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Near as I can tell, he's devoting more than 10x the resources to this class. Instead of 1 lecturer + 500 students, it's 1 lecturer + 50. Plus 2 hours of extra i

Near as I can tell, he's devoting more than 10x the resources to this class. Instead of 1 lecturer + 500 students, it's 1 lecturer + 50. Plus 2 hours of extra instruction, so maybe it's 16x resources (assuming chem is normally 3 hours of instruction/week, (5/3)x10 ~ 16). Plus advisers tracking these students, peer mentors, etc. It's hardly clear that graduating additional marginal students is worth 16x what graduating a normal student is worth. Can you explain why you believe it is? Lets put the numbers into perspective. Instead of teaching 1 remedial 50 person class, this guy could teach a second 500 person class. 450 additional students could be educated at UT. Why is Vanessa worth more than 10 better prepared students?

Denzel 12y ago
It's a calculated expenditure with the expectation of creating future benefits, not just for UT, but for society in general. They're investing in a high-growth segment of the market. We can reasonably assume that the cost to attract and educate a student from a family with a college-going tradition is minimal compared to that of a first-generation student. Furthermore, by graduating a first-generation student, it's possible that a new college-going tradition is started in their existing family or any subsequent families they interact with.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  If it's a calculated expenditure, what's the calculation? Something concrete please, not platitudes. We can reasonably assume that the cost to attract and educate a student from a family with a college-going tradition is minimal compared to that of a first-generation student. This means we get the most bang for our buck if we focus on the good students, and only consider devoting resources to the bad ones after we exhaust the supply of good ones. That seems to contradict your idea of a "calculated expenditure".

Denzel 12y ago

It's a calculated expenditure with the expectation of creating future benefits, not just for UT, but for society in general. They're investing in a high-growth segment of the market. We can reasonably assume that the cost to attract and educate a student from a family with a college-going tradition is minimal compared to that of a first-generation student. Furthermore, by graduating a first-generation student, it's possible that a new college-going tradition is started in their existing family or any subsequent families they interact with.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
If it's a calculated expenditure, what's the calculation? Something concrete please, not platitudes. We can reasonably assume that the cost to attract and educate a student from a family with a college-going tradition is minimal compared to that of a first-generation student. This means we get the most bang for our buck if we focus on the good students, and only consider devoting resources to the bad ones after we exhaust the supply of good ones. That seems to contradict your idea of a "calculated expenditure".