5 ms·

Where does the article accuse professors of being lazy or incompetent? where does it say (or imply) that teaching a course isn't a huge amount of work? So I ta

by axiom 16y ago

Where does the article accuse professors of being lazy or incompetent? where does it say (or imply) that teaching a course isn't a huge amount of work? So I take it you disagree with the central thesis that tuition is absurdly high for the value that students get? Edit: from the article "There are many phenomenal teachers at universities. We at Top Hat Monocle have had the privilege to work with some of them. They should be treated like rock stars and paid accordingly - they generate literally millions in revenue for the universities and don't get nearly the recognition they deserve. They do their work out of benevolence and dedication to a job they love, mostly in spite of the system they operate in."

timr 16y ago
"So I take it you disagree with the central thesis that tuition is absurdly high for the value that students get?" If that was your thesis (it was well-buried), then yes, I disagree with it. And I can fairly conclusively prove my point with your own words: professors spend most of their time raising money to do their research. They don't do that because the school is showering them with cash (in point of fact, the school takes a substantial percentage cut from every grant dollar, too). So where is the tuition going? It sure isn't going to the research programs. If you're going to make the claim that universities are squandering student tuition/fees (and that IS what you're doing here, even if you're doing it obliquely), you're going to have to defend that claim with more than just hand-waving assertions that students would gain just as much from private tutors. Because that's not a claim that stands up to casual scrutiny. Honestly, I think you're succumbing to the fallacy of the university as a provider of first-year coursework. Yes, some students could probably learn calculus 101 from private tutors. But most of the people qualified to "tutor" students in anything more complex than first-year coursework are already doing so -- at universities. I'm open to a frank discussion of inefficiencies in the university system (and I think there are tons -- what's the average student-contact-hour rating of a professor in comparative lit, versus a first-year professor in chemistry or math? How much does that new dorm cost? What about the Taj Mahal gym with the fancy climbing walls?), but it's wrong to suggest that the whole institution is "absurdly" overpriced from the teaching perspective. The numbers just don't bear out that hypothesis.
- axiom 16y ago
  I'm not sure what to say - I thought it was pretty clear from the article that the point was: 1. The typical student experience in higher-ed is poor 2. Students pay a lot of money for it 3. The experience is poor because incentives in higher-ed are mostly towards research and not teaching As for whether students get value for their money, I'm not sure what to say other than I don't believe it should cost $12k to provide 250 hours of instruction, especially when it's done en mass. I also strongly disagree that it takes anything extraordinary to teach calc 3 or intro real analysis. Everything up to 3rd year is relatively trivial, and I don't find it hard to believe that a bright PhD that loves teaching wouldn't be able to do a decent job at it.
  - timr 16y ago
    I'll respond to all three: 1. This is an assertion. During 11+ years in academia, I saw no evidence that "typical" students were unhappy with quality of the education. 2. Yes, college costs a lot. We disagree on the reasons. 3. I agree that the incentives are biased toward research, but disagree that this leads to a poor student experience. As for the $12k for 250 hours of instruction: yes, that's $50 an hour, per student. But you're not just paying the instructor of the course (believe me!) -- you're paying for the classroom, the building, the fancy new student center, the campus landscaping, the fountains, the climbing wall, the professors who are teaching dozens of other, very small courses, the laboratory space, the dormitories, the third-party software licenses, the women's softball team, etc. Universities aren't cheap to run. The guy at the front of the classroom is only the start of the cost structure.
    - axiom 16y ago
      Then why were they were so much cheaper in the past? Also, I imagine you didn't go to a state school.
      - timr 16y ago
        I got my PhD at the University of Washington. There are many reasons why schools have become more expensive over the years. The cost of health care, alone, is growing much faster than the rate of inflation. But honestly, most universities went on a building spree over the last twenty years. Fancy dorms and labs and classrooms and athletic facilities really start to add up -- and grants rarely pay for them. As I said before, there are tons of inefficiencies in the university system. I just don't think they're in the classroom.
timr 16y ago
"Where does the article accuse professors of being lazy or incompetent?" About five paragraphs in, by my count: "what do students actually get for their money? They get herded in like cattle into 500 person classrooms to have someone read the textbook to them with the help of a powerpoint slide deck. The classroom environment hasn't changed in nearly a century. If you brought someone from 1940 into today's classroom they'd hardly notice a difference, except perhaps for the fancier projector and massively increased class size. This is not due to lack of technology or lack of tools being available." You're calling out the system for being outdated and broken. Just because you don't explicitly say that "most professors are lazy and incompetent (except for the ones I like)" doesn't mean that you can fling these sorts of casual, rhetorical stones without having to embrace the conclusion.
- wnoise 16y ago
  > You're calling out the system for being outdated and broken. Just because you don't explicitly say that "most professors are lazy and incompetent (except for the ones I like)" The system can be broken without attaching any blame to the workers in the system. The real problem is of course the high-up administrators and board. The purpose of a university is not education. The purpose is to funnel money via inflated salaries and unneeded construction jobs to those that are politically well-connected.
- axiom 16y ago
  For what it's worth that's honestly not the intent of the article. The point was that teachers are doing the best they can, and they should be rewarded more for teaching.

by axiom 16y ago

timr 16y ago

"So I take it you disagree with the central thesis that tuition is absurdly high for the value that students get?" If that was your thesis (it was well-buried), then yes, I disagree with it. And I can fairly conclusively prove my point with your own words: professors spend most of their time raising money to do their research. They don't do that because the school is showering them with cash (in point of fact, the school takes a substantial percentage cut from every grant dollar, too). So where is the tuition going? It sure isn't going to the research programs. If you're going to make the claim that universities are squandering student tuition/fees (and that IS what you're doing here, even if you're doing it obliquely), you're going to have to defend that claim with more than just hand-waving assertions that students would gain just as much from private tutors. Because that's not a claim that stands up to casual scrutiny. Honestly, I think you're succumbing to the fallacy of the university as a provider of first-year coursework. Yes, some students could probably learn calculus 101 from private tutors. But most of the people qualified to "tutor" students in anything more complex than first-year coursework are already doing so -- at universities. I'm open to a frank discussion of inefficiencies in the university system (and I think there are tons -- what's the average student-contact-hour rating of a professor in comparative lit, versus a first-year professor in chemistry or math? How much does that new dorm cost? What about the Taj Mahal gym with the fancy climbing walls?), but it's wrong to suggest that the whole institution is "absurdly" overpriced from the teaching perspective. The numbers just don't bear out that hypothesis.

axiom 16y ago
I'm not sure what to say - I thought it was pretty clear from the article that the point was: 1. The typical student experience in higher-ed is poor 2. Students pay a lot of money for it 3. The experience is poor because incentives in higher-ed are mostly towards research and not teaching As for whether students get value for their money, I'm not sure what to say other than I don't believe it should cost $12k to provide 250 hours of instruction, especially when it's done en mass. I also strongly disagree that it takes anything extraordinary to teach calc 3 or intro real analysis. Everything up to 3rd year is relatively trivial, and I don't find it hard to believe that a bright PhD that loves teaching wouldn't be able to do a decent job at it.
- timr 16y ago
  I'll respond to all three: 1. This is an assertion. During 11+ years in academia, I saw no evidence that "typical" students were unhappy with quality of the education. 2. Yes, college costs a lot. We disagree on the reasons. 3. I agree that the incentives are biased toward research, but disagree that this leads to a poor student experience. As for the $12k for 250 hours of instruction: yes, that's $50 an hour, per student. But you're not just paying the instructor of the course (believe me!) -- you're paying for the classroom, the building, the fancy new student center, the campus landscaping, the fountains, the climbing wall, the professors who are teaching dozens of other, very small courses, the laboratory space, the dormitories, the third-party software licenses, the women's softball team, etc. Universities aren't cheap to run. The guy at the front of the classroom is only the start of the cost structure.
  - axiom 16y ago
    Then why were they were so much cheaper in the past? Also, I imagine you didn't go to a state school.
    - timr 16y ago
      I got my PhD at the University of Washington. There are many reasons why schools have become more expensive over the years. The cost of health care, alone, is growing much faster than the rate of inflation. But honestly, most universities went on a building spree over the last twenty years. Fancy dorms and labs and classrooms and athletic facilities really start to add up -- and grants rarely pay for them. As I said before, there are tons of inefficiencies in the university system. I just don't think they're in the classroom.

timr 16y ago

"Where does the article accuse professors of being lazy or incompetent?" About five paragraphs in, by my count: "what do students actually get for their money? They get herded in like cattle into 500 person classrooms to have someone read the textbook to them with the help of a powerpoint slide deck. The classroom environment hasn't changed in nearly a century. If you brought someone from 1940 into today's classroom they'd hardly notice a difference, except perhaps for the fancier projector and massively increased class size. This is not due to lack of technology or lack of tools being available." You're calling out the system for being outdated and broken. Just because you don't explicitly say that "most professors are lazy and incompetent (except for the ones I like)" doesn't mean that you can fling these sorts of casual, rhetorical stones without having to embrace the conclusion.

wnoise 16y ago
> You're calling out the system for being outdated and broken. Just because you don't explicitly say that "most professors are lazy and incompetent (except for the ones I like)" The system can be broken without attaching any blame to the workers in the system. The real problem is of course the high-up administrators and board. The purpose of a university is not education. The purpose is to funnel money via inflated salaries and unneeded construction jobs to those that are politically well-connected.
axiom 16y ago
For what it's worth that's honestly not the intent of the article. The point was that teachers are doing the best they can, and they should be rewarded more for teaching.