labels for the left.

I just like to point out all the times when the 'right' take part in "virtue signaling".

Right wing , political or religious, often take part in "virtue signaling". Yet, seem unconscious of it, un-ware of their own biases, because to them they are not 'signaling' they are just speaking 'truth'.

But of course, they are not. "God is real, hence I'm not just 'signaling' when I say it to my fellow believers".

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#82
post #45

Isn't the solution really easy? Make the students show up on the first day in-person, compare.with ID and take a photo.

That might not always work. There is a huge issue of Lyft and Uber drivers showing up the first day, passing all the background checks, etc. then selling their account to someone else to take their place. Maybe better is to show up first day, and to do random ID checks throughout the semester. It feels.. unfriendly and accusatory to do that but I'm not sure of the alternative...

.. but if we wanted to be a little Orwellian.. put cameras and facial recognition in the classrooms to take automatic attendance and to identify students who should not be there, or who may be missing for prolonged absences. That'll go over really well....

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#83
post #45

Isn't the solution really easy? Make the students show up on the first day in-person, compare.with ID and take a photo.

How do you handle students that are not capable of showing up on the first day in-person? - Live far away - Have a job they can't just not show up for - Having children to take care of - Health issues There's tons of reasons for people not to be able to attend in person, and not all of them are "because I didn't want to". And, for a _lot_ of those people, improving their education can have a huge impact on their qual…

Can’t show up for one day? That is such an incredibly low bar to also ask them to sit through a long series of courses and test. These college colleges are state funded, so if the person is overseas or on the opposite side of the US… then what are we really funding? That’s not the intent of a “community college”.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial aid fraud.

How are they able to profit off that? Doesnt the school cost money which the aid would just reimburse?

The community college tuition is free but the state will give you some money to help cover living expenses while you study.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#85
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such thing as free education. Just subsidized education. Costs would be pushed entirely to tax payers, many of whom have never attended college themselves. Demand, costs, taxes and state deficits would increase. The incentive for fraud would be pushed up one level to the administration.

Yeah thats why free K-12 education is bad! /s We all understand the context of words here. Believe it or not, many people think that the government providing things for its citizens via taxation is a good thing.

If you want to refute any of my points, please do so. Sarcasm isn’t helpful. Managing scarce resources like education is a hard problem. Giving it away for free isn’t a solution.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#86
post #31

This is an example of what I've been thinking about/warning about for several years now: we are entering a post-truth era, where there is increasingly no way to know what is real and what is not. When I've thought about it, this scenario never occurred to me, but it's a perfect example: we're going to be increasingly unable to know what is "true" in a million different ways, and people are going to exploit that in ev…

Underlying this is a belief that scamming people is the only way to achieve financial stability, that you need to always be hustling. Teenagers went from idolising actors and musicians (who had agents dealing with the money behind closed doors) to idolising social media creators and influencers who are quite transparent about how the algorithm determines their income. On IndieHackers and MicroConf, it's standard advice that you need to sell your SaaS to businesses because ordinary consumers have no money.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You present hypothetical scenario of up against the reality they getting paid to “attend” online class is a total farce, diluting the value of a diploma or degree from that community college system well also stealing away resources.

This is your opinion and it is not a hypothetical scenario. Many people including myself received grant aid to attend classes both in person and virtual. If it wasn't for that flexibility I likely wouldn't have be able to go.

I’m glad it worked for you, however this is not an opinion, it’s a worldview, and it is unethical and unscrupulous to use government funding to pay people to remotely attend a community college course. This is several steps beyond the intent of a community college, which is simply to provide free education for working people in the community.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#89
post #34

The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.

Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying.

Not really. I worked various jobs in community college to support myself. Community college is designed around that fact with early morning and late night classes, but these are ONLINE classes. You can’t say that they have to work at that time because there is no time slot

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mixed. If we lived in a utopian world where money isn't real, I'd agree. Reality is California has major budget issues. Offering the classes for free is already enough in the current climate. Working while going to school is not uncommon or isolated to California. Full time work while going to school is excessive - but that is also a California COL issue that the state needs to actually tackle. But it gets worse…

> Full time work while going to school is excessive ... For a healthy, driven person, without other major responsibilities (or a time-sucking internet addiction)? No, it really is not excessive. And that's assuming that "going to school" is also full time. Taking just one or two classes per term is an old tradition at community colleges.

If you completely ignore the section of the population that needs aid, then yes, there's no need for aid. Might as well stop building wheelchair ramps, because for a healthy person with no locomotory issues the stairs are just fine.
Post reply on HN