4 ms·

Since when is a 375 person class massive? I'm all for what Udacity, Coursera, and others are trying to do, but there have been proper online universities such

by RafiqM 13y ago

Since when is a 375 person class massive? I'm all for what Udacity, Coursera, and others are trying to do, but there have been proper online universities such as the Open University doing this for years with hundreds of types of degrees, and with bigger classes. Let's put the "massive" back in "MooC". Also, $7k? I can get a on-campus CS masters in a world top 100 university here in Ireland for that price. I guess education in the US must be ultra expensive.

repsilat 13y ago
> Since when is a 375 person class massive That isn't all -- none of the classes actually have 375 students. There are several classes being offered per semester, and most students are doing only one or two. I can't find the figure at the moment, but iirc class sizes are ~150.
mmanfrin 13y ago
Everything that is near-socialized in other western industrialized countries is paradoxically more expensive here. 3 Years of law school is $150k, not counting actual cost of living. Schools run in the realm of $14k to $50k a year in tuition costs alone.
- arethuza 13y ago
  Out of interest, why can't you do law (or indeed medicine) as a first degree in the US?
  - bgilroy26 13y ago
    On a mechanical level, a 4 year degree is an entrance requirement at med/law schools. On a more practical level, the schools that are good enough to land you a job as a doctor/lawyer are all so competitive that a hole in your CV like not having a bachelor's degree when everyone else has one is a real disadvantage.
    - arethuza 13y ago
      "a 4 year degree is an entrance requirement at med/law schools" Yes, I know that - but why have this requirement - as far as I know most other countries don't (certainly the UK doesn't).
      - richardfontana 13y ago
        The requirement that one have a bachelor's degree prior to entering a first-degree law program gradually took hold, mainly during the earlier part of the 20th century I believe. One reason was to make it harder for people (particularly people from immigrant communities) to enter the legal profession. Another reason was to increase the prestige of the legal profession by turning it into a graduate degree program. This latter reason is also behind two later developments (making it standard for the law degree program to be 3 years, and rebranding the name of the degree from the traditional LLB (Bachelor of Laws) to the pretentious JD (Juris Doctor). The 3-year standardization was not fully in place until the mid-20th century, IINM, and the LLB->JD rebranding largely took place during the early post-WW2 era. The JD rebranding no doubt had something to do with the high prestige enjoyed by the medical profession by the mid-20th century. As for why the bachelor's degree is required for medical schools, I don't know as much about that (I'm a lawyer and have studied the history of the US legal profession a bit). I suspect some of the reasons are the same (other than competition with the other profession, since I think the medical profession was the earlier mover here). Edit: postwar -> post-WW2 as I realize most HN readers may not have grown up with that long-default US usage of "postwar".
        arethuza 13y ago
        Thanks - my wife is a solicitor in Scotland (and has been called to the Bar as an Advocate) and she did her LLB as a second degree as she already had a first degree. Although her route was unintentional it certainly used to be "traditional" to do law as second degree (and some universities here do an accelerated 2 year ordinary LLB) after a degree in classics or similar. She trained in the Civil Service as a solicitor (when you get a law degree you are still 3 years away from actually qualifying - you have to do a postgraduate course then do two years training in a a law firm) and their filtering criteria for trainees was that they have 2 first degrees.... Only a very small number of people do law as a second degree these days. Amusingly, the process for training as an advocate is known as devilling - where you are apprenticed to a senior junior and during that time you are literally an advocate's devil :-)
navyrain 13y ago
Education, like most things in the US, is supported by debt. Tuition for a single semester at Georgia Tech, for an out of state student like myself, would run $14,861: http://www.bursar.gatech.edu/student/tuition/Spring_2014/Spring14-all_fees.pdf http://www.bursar.gatech.edu/student/tuition/Spring_2014/Spr...
- whichdan 13y ago
  For anyone skimming over this post, $14,861/semester adds up to $118,888 over four years.
  - ajtaylor 13y ago
    And that doesn't include a place to live or food to eat. The hidden costs can be quite substantial as well.
    - ef47d35620c1 13y ago
      Or books either. Probably $1,000 in books per year. Maybe more.
  - zhaphod 13y ago
    This kind of sky high prices necessarily deprives a large number of intelligent and brilliant people from ever getting a college education in USA. This directly has an impact on the economy in the long run. Instead of funding an expensive military, US fed govt should just pay for every ones college education and recover it over the entire working life of the person in small bits. Better to have high national debt in return for an extremely well educated population instead of a white elephant of a military.
    - ctdonath 13y ago
      Supply and demand. The demand is extremely high, with every high school graduate being pressured to "go to college!" (to what end, few know) and student loans being so easy to get. The supply is limited, as a nation can only produce so many professors and places for them to teach. Your suggestion "US fed govt should just pay for every ones college education" (however paid for) would just increase the demand even more. You'd still be depriving a large number of intelligent and brilliant people from ever getting a college education in USA by the sheer mass of bodies signing up - and you'd still have a limited supply of teachers & facilities, so odds of the "deserving" getting what they need remains low. Demand outstripping supply, prices naturally rise until equilibrium. Making payment easier thru cheap debt or government handouts doesn't solve the problem because that increases the demand without improving supply. MOOCs, by improving the teacher/student ratio by orders of magnitude, does work toward solving the problem (and decreases costs as well!).
eonil 13y ago
I am curious whether the tuition fee is same on international (non-EU) students or non-research courses.

by RafiqM 13y ago

repsilat 13y ago

> Since when is a 375 person class massive That isn't all -- none of the classes actually have 375 students. There are several classes being offered per semester, and most students are doing only one or two. I can't find the figure at the moment, but iirc class sizes are ~150.

mmanfrin 13y ago

Everything that is near-socialized in other western industrialized countries is paradoxically more expensive here. 3 Years of law school is $150k, not counting actual cost of living. Schools run in the realm of $14k to $50k a year in tuition costs alone.

arethuza 13y ago
Out of interest, why can't you do law (or indeed medicine) as a first degree in the US?
- bgilroy26 13y ago
  On a mechanical level, a 4 year degree is an entrance requirement at med/law schools. On a more practical level, the schools that are good enough to land you a job as a doctor/lawyer are all so competitive that a hole in your CV like not having a bachelor's degree when everyone else has one is a real disadvantage.
  - arethuza 13y ago
    "a 4 year degree is an entrance requirement at med/law schools" Yes, I know that - but why have this requirement - as far as I know most other countries don't (certainly the UK doesn't).
    - richardfontana 13y ago
      The requirement that one have a bachelor's degree prior to entering a first-degree law program gradually took hold, mainly during the earlier part of the 20th century I believe. One reason was to make it harder for people (particularly people from immigrant communities) to enter the legal profession. Another reason was to increase the prestige of the legal profession by turning it into a graduate degree program. This latter reason is also behind two later developments (making it standard for the law degree program to be 3 years, and rebranding the name of the degree from the traditional LLB (Bachelor of Laws) to the pretentious JD (Juris Doctor). The 3-year standardization was not fully in place until the mid-20th century, IINM, and the LLB->JD rebranding largely took place during the early post-WW2 era. The JD rebranding no doubt had something to do with the high prestige enjoyed by the medical profession by the mid-20th century. As for why the bachelor's degree is required for medical schools, I don't know as much about that (I'm a lawyer and have studied the history of the US legal profession a bit). I suspect some of the reasons are the same (other than competition with the other profession, since I think the medical profession was the earlier mover here). Edit: postwar -> post-WW2 as I realize most HN readers may not have grown up with that long-default US usage of "postwar".
      - arethuza 13y ago
        Thanks - my wife is a solicitor in Scotland (and has been called to the Bar as an Advocate) and she did her LLB as a second degree as she already had a first degree. Although her route was unintentional it certainly used to be "traditional" to do law as second degree (and some universities here do an accelerated 2 year ordinary LLB) after a degree in classics or similar. She trained in the Civil Service as a solicitor (when you get a law degree you are still 3 years away from actually qualifying - you have to do a postgraduate course then do two years training in a a law firm) and their filtering criteria for trainees was that they have 2 first degrees.... Only a very small number of people do law as a second degree these days. Amusingly, the process for training as an advocate is known as devilling - where you are apprenticed to a senior junior and during that time you are literally an advocate's devil :-)

navyrain 13y ago

Education, like most things in the US, is supported by debt. Tuition for a single semester at Georgia Tech, for an out of state student like myself, would run $14,861: http://www.bursar.gatech.edu/student/tuition/Spring_2014/Spring14-all_fees.pdf http://www.bursar.gatech.edu/student/tuition/Spring_2014/Spr...

whichdan 13y ago
For anyone skimming over this post, $14,861/semester adds up to $118,888 over four years.
- ajtaylor 13y ago
  And that doesn't include a place to live or food to eat. The hidden costs can be quite substantial as well.
  - ef47d35620c1 13y ago
    Or books either. Probably $1,000 in books per year. Maybe more.
- zhaphod 13y ago
  This kind of sky high prices necessarily deprives a large number of intelligent and brilliant people from ever getting a college education in USA. This directly has an impact on the economy in the long run. Instead of funding an expensive military, US fed govt should just pay for every ones college education and recover it over the entire working life of the person in small bits. Better to have high national debt in return for an extremely well educated population instead of a white elephant of a military.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Supply and demand. The demand is extremely high, with every high school graduate being pressured to "go to college!" (to what end, few know) and student loans being so easy to get. The supply is limited, as a nation can only produce so many professors and places for them to teach. Your suggestion "US fed govt should just pay for every ones college education" (however paid for) would just increase the demand even more. You'd still be depriving a large number of intelligent and brilliant people from ever getting a college education in USA by the sheer mass of bodies signing up - and you'd still have a limited supply of teachers & facilities, so odds of the "deserving" getting what they need remains low. Demand outstripping supply, prices naturally rise until equilibrium. Making payment easier thru cheap debt or government handouts doesn't solve the problem because that increases the demand without improving supply. MOOCs, by improving the teacher/student ratio by orders of magnitude, does work toward solving the problem (and decreases costs as well!).

eonil 13y ago

I am curious whether the tuition fee is same on international (non-EU) students or non-research courses.