4 ms·

You are right that you aren’t the target market, $2400/year isn’t anywhere near the cost to provide the education- most states spend more than $10k/year on elem

You are right that you aren’t the target market, $2400/year isn’t anywhere near the cost to provide the education- most states spend more than $10k/year on elementary school students. The cheapest working professional option I know of is Western Governors University (WGU). They do “competency based education” which I guess means letting you test out of a bunch of stuff and cost roughly $6700/year. Since you a presumably a practitioner already, you’d finish the program in 2-3 years, getting closer to that $2400/year target.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> $2400/year isn’t anywhere near the cost to provide the education- most states spend more than $10k/year on elementary school students. That's not evidence. States spend that much, but not because that's what it costs.
- Proziam 7y ago
  Once you add up the cost of the staff, building (and maintaining it), utilities for a huge building, insurance (I don't even want to imagine), supplies like books, and the extra-curricular (band, sports, etc) that the locals clamor for and make a big fuss about if there's ever any cuts - I think you'd be very hard-pressed to provide reasonable quality of education for less than 10k/yr. Keep in mind that in many school districts the parents themselves are an enemy of education. In the district I grew up in there was a tremendous push to spend tons of money on sports. While we weren't struggling much academically there was definitely better uses of funds that were overlooked due to the pressure. I've often wondered how that could be improved, but in reality, it's likely that improving the education system will cost more money, not less. I truly hope that it improves and that I'm proven wrong about the costs though. *Just a side-note. Online education can be cheaper, but I've seen zero evidence it provides any significant improvement in quality of education. Every person I know that was 'homeschooled,' typically through some form of cyber-charter school, had massive gaps in their education. Most notably in math and science.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    The core of your argument here seems to be that paying for things that explicitly aren't necessary for an education (like sports) are simultaneously a necessity for education. I don't see how you'd get that past a logician. $2.5k/year is very low but it is within the realm of the possible. An above commentor pointed out that elementary school students cost ~$10k/year and they require constant supervision and more contact hours than a university student.
    - Retric 7y ago
      The instructor is also much cheaper at an elementary school than for collage classes especially programming classes. An average 100,000$/year including benefits professor works out to a ~75k/year salary. Teaching 16 credits per semester to an average class size of 25 starts at 4,000$ per year per student. That does not cover building, supplies, administrative or technical support, advertising etc.
      - roenxi 7y ago
        But the instructor only needs to be part time and class sizes can be raised to something like 50 without compromising the quality much vs 25. A detailed technical education can be achieved with 13 hours a week in contact hours so you can divide the salary by ~3 compared to 40 hour work week. > That does not cover building, supplies, administrative or technical support, advertising etc. A building is mandatory I'll grant you that; but maybe skip the advertising, downplay the admin and go light on the supplies. They invented calculus without anything much more impressive than pen and paper; there is a limit to how many toys are needed. Everyone can bring their own laptop. People won't be bragging about it to their millionaire friends but it would be cheap and they'd learn enough to do hard jobs. It wouldn't be feasible to do Real Science where lab-work is required, but it'd work a treat for maths, engineering, arts and social sciences which are more about reading papers, talking to people and in extreme cases doing maths. The 'teaching' is overrated, the value of university is in the controlled assessment environment. That can be replicated for a few thousand each with a few tens of students.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> $2400/year isn’t anywhere near the cost to provide the education- most states spend more than $10k/year on elementary school students. That's not evidence. States spend that much, but not because that's what it costs.

Proziam 7y ago
Once you add up the cost of the staff, building (and maintaining it), utilities for a huge building, insurance (I don't even want to imagine), supplies like books, and the extra-curricular (band, sports, etc) that the locals clamor for and make a big fuss about if there's ever any cuts - I think you'd be very hard-pressed to provide reasonable quality of education for less than 10k/yr. Keep in mind that in many school districts the parents themselves are an enemy of education. In the district I grew up in there was a tremendous push to spend tons of money on sports. While we weren't struggling much academically there was definitely better uses of funds that were overlooked due to the pressure. I've often wondered how that could be improved, but in reality, it's likely that improving the education system will cost more money, not less. I truly hope that it improves and that I'm proven wrong about the costs though. *Just a side-note. Online education can be cheaper, but I've seen zero evidence it provides any significant improvement in quality of education. Every person I know that was 'homeschooled,' typically through some form of cyber-charter school, had massive gaps in their education. Most notably in math and science.
- roenxi 7y ago
  The core of your argument here seems to be that paying for things that explicitly aren't necessary for an education (like sports) are simultaneously a necessity for education. I don't see how you'd get that past a logician. $2.5k/year is very low but it is within the realm of the possible. An above commentor pointed out that elementary school students cost ~$10k/year and they require constant supervision and more contact hours than a university student.
  - Retric 7y ago
    The instructor is also much cheaper at an elementary school than for collage classes especially programming classes. An average 100,000$/year including benefits professor works out to a ~75k/year salary. Teaching 16 credits per semester to an average class size of 25 starts at 4,000$ per year per student. That does not cover building, supplies, administrative or technical support, advertising etc.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      But the instructor only needs to be part time and class sizes can be raised to something like 50 without compromising the quality much vs 25. A detailed technical education can be achieved with 13 hours a week in contact hours so you can divide the salary by ~3 compared to 40 hour work week. > That does not cover building, supplies, administrative or technical support, advertising etc. A building is mandatory I'll grant you that; but maybe skip the advertising, downplay the admin and go light on the supplies. They invented calculus without anything much more impressive than pen and paper; there is a limit to how many toys are needed. Everyone can bring their own laptop. People won't be bragging about it to their millionaire friends but it would be cheap and they'd learn enough to do hard jobs. It wouldn't be feasible to do Real Science where lab-work is required, but it'd work a treat for maths, engineering, arts and social sciences which are more about reading papers, talking to people and in extreme cases doing maths. The 'teaching' is overrated, the value of university is in the controlled assessment environment. That can be replicated for a few thousand each with a few tens of students.