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A recent visit to my old college has been an eye opener. I can not believe how fancy everything has got since my day in college. Back in the 1980s when I went to graduate school I completed an entire Masters Degree for $1800 ($38 a Semester Credit). That same degree today is about $7000.00, much higher than the rate of inflation and wages. I could not believe how expensive and fancy everything is. The billion dollar student union, and physical education center. The hundreds of administrative and clerical workers in nameless departments and bloated staffing. Why can't schools be run like businesses with more efficency and a zero based budget?
Well, over the past 30 years, college tuition has risen at an average rate three times that of the inflation rate. That should tell you a lot.
The other thing to remember that academicians pretty much live in an alternative universe, completely divorced from the realities most people live with everyday. Realities such as making ends meet. Actually innovating. Demanding better productivity. Keeping costs down.
A recent visit to my old college has been an eye opener. I can not believe how fancy everything has got since my day in college. Back in the 1980s when I went to graduate school I completed an entire Masters Degree for $1800 ($38 a Semester Credit). That same degree today is about $7000.00, much higher than the rate of inflation and wages. I could not believe how expensive and fancy everything is. The billion dollar student union, and physical education center. The hundreds of administrative and clerical workers in nameless departments and bloated staffing. Why can't schools be run like businesses with more efficency and a zero based budget?
If your alma mater is anything like the school I work at, the fancy new buildings are built with alum donor money or money from other donations. I was astounded when I started working here a million years ago there was a HUGE budget crisis which included mandatory 5% cut in salary for all staff, early retirements were being thrown about, and all these sparkley new buildings were going up. I was thinking who is going to staff these new buildings when people are being laid off or asked to retire early and WHY isn't the money going where it is really needed (keeping tuition down, paying the staff <not Prof's> a decent salary that doesn't qualify them for food stamps)? Different pools of money was the answer I got. The big salaries go to the top admin folks (new President of this school system is getting paid almost 1 million dollars) while everyone else barely gets a competitive rate. The students are suffering because tuition is going up and class sizes are going up. Part of the problem is so many more students are going to college than in the past. This school received over 44,000 applications, accepted 22,000, in the hopes of only 4,000 choosing to attend the new year.
So your alma mater is now really pretty with new buildings so it can attract more people who may want to attend. The new buildings were probably donated by some wealthy alum who wanted their name on the side of the building. At least that is what happens here. Oh, and there is waste, but it is usually found way up the salary foodchain of big schools. Oh yeah, Prof's generally DO live in an alternate universe (I cannot teach at 8am, I have kids to take to school!, Well so do the thousands of staff that work here and if they can make it Dr. So and So, then you can as well). Yes, I DID have to schedule classes for Prof's in a big department and this was an excuse made often. Or the "I must have a Tuesday and Thursday teaching schedule" because I don't want to teach *3* days a week. Whole 'nother topic!
You have a graduate degree and you don't have a problem with taking your personal, anecdotal experience and using that to make a blanket statement about college education in general? Maybe you should see about getting a refund because that's not how graduate-level degree holders should see things.
Oh yeah, Prof's generally DO live in an alternate universe (I cannot teach at 8am, I have kids to take to school!, Well so do the thousands of staff that work here and if they can make it Dr. So and So, then you can as well). Yes, I DID have to schedule classes for Prof's in a big department and this was an excuse made often. Or the "I must have a Tuesday and Thursday teaching schedule" because I don't want to teach *3* days a week. Whole 'nother topic!
I detect a tinge of jealously. By your logic you might as well lump high school teachers in there for working a job that pays them to have summers off. Can you imagine that? The gall! It's one of the perks of the job. Deal with it.
not the case in the cal state university program.. lot of these buildings are still original from build date. no a/c, little accessibility for disabled, oldschool overhead projectors, etc. but then again, the csu program is one of the most affordable state funded college systems in the US, so i can see why.
Boy, this thread descended into petty backbiting pretty quickly.
The facts are the facts. Education costs such as tuition have outstripped inflation by a 3-to-1 ratio for 30 years.
This makes zero sense, especially given how technology has made the distribution of knowledge much less expensive over the same period of time. In fact, look at any other profession/business/industry over the same period of time, and you'll see that traditional distribution channels have been destroyed and remade in ways that ensure greater affordability and a higher level of service.
Yet, for some reason, higher education placidly floats in its little bubble, ignoring the increasingly sacrificial costs of a college degree. Why?
I detect a tinge of jealously. By your logic you might as well lump high school teachers in there for working a job that pays them to have summers off. Can you imagine that? The gall! It's one of the perks of the job. Deal with it.
Not at all! I work at a very well ranked research institution and I know how much faculty make (the work is what it is, dealing with some students and helicopter parents would make it VERY unappealing at THAT salary). Not nearly enough for SOME of the hassles. But when one is scheduling their classes and needs to hear why they cannot do this and that and the reason is one that everyone deals with, not much sympathy is felt. For each faculty member that really did the bare minimum, there WERE many that went above and beyond the call of duty. Why would I be jealous of a job I didn't want?
Personally, I think high school teachers have it MUCH harder than your typical, tenured Professor. K-12 teachers actually have to teach ALL day, 5 days a week during the school year (at a fraction of what college prof's make). Prof's *may* teach 3 classes a week and do research their other days (and office hours). This is just for research institutions. I cannot speak for Jr. Colleges or College's that are not research based.
Honestly- complaining about $7000 for grad school? That's the cheapest I've ever heard of! Even cheaper than the local tech school/psuedo community college near home.
Unless it's a huge school, there's no way a school could afford a "billion dollar student union" on such a low tuition. My college tuition is over 5 times that per year and our student union and athletics center were mostly funded by donors. About 5 buildings on campus have the same name due to the donor family's contribution. Most other colleges I toured when looking for schools worked the same way. The money for tuition is often lost among the higher ups in the administration- I don't even want to know what our snake of a president makes.
In any case, show me a school that cuts out the extras and I can show you a school that is doomed to fail. With thousands of schools to choose from and tons of scholarships to be had, I certainly would not choose to go to a school with a rundown student center, poor or no exercise facilities, and none of the extra perks that help students choose to go to a college. Maybe Harvard could never renovate again and students would still attend, but most schools do not have that luxury.
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