A solution to higher education costs?

Reminds me of a history class I took back in the sixties - History of the Transmissippi West. - I love history. But that wasn't history. A better title would have been little known facts about nothing in particular, leading to no great conclusion of any sort. The class would have barely acceptable as undergrad intro course on the American Westward expansion c.1850-1900. But as an upper level advanced course as it was billed, it was a complete waste of time unless you knew that Trivial Pusuit would be coming out in 20 years and were planning on acing the history section. In the end in order to secure my A I had to do some book reports. They could be from germane articles in the mag American history illustrated. I did six articles hand written in about a page and a half. When I turned them in he told me that he'd gotten three hours worth of lectures from those articles I told I gotten a page and a half of notes. And that in the future when he was teaching class he might wish to inform the class that those tons of dried buffalo tongue they'd consumed on that first wagon train to Oregon would have actually, in that time and place, have been considered, a delicacy rather than a hardship and that he should give a little more time to the people and cultures on the other side that expansion without which the class was woefully incomplete and very nearly rendered it useless for any advanced student of history. I was probably fortunate to have still gotten my A.

 

You're MIT you get pretty much the cream of the crop. Your average student is more driven and smarter than average or they couldn't qualify for entry. If you aren't getting test scores well above average you have failed abysmally. Look I'm not trying to rain on your parade, MIT has,after all, produced more than a few Nobel laureates in the sciences, but what I just said at the top you should know without me having to tell you.

 

Great ideas. I would like to see the lecturers compete against each other. The students could rate them and choose for themselves. End academic thought control - forever.

 

I'm not at MIT, just used that as an example for high-quality free lecture material. I was at a school like MIT before and realize that they get the cream of the crop students -- they don't need any lectures and, consequently, the faculty there often spend little time on teaching. This sort of sink-or-swim mentality doesn't work in general, however, unless you want enormous DFW rates (D, failed, withdraw), which are frowned upon at our university.

 

In our intro chem course we have two lecturers and one full faculty member teaching, so we can directly compare statistics among teachers. I am sad to say that the teacher has little effect on the learning outcome. The truth is that learning happens when you sit down and practice. All the teacher can really do is inspire, motivate, encourage and show what is important to know.

Nobody has ever learned how to play football by watching Tom Brady play on TV. Unfortunately, the same things goes for the sciences. You don't learn chemistry by watching someone lecture. You learn it the hard way, by solving practice problems.

The difference in outcome between teachers that I have seen is only due to how hard they can make the students work on their course and how much time the students spend on the material. Unfortunately, the day has only 24 hours, so if one professor makes their students study a lot, it takes away from other professor's ability to do the same.

 

Of course, science labs will often be needed, but they do not have to be located in a university/college complex.

 

You're bright enough to know that different people learn in different ways. Online works for some, not for others. Reading the textbook works for some, not for others. Listening to lectures works for most people.

Most studies show that students that live on campus do better academically than those who live off campus. You are one of the exceptions (as am I).

True.

 

The one thing you really can't teach is drive and determination.

 

Yes! One thing that I have observed consistently: Students who actually come to class tend to do well. The ones who show up in EVERY class tend to be the best. The students who never show up often fail or pass marginally. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but often not showing up to class means that students also put in no effort outside of class.

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Agreed! But this is where a teacher CAN make a difference. I've had students who needed a teacher to show them why it is important to learn about the subject of the class. Once they understood the importance, it was much easier to motivate themselves.

 

The exorbitant cost of higher education in America has the fingerprints of the War on Poverty and the Great Society all over it. Due to government interference a college diploma today is worth less than a certificate from a Tupperware seminar. This is why a college education will likely get you a job handing out food at a drive-up window. College graduates today are barely able to read the content of a restaurant menu because they are not expected to have reading comprehension. Instead they are exposed to all kinds of idiosyncratic, experimental indoctrination in the form of gender/racial/homosexual/ proselytizing. They don't even have elementary writing skills and are incapable of even composing a respectable grocery list let alone producing coherent literary documents that make any kind of representative or persuasive sense. The only people profiting from higher education are the college professors and administrators who jack up the cost and live off other people's tax money. This country is in a state of emergency because US colleges are turning out cognitively impaired graduates without any skills that are the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Until higher education is totally returned to what it was before 1965 a college education is a waste of money.

 

As to the original post: Despite the need of the usual suspects to bash the professors, reality is that professor salaries haven't really contributed to the large rise in education cost. The student to teacher ratio is still the same as it was decades ago. FTEs for professors haven't changed.

What is different is the expectation of service from the students: Hotel-like dorms, high-tech gyms, tons of support services, etc. All of this costs, but is demanded by the students for the "college experience".

Try to sell your campus during the campus tour by having 40 year old dorms, but a cheap tuition. That's not gonna fly. Students demand the best, irrespective of the costs.

 

There is one other thing that's changed, the bureaucracy has grown several fold well two the second one being the big business of college sports which was basically the tail on the dog that was waved to attract some students in the sities is all to frequently the tail wags the dog.

 

Agreed. Associate Deans for whatever seem to sprout like weed. Part of this admin bloat, however, comes from the need to hold faculty and the school accountable, especially for state schools and the "waste" of tax payer's money. That's why we have to spend a lot of time on self assessment, stating and measuring the fulfillment of goals, effort and salary reporting, ethics reporting etc. None of this comes cheap. However, the schools are doing it to protect their behind, to prevent some blogger all of a sudden pointing fingers saying: "Look at the ethics violations of professor y".

 

How does any of that change with online learning? Students needing help seek out tutors. In fact tutoring is how I paid for much of my education.

We certainly didn't have personal attention from the professors. At my Uni there were classes where we never saw the professor except a few times.

 

Oh it isn't just anonymous bloggers they are relatively harmless, but lawyers are an ever present nuisance and keeping your ass covered against lawsuits has become at least as important as anything else.

 

Well, nobody is trying the economy approach. They all believe they have to go by the glamour approach.

The costs are also being increased by admin costs. While the students per professor ratio has stayed about the same over the past 40 or 50 years, the student per admin ratio has gone down---there are more admins and support staff.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/higher-ed-administrators-growth_n_4738584.html

 

Yes! I didn't need to be on campus because I didn't need someone to hold my hand. '

I have met a lot of engineers who obviously skated through their courses and don't know squat. I remember an old friend of mine [a retired nuclear engineer] who said they've had students fresh out of school who have to look up simple definitions and relationships, like elementary trig relationships. I met one engineer who didn't know what radians are?!?!?! WHAT?!?!?!?!

I suspect a lot of people graduate having cheated through a lot of the most critical classes. I know on our campus you could pay people to take classes for you. The grad student or professor had no way to know who was who.

The point is, the current system produces graduates who didn't learn what they were supposed to have learned. Maybe there is a little too much hand holding.

 

Online education only saves money by facility costs. Labor costs are roughly the same. I've taken both online and offline courses. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. That said, online learning won't ever totally replace in class learning. The quality of education is lower in online learning.

 

I posted about this in the education section. Didn't get any responses, at least last time I checked. Bottom line: the government has no place in the student loan business, at least that's my opinion.

 

We don't need people rewriting the same old lectures time and time again. You haven't read the thread.

We would be better off having standard lectures for subjects done by the best of the best. Much of that material hasn't changed in decades.

Newtonian Physics hasn't changed for over 300 years. Why do we have professors constantly writing lectures for Newtonian Physics? Do we really need thousands of people doing their own lectures? Why not have one set of great lectures?

In a sense we already have one set of standard lectures: The Feynman lectures series. Professors use these to bone up all the time.

 

There is an additional advantage: A student could watch several lectures on a given subject, with lecturers who come from different schools of thought. So rather than being bound to one school of thought and whatever this particular professor wants to teach, the student could gain a broader perspective by watching multiple lecturers.

 

That's an interesting idea. Here is my idea ...

Last year I paid $728.00 in my property tax to pay for public education, grades K-12. This means that I paid $56 per grade level, on average.

So let's say I were to pay for 4 more grade levels? $56 X 4 = $224. What if we allow that college is more expensive, say 20% more? OK, let's figure that out. That means that we allow that the cost per grade is $67. $67 X 4 = $268

So what I am suggesting is that I could support every high school graduate from my school district to go to college for $268 per year. Of course, that amount would be more or less depending on the assessed value of one's property.

So what I would suggest is that the federal government get completely out of the tuition business and let our states and local communities support their students. I would suggest that state colleges structure themselves so that the type of taxation I suggested would support them adequately. Now if a student wishes to go to a more expensive private college, the student would receive the same level of support, but they or their parents would have to make up the difference out their own pockets.

The fundamental difference between my suggestion and most others is that I am suggesting that we actually take responsibility and that we actually pay for it. Most other ideas are suggesting that someone else pays for it.

My two cents ...

 

There's a lot of money involved. Universities don't want to lose their outrageous prices, they just want them paid for by the taxpayer.

For instance, in Australia universities still charge $150k for a 3 year degree with no board, but the student only pays about 8 grand. The rest is paid for through taxation.

This allows them to charge the same but massively increase their demand. Shove as many people through arts degrees as possible.

 

Many of my classes, especially lower divisions and undergrad classes, were nothing but some old professor regurgitating their 30 year old notes. It was a total waste of time! You sit there for an hour while watching them derive something that is already done in the book.

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We always have vested interests. That will just have to change.

You don't have to change the old system You just put it out of business with a new, more efficient system. This movement has been growing on its own. There are many online universities already.

 

I went to the University of Texas. 40% of their funds come from tuition or dividends from their endowment. This is a university with an endowment bigger than that of most Ivy League schools. It would be depleted within 20 years if it was used for tuition. After that happens what does the university do?