Is college now just transactional?

[Anonymous]

"'When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.' The benefits of a classical education." Hans Gruber, Die Hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think at 80K a year for a private school, it’s changed what people expect.

+1. The colleges have become a parasitic system, with unbelievable administrative bloat and a mediocre product (in many cases) enabled by vast flows of federal student loan money that have allowed them to raise prices beyond all reason with zero market discipline. Essentially they are strip mining the middle class. ROI thus matters way more than when college was more sensibly priced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think at 80K a year for a private school, it’s changed what people expect.

+1. The colleges have become a parasitic system, with unbelievable administrative bloat and a mediocre product (in many cases) enabled by vast flows of federal student loan money that have allowed them to raise prices beyond all reason with zero market discipline. Essentially they are strip mining the middle class. ROI thus matters way more than when college was more sensibly priced.

We're so far past federal student loan limits for these schools. They're charging a price that forces everyone but the wealthy to save for their child's entire life. At some point, you shift from being a parent whose child attends a school to being a consumer purchasing an education on behalf of their child. 40 years ago when any UMC family could easily pay for any college in the nation with free cash flow, you can talk about the importance of finding yourself and exploring different avenues. Now, there is just too much invested

[Anonymous]

Hi. I am a college professor here and I just wanted to chime in with the following. It is fine for someone to major in the social sciences like sociology, political science or even psychology, provided that they learn how to manipulate and analyze data and particularly large data sets. This will happen at top schools. Someone who writes a senior thesis in psychology which involves carrying out queries on large data sets, following guidelines for anonymizing data and working with institutional guidelines for ethical data use will be very well served, and will have many career options in the field of data analytics . You all seem to have this idea that people in the social sciences just read books, but that would only be true of a bad third tier school. If your child wants to major something in the social science field, make sure that when you visit colleges you ask the question “what do people in this field learn about manipulating and working with data, what training is offered in working with data analytics and do your students produce a final product that they can put in a portfolio?”. And in political science this might mean working with electoral data for example. Lots of jobs doing that! Someone in sociology might be working with census data or with data collected and cities having to do with crime, traffic, etc. there are lots of jobs now and local and state government for people that want to do data analytics working with this type of data as well. This person who keeps coming on here to talk about how the social sciences are a waste of time is working with extremely out of date and incorrect information and doesn’t really understand what we’re doing in these fields these days

[Anonymous]

One more thing: I belong to a group for academics who are transitioning to the private sector, and people with masters and doctorate in psychology or being hired in the fields like user experience design. From what I understand this basically involves someone who understands human psychology watching how people interact with new technology and working to make it better and more intuitive. A lot of the people from my quantitative political science PhD program actually ended up building models on Wall Street that are used for trading stocks. This idea that nobody requires any fungible skills in the social sciences is patently false.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think at 80K a year for a private school, it’s changed what people expect.

OP here. I figured this would be the first response. But, for $80k, don’t you want your kid to be more interesting than just technically capable?

Assuming 4 classes/semester, $80k/yr comes out to about $10k per class. Why spend $10,000 on some fluffy intro to world lit class when you can just read the same half dozen books on your own time?

Because people don't read them on their own time, and because if they do, they don't talk about them with a PhD in the subject.

Into to world lit is likely taught by an adjunct or grad student.

Not at a liberal arts college.

If you can get basically the same introductory literature class taught by an adjunct for $100 at a local community college, why still pay $10,000 for the same class at the overpriced liberal arts college? If you have to take out loans all this fluffy general ed is just not good value for the money.

Even if you don't take out loans I'd still argue that all these fluffy BS liberal arts classes aren't worth it.

If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.

My husband has an industry-specific degree while I have a liberal arts degree (my graduate degree is more industry specific). There are certain things he doesn’t know that make me feel sorry for him. He’s really good at what he does, but he doesn’t really know what he missed by not having a liberal arts foundation.

If you think college is about training for a job vs being an educated person, you wouldn’t get it.

Hahaha. Okay lady. I bet he's the breadwinner in your house. A "liberal arts foundation" in philosophy or English isn't paying your mortgage.

You're taking an unusually long break from your gaming tonight to post. Everything OK? hahahahaha. LOL.

DP. Wow, we’re really seeing the benefits of your wonderful liberal arts education on display here in your feeble minded posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi. I am a college professor here and I just wanted to chime in with the following. It is fine for someone to major in the social sciences like sociology, political science or even psychology, provided that they learn how to manipulate and analyze data and particularly large data sets. This will happen at top schools. Someone who writes a senior thesis in psychology which involves carrying out queries on large data sets, following guidelines for anonymizing data and working with institutional guidelines for ethical data use will be very well served, and will have many career options in the field of data analytics . You all seem to have this idea that people in the social sciences just read books, but that would only be true of a bad third tier school. If your child wants to major something in the social science field, make sure that when you visit colleges you ask the question “what do people in this field learn about manipulating and working with data, what training is offered in working with data analytics and do your students produce a final product that they can put in a portfolio?”. And in political science this might mean working with electoral data for example. Lots of jobs doing that! Someone in sociology might be working with census data or with data collected and cities having to do with crime, traffic, etc. there are lots of jobs now and local and state government for people that want to do data analytics working with this type of data as well. This person who keeps coming on here to talk about how the social sciences are a waste of time is working with extremely out of date and incorrect information and doesn’t really understand what we’re doing in these fields these days

Aren't you the business professor? I thought you liked STEM major like CS Math lol

make up your mind

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think at 80K a year for a private school, it’s changed what people expect.

+1. The colleges have become a parasitic system, with unbelievable administrative bloat and a mediocre product (in many cases) enabled by vast flows of federal student loan money that have allowed them to raise prices beyond all reason with zero market discipline. Essentially they are strip mining the middle class. ROI thus matters way more than when college was more sensibly priced.

Hmmm…. but even the people I know sending their kids to reasonably priced state schools or whose kids got full rides based on merit aid are still aggressively focused on merit aid. Pretty much every kid I know at UMD Banneker Key is studying CS or Bio/Chem with med school intentions (with some finance/accounting majors in there too). Just what I see.

[Anonymous]

Make some paragraph breaks while you’re at it, Prof

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think at 80K a year for a private school, it’s changed what people expect.

+1. The colleges have become a parasitic system, with unbelievable administrative bloat and a mediocre product (in many cases) enabled by vast flows of federal student loan money that have allowed them to raise prices beyond all reason with zero market discipline. Essentially they are strip mining the middle class. ROI thus matters way more than when college was more sensibly priced.

Hmmm…. but even the people I know sending their kids to reasonably priced state schools or whose kids got full rides based on merit aid are still aggressively focused on merit aid. Pretty much every kid I know at UMD Banneker Key is studying CS or Bio/Chem with med school intentions (with some finance/accounting majors in there too). Just what I see.

*sorry that should say still aggressively focused on ROI

[Anonymous]

How can you not be? We're planning to spend *at least* 300k on each kid and we have 3.

Do I want them to be "interesting"? Yeah sure. But, if that's your primary goal, you're better off giving them money just to travel around the world for a year. They'll definitely pick up interesting and funny stories but idk how employable it'll make them.

I want my kids to be independent and not living in my basement some day. Can you really blame me for wanting that after spending a million dollars to educate them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can you not be? We're planning to spend *at least* 300k on each kid and we have 3.

Do I want them to be "interesting"? Yeah sure. But, if that's your primary goal, you're better off giving them money just to travel around the world for a year. They'll definitely pick up interesting and funny stories but idk how employable it'll make them.

I want my kids to be independent and not living in my basement some day. Can you really blame me for wanting that after spending a million dollars to educate them?

Why not just have your kid do Banneker Key at UMD? That would take so much pressure off of them, and as Dale and Kruger said, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter where you go to college!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How can you not be? We're planning to spend *at least* 300k on each kid and we have 3.

Do I want them to be "interesting"? Yeah sure. But, if that's your primary goal, you're better off giving them money just to travel around the world for a year. They'll definitely pick up interesting and funny stories but idk how employable it'll make them.

I want my kids to be independent and not living in my basement some day. Can you really blame me for wanting that after spending a million dollars to educate them?

This is a false dichotomy. I also want my kids to be independent but I don’t think they have to be a STEM major or go to a small subset of schools. It is also strange to me that so many people on this thread believe that a college course, taught by an expert and filled with other students who ask good questions, would provide the same benefit as reading on one’s own. I was a humanities major and I use the skills I learned all the time at work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think at 80K a year for a private school, it’s changed what people expect.

OP here. I figured this would be the first response. But, for $80k, don’t you want your kid to be more interesting than just technically capable?

Assuming 4 classes/semester, $80k/yr comes out to about $10k per class. Why spend $10,000 on some fluffy intro to world lit class when you can just read the same half dozen books on your own time?

Because people don't read them on their own time, and because if they do, they don't talk about them with a PhD in the subject.

Into to world lit is likely taught by an adjunct or grad student.

Not at a liberal arts college.

If you can get basically the same introductory literature class taught by an adjunct for $100 at a local community college, why still pay $10,000 for the same class at the overpriced liberal arts college? If you have to take out loans all this fluffy general ed is just not good value for the money.

If you could get the same CS education at the Montgomery County library summer program for $150 taught by a computer science teacher from Einstein HS, why still pay $10,000 for the same class at the overpriced Carnegie Mellon? It's just coding in the end. If you have to take out loans for all this programming you can teach yourself on YouTube, then CM is not a good value for the money!

Just watch the CS videos at home on your own time, while your sister reads all those Great Books by herself instead of getting a liberal arts degree!

CS majors at least make $100k starting $150k for CMU

Both of the above comments are true. It is absolutely possible to teach yourself coding from Youtube and other self-learning courses and actually translate that into a real-world position. It of course takes a somewhat unique person that is very self-driven, which most people are not. You can also study CS at any number of Top 100 programs and do just fine as well.

The professor talking about studying a liberal arts subject with a ton of data analysis also makes good points, although I imagine the professor would admit that it is the quantitative data analysis skills that are resulting in the jobs, and not necessarily the holistic value of the degree. Seems like the professor is saying that an English or Art History degree where no intense data analysis is involved, will likely not produce nearly the same outcomes on average. So in a roundabout way, kind of confirming the STEM/quant folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think at 80K a year for a private school, it’s changed what people expect.

OP here. I figured this would be the first response. But, for $80k, don’t you want your kid to be more interesting than just technically capable?

Assuming 4 classes/semester, $80k/yr comes out to about $10k per class. Why spend $10,000 on some fluffy intro to world lit class when you can just read the same half dozen books on your own time?

Because people don't read them on their own time, and because if they do, they don't talk about them with a PhD in the subject.

Into to world lit is likely taught by an adjunct or grad student.

Not at a liberal arts college.

If you can get basically the same introductory literature class taught by an adjunct for $100 at a local community college, why still pay $10,000 for the same class at the overpriced liberal arts college? If you have to take out loans all this fluffy general ed is just not good value for the money.

If you could get the same CS education at the Montgomery County library summer program for $150 taught by a computer science teacher from Einstein HS, why still pay $10,000 for the same class at the overpriced Carnegie Mellon? It's just coding in the end. If you have to take out loans for all this programming you can teach yourself on YouTube, then CM is not a good value for the money!

Just watch the CS videos at home on your own time, while your sister reads all those Great Books by herself instead of getting a liberal arts degree!

CS majors at least make $100k starting $150k for CMU

Both of the above comments are true. It is absolutely possible to teach yourself coding from Youtube and other self-learning courses and actually translate that into a real-world position. It of course takes a somewhat unique person that is very self-driven, which most people are not. You can also study CS at any number of Top 100 programs and do just fine as well.

The professor talking about studying a liberal arts subject with a ton of data analysis also makes good points, although I imagine the professor would admit that it is the quantitative data analysis skills that are resulting in the jobs, and not necessarily the holistic value of the degree. Seems like the professor is saying that an English or Art History degree where no intense data analysis is involved, will likely not produce nearly the same outcomes on average. So in a roundabout way, kind of confirming the STEM/quant folks.

of course anything is possible
good luck with that