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From sources like this [1], it looks like the cohort of high school graduates is usually between 3 and 4 million. So that means the total college-eligible cohor

From sources like this [1], it looks like the cohort of high school graduates is usually between 3 and 4 million. So that means the total college-eligible cohort is 12 - 16 million. Let's say 25% (a fourth) of them end up attending this magical national public college. That's a 3000000 / 10000 = 300:1 ratio of students to teachers. That's a lot of students per PhD to handle, for a $100k salary with greatly reduced career prospects in academia, since they are not doing any research. By comparison, the student/faculty ratio at a typical "good" college is about 5:1. Even knocking down the projected enrollment one order of magnitude (so 1/40th of the college-age cohort) gets you a 30:1 ratio which is still 6 times worse. Feel free to point out a flaw here, but I don't think this plan will work. Basically, you'll end up doing a MOOC site, but those...already exist? ---------------------------------------- [1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/12/15/what-do-new-projections-high-school-graduates-mean-colleges-and-universities https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/12/15/what-do-new-p...

a2tech 4y ago
- BarryMilo 4y ago
  To be fair, replacing an expensive diploma mill with a free/public diploma mill isn't that bad an idea. Probably just too "socalist" for North America. Imagine if everyone could have access to higher education without going into massive debt!
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Uninformed tech people are better than a lot of experts in many fields. Wouldn't be the first time. Bezos responded to COVID faster than the NIAID.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> By comparison, the student/faculty ratio at a typical "good" college is about 5:1. Even knocking down the projected enrollment one order of magnitude (so 1/40th of the college-age cohort) gets you a 30:1 ratio which is still 6 times worse. What qualifies as a good college, for this description? Typical state school, e.g. Oregon State University? What counts in the 5:1 ratio? Because it sure isn't just teachers, that's probably more like 50:1.
- brewdad 4y ago
  For the record, OSU lists their student:faculty ratio at 18:1. First year gen ed courses are huge but most upper level classes are a much more manageable size. https://oregonstate.edu/about https://oregonstate.edu/about
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    It's been a while, but I don't remember any of my upper division CS classes at OSU being smaller than ~30 students. That's why I wondered if perhaps admins were counted somehow, or maybe grad students, to get to a lower ratio.
- bnralt 4y ago
  Indeed, 300:1 is pretty common in large lecture courses, even ones at relatively high ranked schools in fairly important topics (algorithms, for instance). And that's with the teacher having to give a different lecture to every single section every year, instead of just recording one lecture for everyone for the next several years. Even more time is saved if we unbundled university education in general, so that the various paths and credentials are their own thing. IE, Intro to Poetry 101 isn't necessary for someone who's pursuing finance credentials.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  > Because it sure isn't just teachers, that's probably more like 50:1. How do you figure that? Mean class size at a university is probably in the neighborhood of 30 students. Yes, there are some classes that have monster, 200+ class sizes, but this is also balanced out by senior- or grad-level classes that have a dozen students in them. Students also take several classes, and on average, each instructor only teaches ~1 class a semester (especially consider research professors who may not teach a course every semester). So if students are taking ~5 courses a semester on average, I'd expect to see a ratio somewhere around 6:1, nothing even close to 50:1.
  - bradlys 4y ago
    I’ve never had a single class with less than 30 students except for ones where the students dropped out mid-quarter. (Ironically one of my smallest classes was one that was for 65+ students but the instructor was so bad that we had less than 20 by end of quarter) I went to University of Washington - if it matters.

a2tech 4y ago

BarryMilo 4y ago
To be fair, replacing an expensive diploma mill with a free/public diploma mill isn't that bad an idea. Probably just too "socalist" for North America. Imagine if everyone could have access to higher education without going into massive debt!
renewiltord 4y ago
Uninformed tech people are better than a lot of experts in many fields. Wouldn't be the first time. Bezos responded to COVID faster than the NIAID.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> By comparison, the student/faculty ratio at a typical "good" college is about 5:1. Even knocking down the projected enrollment one order of magnitude (so 1/40th of the college-age cohort) gets you a 30:1 ratio which is still 6 times worse. What qualifies as a good college, for this description? Typical state school, e.g. Oregon State University? What counts in the 5:1 ratio? Because it sure isn't just teachers, that's probably more like 50:1.

brewdad 4y ago
For the record, OSU lists their student:faculty ratio at 18:1. First year gen ed courses are huge but most upper level classes are a much more manageable size. https://oregonstate.edu/about https://oregonstate.edu/about
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  It's been a while, but I don't remember any of my upper division CS classes at OSU being smaller than ~30 students. That's why I wondered if perhaps admins were counted somehow, or maybe grad students, to get to a lower ratio.
bnralt 4y ago
Indeed, 300:1 is pretty common in large lecture courses, even ones at relatively high ranked schools in fairly important topics (algorithms, for instance). And that's with the teacher having to give a different lecture to every single section every year, instead of just recording one lecture for everyone for the next several years. Even more time is saved if we unbundled university education in general, so that the various paths and credentials are their own thing. IE, Intro to Poetry 101 isn't necessary for someone who's pursuing finance credentials.
jcranmer 4y ago
> Because it sure isn't just teachers, that's probably more like 50:1. How do you figure that? Mean class size at a university is probably in the neighborhood of 30 students. Yes, there are some classes that have monster, 200+ class sizes, but this is also balanced out by senior- or grad-level classes that have a dozen students in them. Students also take several classes, and on average, each instructor only teaches ~1 class a semester (especially consider research professors who may not teach a course every semester). So if students are taking ~5 courses a semester on average, I'd expect to see a ratio somewhere around 6:1, nothing even close to 50:1.
- bradlys 4y ago
  I’ve never had a single class with less than 30 students except for ones where the students dropped out mid-quarter. (Ironically one of my smallest classes was one that was for 65+ students but the instructor was so bad that we had less than 20 by end of quarter) I went to University of Washington - if it matters.