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I highly recommend watching the video by Scott Galloway on The College Implosion. [1] "Colleges have become luxury brands and are adopting a strategy of artifi

I highly recommend watching the video by Scott Galloway on The College Implosion. [1] "Colleges have become luxury brands and are adopting a strategy of artificial scarcity to create irrational margins" There's a large movement right now where many are saying the large tuition fees for Zoom lectures aren't worth it. Colleges sell themselves for the experience and are a luxury lifestyle brand almost, but with covid the lifestyle aspect of it is wiped out, so its reasonable that students are asking why they'd pay such high premiums. I think removing SAT, ACT casts a wider net and hopefully allows more students to enroll, what's the scaling limitation if everyone's doing lectures on Zoom? Presumably everyone's also getting graded electronically in some way. [1]: https://youtu.be/d8kwzSTITP0 https://youtu.be/d8kwzSTITP0

beaner 6y ago
I don't get it, aren't most colleges non-profits? Why do they seek such high tuition fees if they're not profiting? Or are they, somehow?
- wespiser_2018 6y ago
  They are non-profit, but bureaucracy begets bureaucracy. The growth in higher education from raised tuition partly goes towards better facilities, but most of the money is going towards administration. That, plus a competitive environment, has almost makes a zero sum game where colleges offer more services to attract a dwindling pool of full-pay students.
- laser 6y ago
  Incentives are a lot more complicated than simply being non-profit = altruistic mission optimizing. The president makes a million bucks a year. Faculty pursue status, power, and resources for research or personal interest. Alumni often wish to keep their institution exclusive and elite to increase the value of their degree and average member of their community, and provide resources to their institutions (Donations) as a means of control over “mission”. Of course, that’s all on the pretty cynical side and the majority of people I think are overall aligned with the mission of providing the best possible education and research environments. But, the above is where Scott is coming from, and certainly holds some water. Particularly in his area of academia ahem business schools ahem.
- kaonwarb 6y ago
  "Nonprofit" is a tax designation in the U.S. There is nothing in that designation which prevents those running the nonprofit from personally profiting greatly from their positions. There are limitations in the methods to gain such personal profit, but they far from forestall it. Wikipedia has a good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_organization_laws_in_the_U.S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_organization_laws_i....
  - beaner 6y ago
    I haven't read the link but I assume it means something like: The institutions do not have ownable shares that can be traded, and so ownership of the institution itself is not a profit-seeking endeavor (is it even "owned" at all?), but salaries are uncapped and so being employed by it can be?
    - csharptwdec19 6y ago
      There's more nuance to it but those are the basics. Mind you, there are extra book-keeping rules. For instance, the highest salaries at an institution (and I believe salaries over a certain amount) and who is making them must be publicly disclosed.
- hejja 6y ago
  Not to mention Harvard has a $40 billion endowment on top of that. At the end of the day, it's a way to not pay taxes. Stakeholders are still getting paid in different ways: high salaries and job security, "administrator" jobs that shouldn't exist. In other words, it's socialism.
  - charliebrownau 6y ago
    Socialism aka wealth redistrubtion - Yearly tax - Income tax - GST/VAT - Payroll tax - Child "Support" - Alimony (Same with no kids) - Divorce "settlement" Its all wealth redistrubtion by STATE FORCE if you refuse to hand over your/your business money to the STATE, then the STATE uses phsyical force, armed people with assult weapons to take you against your will and "fine" you or cage you This is so called "FREEDOM" BTW same people that censor ban limit restrict "regulate" control and prevent you speaking out and prevent you bearing arms to protect yourself your family your community from this illegal ill-moral criminal act because THEY ARE GOVERNMENT aka the top level of FORCE and VIOLENCE Everyone is a slave as long as Big Centralised goverment and taxation exists Does the so called "RIGHT WING" actually stand for freedom when its sit back and allowed Taxation GST Income tax Central big goverment Central banks digital cash/fiat currency usry debt based economy group rights female pussy pass hiding truth hiding stats/figures/amount of crime from women/blacks/non ethnic males Yet to see the "right" undo anything the Global LEFT has done in the last 50-200-250 years Cuckservative's have only saved their job, gov position and ablity to lie to the public on a global scal and saved the status quo
- pc86 6y ago
  "Non-profit" doesn't mean you don't make any money, it means you spend all your money. I went to a tiny liberal arts college you've never heard of, with a 1300-student enrollment today. The president makes well over half a million dollars a year. There are half a dozen deans making anywhere from $75-250k. A career services department run by a six-figure employee who has never held a job outside of that college (for real). They're technically a non-profit but with a sticker price of $40k a year and actual per-capita revenue somewhere in the high $20's, that is a lot of money to spread around to administration while you have 150-person lectures taught by a $25k/yr adjunct.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Is this RPI?
    - pc86 6y ago
      No but I've actually heard very similar experience to folks that went there, although I don't think it qualifies as a liberal arts college.
- omarhaneef 6y ago
  Perhaps you've heard the old quip about colleges with large endowments: a college is hedge fund with a small teaching arm attached to get the non-profit designation.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  You don’t want to appear less premium. Hyundai increased their prices to make the Genesis seem like a luxury brand. It worked, their sales went up.
jimbob45 6y ago
I hate the hand-waviness behind this argument. Yes, much of college is not worth it anymore and can be attained online. Still, these HN threads always come to the same conclusion that there remain elements of the college experience that can only be found on campus. Not attacking you personally btw. You seem to see the nuance required of the conversation.
- iso1631 6y ago
  > Still, these HN threads always come to the same conclusion that there remain elements of the college experience that can only be found on campus. In my view the college experience (societies, living away from home, mixing with people from outside your local area) is far more useful than the actual teaching. "There's a time and a place for everything - and it's called college". However with covid, all that is removed, and you're left with some lectures (which in normal times you can't pause or rewind, and may well be at terrible times of the day), and an occasional chat with a bored professor.
  - learc83 6y ago
    >However with covid, all that is removed, It's very unlikely that this lasts more than another semester or so though. If you're looking to enroll in the fall or the next year, it shouldn't be a big concern.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      If I were supposed to be starting in October 2020, I'd certainly skip next year and have a gap year 2021 onwards sure, things will be back to normal
    - itsmeamario 6y ago
      I'd like to see your sources on that.
      - iso1631 6y ago
        "A semester or so" reasonably covers until September 2021. I can't see the world standing for social distancing that long, and as such covid will spread throughout the population just like Polio, TB and uncurable/vaccinable diseases of the past. IFR of covid for undergrads is about 0.002-0.005%, so 1 in 20k-50k. Chance of death for a 20 year old in the UK is about 1 in 4k, so you're 5-10 times more likely to die for some other reason than covid. Indeed by moving away from home you're less likely to infect older parents, so it's a rational call.
FisForFlight 6y ago
A friend of mine goes to Harvard. He says once you get into Harvard... it's smooth sailing from there.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  I have heard the same thing about universities in Japan. High school in Japan is so much pressure that some students crack under it, but then once you get to university it is supposedly easily to just slack off for your entire degree program.
  - bash-j 6y ago
    Do employers care about what grades you got in university?
    - officemonkey 6y ago
      No one has ever hired me based on my college grades. The first job I had checked to see I graduated from college. Every other job has been based on experience and my record of performance.
    - crimsonalucard5 6y ago
      I've had it this happen. It was a startup that was ran and helmed by mostly people from academia. These people have never been outside of academia so that might have influenced there decision to check my grades.
- KenoFischer 6y ago
  It can be if you want it to. At Harvard, there's very few requirements on what courses constitute a degree, so if you want to get a degree by just taking the easiest classes possible, you can definitely do that. Of course, most students don't do that since that's not why they went there. I do think professors try to give higher grade averages for the harder classes to avoid punishing students for challenging themselves, but I don't really have a problem with that (if you chose those classes you're probably not in it for the grades anyway). Also, at least I'm the sciences, a good fraction of students start taking classes at the graduate level either freshman or sophomore year, since they'll have completed a good chunk of the undergrad curriculum in high school.
snarf21 6y ago
I think we should just roll some kind of standardized test into your Junior year. Instead of it being this external expensive thing, everyone who wants to go to college can just take a half year preparation course in your Junior year and take the test at the end. We don't need this to be external. We already do a lot of standardized tests to measure student performance. This fixes the GPA problem between schools and the uncomparability of those numbers.
- HelloFellowDevs 6y ago
  The issue with standardized testing that's just rolled into coursework is that it'll further incentivize teachers to teach to the test. In my opinion it could also disadvantage schools which don't have education in the highest of mind. Basically running as a daycare center in some sections.
- Loughla 6y ago
  Most high school students take the SAT/ACT in their junior year already. Many only take the test that once. Many high schools have test-taking built into the curriculum for the first half of that year of school. Some states have replaced their standardized testing with the SAT/ACT.
  - snarf21 6y ago
    What states are those? No schools that I know of locally have SAT prep as a school course or use the SAT as their standardized tests. It is good that some schools are already moving this way. I think it makes sense to have just one standardized test that can be used for admission and also tracking progress of schools and states.
    - Loughla 6y ago
      The last I knew: SAT: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia. ACT: Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming. Also, the implementation of SAT prep is spotty at best. As with most things, whether the schools have test prep is pretty reliant on how well funded the individual district is. At least that's my experience.
not_a_moth 6y ago
Anyone intimate with Germany's vocational training system, that's used as an alternative to college by approximately half of all graduating high school students? 2-3 years small salary vocational training straight out of HS at 1 of 400k participating companies in 1 of 400 role types. I want to know why implementing this isn't a national debate in US, it seems like such an obviously good idea.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  >I want to know why implementing this isn't a national debate in US, it seems like such an obviously good idea. Because it would involve respecting blue-collar workers, and beating up on Labor(TM) (really: wage suppression for the working class) takes priority in America over doing what's economically and socially rational.
- throwaway287391 6y ago
  I'd bet a large part of the reason is cultural. For just about any American high school student who's been exposed to the mainstream culture their entire lives (including myself at the time), the idea of missing out on the "college experience" (i.e. mostly partying) that just about every conventionally successful person they've ever met will have gone through and instead going to "small salary vocational training" would just be completely unthinkable and depressing to imagine, especially if all your friends are following the usual path. I suppose it's possible this may change with Covid-19 but I still don't quite see it. Edit: could any of the downvoters explain their reasoning? I guess this could have come off as facetious because I mentioned partying or something, but I'm completely serious -- why wouldn't cultural reasons be a major factor?
  - souterrain 6y ago
    American culture also devalues community college in this way. The way we break this is by changing our hiring decisions. If you have a Harvard grad (or other private university grad) in front of you, consider if they really are the right candidate. Consider recruiting from local community and public colleges, including public non-traditional colleges. Build a rapport with the job placement offices at these schools. If candidates are missing something, work with the schools to improve their curricula.
chrxr 6y ago
If the learning experience is simplified to listening to a lecture, either live or recorded, and all grading is done algorithmically, then yes, there is no scaling limitation. This would be considered a very poor learning experience though. Even in the School of Engineering at Harvard, even for the CS classes, very few use autograding. Students expect individual feedback on their work. They expect the ability to personally interact with teaching staff. They expect group work, labs, office hours, reading groups, and some level of supervision over these activities. I work at Harvard, and I can tell you there is a real push to create a quality experience in remote learning, and a lot of resources are being directed towards this. It is not just the same classes via Zoom. Of course these enhanced learning environments could be replicated on campus as well, there's nothing particularly special about the remote learning environment. But as you suggest, it is the residential experience that most folks are paying for. Harvard considers the residential experience as one of their primary value propositions. That is why Harvard and other schools are working very hard to get students back to campus. It's a difficult balancing act between this and maintaining the health of the campus. A major outbreak amongst undergrads would be a serious blow to everybody involved, so health is always going to come first. Also worth noting that 20% of Harvard students pay 0 tuition, and more than 50% get needs-based scholarships. https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid. So if you're smart enough, and/or fit into the financial aid brackets, why not go to Harvard? What's the risk there?
- colllectorof 6y ago
  >Also worth noting that 20% of Harvard students pay 0 tuition, and more than 50% get needs-based scholarships. https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid. So if you're smart enough, and/or fit into the financial aid brackets, why not go to Harvard? Are you seriously suggesting that 50% the most talented students in the country have $313,000 for tuition? If financial aid and scholarships worked as advertised, Ivy League schools would be filled to the brim with talented people. There would be no space left for stupid kids with rich parents. Yet those kids get in, reliably. There were many scandals related to that recently. Heck, just look at the children of major US politician and media elites.
raxxorrax 6y ago
3-5 months after graduating university, I thought academic titles would mean something. Today I know better. I think this is a real good development. While I cannot complain about the quality of my former teachers, logistics of knowledge are cheaper than ever before. Everyone could at least listen to the best experts in their respective fields. Subjugating students with debts like that isn't common where I live and it looks "decently perverse" from outside the US. I think it was always a brand but the educational value is questionable in modern times. What they sell today is mostly access and nepotism. I think a real benefit is the tendency to leave your family home for higher education. Maybe that is why I remember my time studying so fondly. (I love my family, but if you don't want to get out of there by the time you hit 18, there must be something wrong with you)
Invictus0 6y ago
I know most people on this forum are computer scientists but take a minute to think about engineers and scientists that require physical labs to learn. Bio/chem labs, machine shops, wind tunnels, research facilities... not all university degrees can be moved online.
- non-entity 6y ago
  CS is basically the only "useful" bachelors degree I've seen that's been widely implemented online. When I looked at going hack to school, the schools offering online degrees typically had a "meh" CS program and a variety of degrees that were in subjects not really opening you up to useful of even interesting employment. Also wayyy to many IT type degrees, which feel like a scam to me. I was under the impression that certifications are the big credentials for IT fields. Why pay tens of thousands for a degree program when you could put much less money into studying and achieving relevant certs.
- OkayPhysicist 6y ago
  Anyone who claims a university callibre education in any field can achieved by mass online lectures either completely wasted their time in university, or never attended in the first place. The main purpose, and primary advantage, of a university is being a place of learning. That means you are embedded in a community that is focused around the pursuit of knowledge. At the very least, you are embedded in a community of peers, some studying the same subject as you and invaluable as a resource to bounce ideas around with, and studying other subjects, giving you exposure to ideas you didn't even know to look up. And that's before you even get to the fact that you get access to professors and other faculty who are extremely knowledgeable in their respective fields. Unless you are from an extremely academic background, it is highly unlikely your typical social circle includes several PhDs. But all your professors have one. And compounding on that, you're in an environment designed to be conducive to learning. No where else will you find more resources and cultural forces aimed towards learning. Even those wild college parties are still filled with people who are engaged in academic pursuit at least half the week.
TheCoelacanth 6y ago
The scaling limit is that they would dilute their brand if they started letting in a lot more people. Exclusivity is one of their main value propositions.
Loughla 6y ago
>many are saying the large tuition fees for Zoom lectures aren't worth it. If I was an outgoing high school senior this year, I would 100% be attending a community college in the fall. If you're all online, there are no connections to be made on campus, and res. life isn't part of the equation. At that point, there are no incentives to pay more for the same first two years of college.
helen___keller 6y ago
Realistically, Harvard has the most exclusive brand name out of the entire sector. Harvard isn't going to have an issue finding full enrollment willing to pay whatever they are asked to pay.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fiftyfifty 6y ago
I have 2 kids in college right now. One goes to a non-Harvard Ivy League school, the other one is at a state school. My wife and I both went to an average state school (as far as college rankings are concerned). We've gotten more insight than usual into our kid's academics as both of them have been home this spring and taking online classes due to the Covid outbreak. The level of academic rigor and the high expectations at the Ivy league school are through the roof compared to my own college experience and my other kid's academics. I frankly don't think I could have handled it had I been able to attend a school of that caliber. I can't speak for Harvard specifically but I have my doubts that an average student would survive for very long at some of these elite schools. I also have my doubts that their teaching style would scale real well to a large number of students. They rely heavily on hiring exceptional professors and giving them a significant amount of autonomy in the classroom. The class sizes are very small by university standards and the vast majority of assignments and tests are hand written and graded by the professor.

beaner 6y ago

I don't get it, aren't most colleges non-profits? Why do they seek such high tuition fees if they're not profiting? Or are they, somehow?

wespiser_2018 6y ago
They are non-profit, but bureaucracy begets bureaucracy. The growth in higher education from raised tuition partly goes towards better facilities, but most of the money is going towards administration. That, plus a competitive environment, has almost makes a zero sum game where colleges offer more services to attract a dwindling pool of full-pay students.
laser 6y ago
Incentives are a lot more complicated than simply being non-profit = altruistic mission optimizing. The president makes a million bucks a year. Faculty pursue status, power, and resources for research or personal interest. Alumni often wish to keep their institution exclusive and elite to increase the value of their degree and average member of their community, and provide resources to their institutions (Donations) as a means of control over “mission”. Of course, that’s all on the pretty cynical side and the majority of people I think are overall aligned with the mission of providing the best possible education and research environments. But, the above is where Scott is coming from, and certainly holds some water. Particularly in his area of academia ahem business schools ahem.
kaonwarb 6y ago
"Nonprofit" is a tax designation in the U.S. There is nothing in that designation which prevents those running the nonprofit from personally profiting greatly from their positions. There are limitations in the methods to gain such personal profit, but they far from forestall it. Wikipedia has a good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_organization_laws_in_the_U.S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_organization_laws_i....
- beaner 6y ago
  I haven't read the link but I assume it means something like: The institutions do not have ownable shares that can be traded, and so ownership of the institution itself is not a profit-seeking endeavor (is it even "owned" at all?), but salaries are uncapped and so being employed by it can be?
  - csharptwdec19 6y ago
    There's more nuance to it but those are the basics. Mind you, there are extra book-keeping rules. For instance, the highest salaries at an institution (and I believe salaries over a certain amount) and who is making them must be publicly disclosed.
hejja 6y ago
Not to mention Harvard has a $40 billion endowment on top of that. At the end of the day, it's a way to not pay taxes. Stakeholders are still getting paid in different ways: high salaries and job security, "administrator" jobs that shouldn't exist. In other words, it's socialism.
- charliebrownau 6y ago
  Socialism aka wealth redistrubtion - Yearly tax - Income tax - GST/VAT - Payroll tax - Child "Support" - Alimony (Same with no kids) - Divorce "settlement" Its all wealth redistrubtion by STATE FORCE if you refuse to hand over your/your business money to the STATE, then the STATE uses phsyical force, armed people with assult weapons to take you against your will and "fine" you or cage you This is so called "FREEDOM" BTW same people that censor ban limit restrict "regulate" control and prevent you speaking out and prevent you bearing arms to protect yourself your family your community from this illegal ill-moral criminal act because THEY ARE GOVERNMENT aka the top level of FORCE and VIOLENCE Everyone is a slave as long as Big Centralised goverment and taxation exists Does the so called "RIGHT WING" actually stand for freedom when its sit back and allowed Taxation GST Income tax Central big goverment Central banks digital cash/fiat currency usry debt based economy group rights female pussy pass hiding truth hiding stats/figures/amount of crime from women/blacks/non ethnic males Yet to see the "right" undo anything the Global LEFT has done in the last 50-200-250 years Cuckservative's have only saved their job, gov position and ablity to lie to the public on a global scal and saved the status quo
pc86 6y ago
"Non-profit" doesn't mean you don't make any money, it means you spend all your money. I went to a tiny liberal arts college you've never heard of, with a 1300-student enrollment today. The president makes well over half a million dollars a year. There are half a dozen deans making anywhere from $75-250k. A career services department run by a six-figure employee who has never held a job outside of that college (for real). They're technically a non-profit but with a sticker price of $40k a year and actual per-capita revenue somewhere in the high $20's, that is a lot of money to spread around to administration while you have 150-person lectures taught by a $25k/yr adjunct.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Is this RPI?
  - pc86 6y ago
    No but I've actually heard very similar experience to folks that went there, although I don't think it qualifies as a liberal arts college.
omarhaneef 6y ago
Perhaps you've heard the old quip about colleges with large endowments: a college is hedge fund with a small teaching arm attached to get the non-profit designation.
runawaybottle 6y ago
You don’t want to appear less premium. Hyundai increased their prices to make the Genesis seem like a luxury brand. It worked, their sales went up.

jimbob45 6y ago

I hate the hand-waviness behind this argument. Yes, much of college is not worth it anymore and can be attained online. Still, these HN threads always come to the same conclusion that there remain elements of the college experience that can only be found on campus. Not attacking you personally btw. You seem to see the nuance required of the conversation.

iso1631 6y ago
> Still, these HN threads always come to the same conclusion that there remain elements of the college experience that can only be found on campus. In my view the college experience (societies, living away from home, mixing with people from outside your local area) is far more useful than the actual teaching. "There's a time and a place for everything - and it's called college". However with covid, all that is removed, and you're left with some lectures (which in normal times you can't pause or rewind, and may well be at terrible times of the day), and an occasional chat with a bored professor.
- learc83 6y ago
  >However with covid, all that is removed, It's very unlikely that this lasts more than another semester or so though. If you're looking to enroll in the fall or the next year, it shouldn't be a big concern.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    If I were supposed to be starting in October 2020, I'd certainly skip next year and have a gap year 2021 onwards sure, things will be back to normal
  - itsmeamario 6y ago
    I'd like to see your sources on that.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      "A semester or so" reasonably covers until September 2021. I can't see the world standing for social distancing that long, and as such covid will spread throughout the population just like Polio, TB and uncurable/vaccinable diseases of the past. IFR of covid for undergrads is about 0.002-0.005%, so 1 in 20k-50k. Chance of death for a 20 year old in the UK is about 1 in 4k, so you're 5-10 times more likely to die for some other reason than covid. Indeed by moving away from home you're less likely to infect older parents, so it's a rational call.

FisForFlight 6y ago

A friend of mine goes to Harvard. He says once you get into Harvard... it's smooth sailing from there.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
I have heard the same thing about universities in Japan. High school in Japan is so much pressure that some students crack under it, but then once you get to university it is supposedly easily to just slack off for your entire degree program.
- bash-j 6y ago
  Do employers care about what grades you got in university?
  - officemonkey 6y ago
    No one has ever hired me based on my college grades. The first job I had checked to see I graduated from college. Every other job has been based on experience and my record of performance.
  - crimsonalucard5 6y ago
    I've had it this happen. It was a startup that was ran and helmed by mostly people from academia. These people have never been outside of academia so that might have influenced there decision to check my grades.
KenoFischer 6y ago
It can be if you want it to. At Harvard, there's very few requirements on what courses constitute a degree, so if you want to get a degree by just taking the easiest classes possible, you can definitely do that. Of course, most students don't do that since that's not why they went there. I do think professors try to give higher grade averages for the harder classes to avoid punishing students for challenging themselves, but I don't really have a problem with that (if you chose those classes you're probably not in it for the grades anyway). Also, at least I'm the sciences, a good fraction of students start taking classes at the graduate level either freshman or sophomore year, since they'll have completed a good chunk of the undergrad curriculum in high school.

snarf21 6y ago

I think we should just roll some kind of standardized test into your Junior year. Instead of it being this external expensive thing, everyone who wants to go to college can just take a half year preparation course in your Junior year and take the test at the end. We don't need this to be external. We already do a lot of standardized tests to measure student performance. This fixes the GPA problem between schools and the uncomparability of those numbers.

HelloFellowDevs 6y ago
The issue with standardized testing that's just rolled into coursework is that it'll further incentivize teachers to teach to the test. In my opinion it could also disadvantage schools which don't have education in the highest of mind. Basically running as a daycare center in some sections.
Loughla 6y ago
Most high school students take the SAT/ACT in their junior year already. Many only take the test that once. Many high schools have test-taking built into the curriculum for the first half of that year of school. Some states have replaced their standardized testing with the SAT/ACT.
- snarf21 6y ago
  What states are those? No schools that I know of locally have SAT prep as a school course or use the SAT as their standardized tests. It is good that some schools are already moving this way. I think it makes sense to have just one standardized test that can be used for admission and also tracking progress of schools and states.
  - Loughla 6y ago
    The last I knew: SAT: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia. ACT: Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming. Also, the implementation of SAT prep is spotty at best. As with most things, whether the schools have test prep is pretty reliant on how well funded the individual district is. At least that's my experience.

not_a_moth 6y ago

Anyone intimate with Germany's vocational training system, that's used as an alternative to college by approximately half of all graduating high school students? 2-3 years small salary vocational training straight out of HS at 1 of 400k participating companies in 1 of 400 role types. I want to know why implementing this isn't a national debate in US, it seems like such an obviously good idea.

eli_gottlieb 6y ago
>I want to know why implementing this isn't a national debate in US, it seems like such an obviously good idea. Because it would involve respecting blue-collar workers, and beating up on Labor(TM) (really: wage suppression for the working class) takes priority in America over doing what's economically and socially rational.
throwaway287391 6y ago
I'd bet a large part of the reason is cultural. For just about any American high school student who's been exposed to the mainstream culture their entire lives (including myself at the time), the idea of missing out on the "college experience" (i.e. mostly partying) that just about every conventionally successful person they've ever met will have gone through and instead going to "small salary vocational training" would just be completely unthinkable and depressing to imagine, especially if all your friends are following the usual path. I suppose it's possible this may change with Covid-19 but I still don't quite see it. Edit: could any of the downvoters explain their reasoning? I guess this could have come off as facetious because I mentioned partying or something, but I'm completely serious -- why wouldn't cultural reasons be a major factor?
- souterrain 6y ago
  American culture also devalues community college in this way. The way we break this is by changing our hiring decisions. If you have a Harvard grad (or other private university grad) in front of you, consider if they really are the right candidate. Consider recruiting from local community and public colleges, including public non-traditional colleges. Build a rapport with the job placement offices at these schools. If candidates are missing something, work with the schools to improve their curricula.

chrxr 6y ago

If the learning experience is simplified to listening to a lecture, either live or recorded, and all grading is done algorithmically, then yes, there is no scaling limitation. This would be considered a very poor learning experience though. Even in the School of Engineering at Harvard, even for the CS classes, very few use autograding. Students expect individual feedback on their work. They expect the ability to personally interact with teaching staff. They expect group work, labs, office hours, reading groups, and some level of supervision over these activities. I work at Harvard, and I can tell you there is a real push to create a quality experience in remote learning, and a lot of resources are being directed towards this. It is not just the same classes via Zoom. Of course these enhanced learning environments could be replicated on campus as well, there's nothing particularly special about the remote learning environment. But as you suggest, it is the residential experience that most folks are paying for. Harvard considers the residential experience as one of their primary value propositions. That is why Harvard and other schools are working very hard to get students back to campus. It's a difficult balancing act between this and maintaining the health of the campus. A major outbreak amongst undergrads would be a serious blow to everybody involved, so health is always going to come first. Also worth noting that 20% of Harvard students pay 0 tuition, and more than 50% get needs-based scholarships. https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid. So if you're smart enough, and/or fit into the financial aid brackets, why not go to Harvard? What's the risk there?

colllectorof 6y ago
>Also worth noting that 20% of Harvard students pay 0 tuition, and more than 50% get needs-based scholarships. https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid. So if you're smart enough, and/or fit into the financial aid brackets, why not go to Harvard? Are you seriously suggesting that 50% the most talented students in the country have $313,000 for tuition? If financial aid and scholarships worked as advertised, Ivy League schools would be filled to the brim with talented people. There would be no space left for stupid kids with rich parents. Yet those kids get in, reliably. There were many scandals related to that recently. Heck, just look at the children of major US politician and media elites.

raxxorrax 6y ago

3-5 months after graduating university, I thought academic titles would mean something. Today I know better. I think this is a real good development. While I cannot complain about the quality of my former teachers, logistics of knowledge are cheaper than ever before. Everyone could at least listen to the best experts in their respective fields. Subjugating students with debts like that isn't common where I live and it looks "decently perverse" from outside the US. I think it was always a brand but the educational value is questionable in modern times. What they sell today is mostly access and nepotism. I think a real benefit is the tendency to leave your family home for higher education. Maybe that is why I remember my time studying so fondly. (I love my family, but if you don't want to get out of there by the time you hit 18, there must be something wrong with you)

Invictus0 6y ago

I know most people on this forum are computer scientists but take a minute to think about engineers and scientists that require physical labs to learn. Bio/chem labs, machine shops, wind tunnels, research facilities... not all university degrees can be moved online.

non-entity 6y ago
CS is basically the only "useful" bachelors degree I've seen that's been widely implemented online. When I looked at going hack to school, the schools offering online degrees typically had a "meh" CS program and a variety of degrees that were in subjects not really opening you up to useful of even interesting employment. Also wayyy to many IT type degrees, which feel like a scam to me. I was under the impression that certifications are the big credentials for IT fields. Why pay tens of thousands for a degree program when you could put much less money into studying and achieving relevant certs.
OkayPhysicist 6y ago
Anyone who claims a university callibre education in any field can achieved by mass online lectures either completely wasted their time in university, or never attended in the first place. The main purpose, and primary advantage, of a university is being a place of learning. That means you are embedded in a community that is focused around the pursuit of knowledge. At the very least, you are embedded in a community of peers, some studying the same subject as you and invaluable as a resource to bounce ideas around with, and studying other subjects, giving you exposure to ideas you didn't even know to look up. And that's before you even get to the fact that you get access to professors and other faculty who are extremely knowledgeable in their respective fields. Unless you are from an extremely academic background, it is highly unlikely your typical social circle includes several PhDs. But all your professors have one. And compounding on that, you're in an environment designed to be conducive to learning. No where else will you find more resources and cultural forces aimed towards learning. Even those wild college parties are still filled with people who are engaged in academic pursuit at least half the week.

TheCoelacanth 6y ago

The scaling limit is that they would dilute their brand if they started letting in a lot more people. Exclusivity is one of their main value propositions.

Loughla 6y ago

>many are saying the large tuition fees for Zoom lectures aren't worth it. If I was an outgoing high school senior this year, I would 100% be attending a community college in the fall. If you're all online, there are no connections to be made on campus, and res. life isn't part of the equation. At that point, there are no incentives to pay more for the same first two years of college.

helen___keller 6y ago

Realistically, Harvard has the most exclusive brand name out of the entire sector. Harvard isn't going to have an issue finding full enrollment willing to pay whatever they are asked to pay.

deleted 6y ago

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fiftyfifty 6y ago

I have 2 kids in college right now. One goes to a non-Harvard Ivy League school, the other one is at a state school. My wife and I both went to an average state school (as far as college rankings are concerned). We've gotten more insight than usual into our kid's academics as both of them have been home this spring and taking online classes due to the Covid outbreak. The level of academic rigor and the high expectations at the Ivy league school are through the roof compared to my own college experience and my other kid's academics. I frankly don't think I could have handled it had I been able to attend a school of that caliber. I can't speak for Harvard specifically but I have my doubts that an average student would survive for very long at some of these elite schools. I also have my doubts that their teaching style would scale real well to a large number of students. They rely heavily on hiring exceptional professors and giving them a significant amount of autonomy in the classroom. The class sizes are very small by university standards and the vast majority of assignments and tests are hand written and graded by the professor.