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Except "embracing" is definitely not the right word. Very few professors I know are happy about this whole situation. Universities are begrudgingly accepting th

Except "embracing" is definitely not the right word. Very few professors I know are happy about this whole situation. Universities are begrudgingly accepting the fact that they can't have in-person classes, so they have to turn to online alternatives. Tuition can't be changed because the few costs that are being saved (facilities still need maintenance) are offset by the massive losses in revenue from student housing and the added costs in prepping online classes. Very few professors are thinking that they're delivering the same quality of education online, even though they're having to work even more to create and deliver an online alternative from scratch, plus having to teach themselves video production skills.

game_the0ry 6y ago
> Except "embracing" is definitely not the right word. Fair point. Still, students are not getting what they are paying for and colleges will not be able to adequately justify the same cost to students, whatever their fixed operating expenses may be, especially since students do not benefit from those expenses.
- dathinab 6y ago
  Yes, but tbh I'm not sure if the US study costs had been reasonable even when they where not online.
albatross 6y ago
It seems like an educational instituion relying on income from real estate properties points to the greater issue here: General lack of funding for education. Making money off housing will disproportionately affect students of differing income backgrounds, so this is not the same as moving that cost to tuition fees. Schools shouldn't have to run themselves like a traditional business, yet that is exactly the model most are forced to follow in order to survive. Edit: "shouldn't" not "should"
- sieabahlpark 6y ago
  What do you mean they lack funding? They are probably the single most well funded areas of our country with guaranteed student loans from the government.
- Domenic_S 6y ago
  > Making money off housing will disproportionately affect students of differing income backgrounds Having trouble parsing this. What do you mean? IMO the problem is that many colleges are not focused on education to begin with. They compete with each other by building the most luxurious facilities, sports programs, and so forth. Then they pay execs crazy salaries while leaving the actual instructors in the dust: "Auditors said salaries paid to staff in the UC president’s office are much higher than the pay of comparable positions in other state government jobs. Administrative salaries amounted to a combined $2.5 million more than the maximum annual salaries for comparable state employee positions, auditors found. For instance, the UC system’s chief investment officer has a base salary of $615,000, while the top investment officer with the state’s teachers’ retirement system is paid $568,000, the audit found." https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-uc-audit-20170425-story.html https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-uc-audit-2017042...
  - taylodl 6y ago
    This is pretty much the same situation in every Fortune 500 company, is it not?
    - Domenic_S 6y ago
      An intern at a Fortune 500 makes 3-4x what the lowest paid college instructor makes, and doesn't pull the "poor us, we're underfunded" card all the time.
    - rdslw 6y ago
      LOL. But this was supposed to be argument in regards to "General lack of funding for education" Now you're stating what? That F500 companies have general lack of funding? So who has? Mom & Pop shop?
deskamess 6y ago
> Very few professors I know are happy about this whole situation. Exactly this. It is not the same experience being in the same class and teaching. All the energy that could have gone into that is now spent twiddling with gadgets. There is no coordinated 'course production system' in many environments. So teachers have to improvise and they are ending up on different ecosystems. Many of them are now learning to twiddle cameras instead of helping out students. I think many universities have to take a 'gap year' to bring in companies to help them reorg across departments.
- hotcrossbunny 6y ago
  This is as much about their lack of historic engagement with new platforms than a fundamental difficulty in adapting the teaching process or content. Universities have been very invested in a high cost model. It's time to change. This like many things we are now discovering are ripe for reform and have lacked only the right catalyst to set a painful but necessary progress in motion.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    It is about content - it does make sence for each university to produce essentially the same content 100 times
rdslw 6y ago
> Tuition can't be changed because (whatever) Nope. What you're saying is "I cant restructure my business becasue I have high costs". Your competitor disrupting your business could not care less.
- anoxor 6y ago
  The issue is accreditation limits the number of disruptors that can come into the market and makes the bar very high for that. College is 100% right before disruption, but difficult to do.
  - rdslw 6y ago
    I find it funny+, that well into XXI century, somebody on hackersnews is trying to persuade me that digital native disruptor has very high bar to disrupt brick&mortar old fashion behemoth, WHEN goliath is forced into digital space by external force (covid). +) or significant, why US edu is so bad in terms of price to earnings ratio comparing to what you can get elsewhere. time to say that king is naked.
  - manquer 6y ago
    Very few professions need you to be certified / have an degree like law/accounting/medical do. Accreditation will come from industry which is what really matters. There are plenty of coding bootcamps already who companies pay on par or higher than a university IT degree.
- xboxnolifes 6y ago
  Well, yes. They can't restructure a business that has high maintenance costs on illiquid assets such as land and buildings in such a small, temporary timeframe.
  - rdslw 6y ago
    Well no. Controlled bankruptcy is restructuring. Anyway, how my last sentence went? ;) who couldnt care less?
- 6y ago
azhenley 6y ago
> Very few professors I know are happy about this whole situation. Right. As a professor, I'm not embracing this at all. We all hate the situation and don't really know what the best thing to do is.
- znpy 6y ago
  Adapt maybe?
  - bsder 6y ago
    So I take it that you're volunteering to come run all my Audio/Visual stuff for free? I spent 120+ hours dealing with all the Audio-Visual idiocy to deliver a 20 minute talk that took me probably 20 hours to prepare. Yeah, adapt. I have some four letter words for you.
    - Viliam1234 6y ago
      A reasonable approach would be division of work. Hire a guy who can handle the camera and edit the videos. Have professors plan the lecture, do the talking, and verify that the end product is okay. The guy with the camera can edit videos on multiple subjects, because he doesn't really have to understand the topics. Of course, if the professors have to learn (each of them separately) how to handle the camera and edit the videos, that is a horrible waste of time. But that's just... lack of strategic thinking on the university's part. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way.
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        The skillset of a proffesor is not video editing and university is not a video studio. It is idiotic for a thousand universities around the world to make a thousand videos that explain how compilers works (or whatever). Furthermore, 21st century learning should be interactive, so actually all those lecturers should become videogame developers
        6y ago

game_the0ry 6y ago

> Except "embracing" is definitely not the right word. Fair point. Still, students are not getting what they are paying for and colleges will not be able to adequately justify the same cost to students, whatever their fixed operating expenses may be, especially since students do not benefit from those expenses.

dathinab 6y ago
Yes, but tbh I'm not sure if the US study costs had been reasonable even when they where not online.

albatross 6y ago

It seems like an educational instituion relying on income from real estate properties points to the greater issue here: General lack of funding for education. Making money off housing will disproportionately affect students of differing income backgrounds, so this is not the same as moving that cost to tuition fees. Schools shouldn't have to run themselves like a traditional business, yet that is exactly the model most are forced to follow in order to survive. Edit: "shouldn't" not "should"

sieabahlpark 6y ago
What do you mean they lack funding? They are probably the single most well funded areas of our country with guaranteed student loans from the government.
Domenic_S 6y ago
> Making money off housing will disproportionately affect students of differing income backgrounds Having trouble parsing this. What do you mean? IMO the problem is that many colleges are not focused on education to begin with. They compete with each other by building the most luxurious facilities, sports programs, and so forth. Then they pay execs crazy salaries while leaving the actual instructors in the dust: "Auditors said salaries paid to staff in the UC president’s office are much higher than the pay of comparable positions in other state government jobs. Administrative salaries amounted to a combined $2.5 million more than the maximum annual salaries for comparable state employee positions, auditors found. For instance, the UC system’s chief investment officer has a base salary of $615,000, while the top investment officer with the state’s teachers’ retirement system is paid $568,000, the audit found." https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-uc-audit-20170425-story.html https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-uc-audit-2017042...
- taylodl 6y ago
  This is pretty much the same situation in every Fortune 500 company, is it not?
  - Domenic_S 6y ago
    An intern at a Fortune 500 makes 3-4x what the lowest paid college instructor makes, and doesn't pull the "poor us, we're underfunded" card all the time.
  - rdslw 6y ago
    LOL. But this was supposed to be argument in regards to "General lack of funding for education" Now you're stating what? That F500 companies have general lack of funding? So who has? Mom & Pop shop?

deskamess 6y ago

> Very few professors I know are happy about this whole situation. Exactly this. It is not the same experience being in the same class and teaching. All the energy that could have gone into that is now spent twiddling with gadgets. There is no coordinated 'course production system' in many environments. So teachers have to improvise and they are ending up on different ecosystems. Many of them are now learning to twiddle cameras instead of helping out students. I think many universities have to take a 'gap year' to bring in companies to help them reorg across departments.

hotcrossbunny 6y ago
This is as much about their lack of historic engagement with new platforms than a fundamental difficulty in adapting the teaching process or content. Universities have been very invested in a high cost model. It's time to change. This like many things we are now discovering are ripe for reform and have lacked only the right catalyst to set a painful but necessary progress in motion.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  It is about content - it does make sence for each university to produce essentially the same content 100 times

rdslw 6y ago

> Tuition can't be changed because (whatever) Nope. What you're saying is "I cant restructure my business becasue I have high costs". Your competitor disrupting your business could not care less.

anoxor 6y ago
The issue is accreditation limits the number of disruptors that can come into the market and makes the bar very high for that. College is 100% right before disruption, but difficult to do.
- rdslw 6y ago
  I find it funny+, that well into XXI century, somebody on hackersnews is trying to persuade me that digital native disruptor has very high bar to disrupt brick&mortar old fashion behemoth, WHEN goliath is forced into digital space by external force (covid). +) or significant, why US edu is so bad in terms of price to earnings ratio comparing to what you can get elsewhere. time to say that king is naked.
- manquer 6y ago
  Very few professions need you to be certified / have an degree like law/accounting/medical do. Accreditation will come from industry which is what really matters. There are plenty of coding bootcamps already who companies pay on par or higher than a university IT degree.
xboxnolifes 6y ago
Well, yes. They can't restructure a business that has high maintenance costs on illiquid assets such as land and buildings in such a small, temporary timeframe.
- rdslw 6y ago
  Well no. Controlled bankruptcy is restructuring. Anyway, how my last sentence went? ;) who couldnt care less?
6y ago

azhenley 6y ago

> Very few professors I know are happy about this whole situation. Right. As a professor, I'm not embracing this at all. We all hate the situation and don't really know what the best thing to do is.

znpy 6y ago
Adapt maybe?
- bsder 6y ago
  So I take it that you're volunteering to come run all my Audio/Visual stuff for free? I spent 120+ hours dealing with all the Audio-Visual idiocy to deliver a 20 minute talk that took me probably 20 hours to prepare. Yeah, adapt. I have some four letter words for you.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    A reasonable approach would be division of work. Hire a guy who can handle the camera and edit the videos. Have professors plan the lecture, do the talking, and verify that the end product is okay. The guy with the camera can edit videos on multiple subjects, because he doesn't really have to understand the topics. Of course, if the professors have to learn (each of them separately) how to handle the camera and edit the videos, that is a horrible waste of time. But that's just... lack of strategic thinking on the university's part. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      The skillset of a proffesor is not video editing and university is not a video studio. It is idiotic for a thousand universities around the world to make a thousand videos that explain how compilers works (or whatever). Furthermore, 21st century learning should be interactive, so actually all those lecturers should become videogame developers
      - 6y ago