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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wonder about this myself, OP, and I was a college professor in the hard sciences for a decade. The knowledge, that students can gain at elite universities at the undergraduate level, is available to anyone through books and professional journals (with some guidance on what is worthy of reading), with the exceptions of lab experience. For a motivated student, the theoretical knowledge could be obtained at a very small cost. The astronomical costs we see mostly go to pay for “undergraduate experience,” (including social aspects of it) and a piece of paper certifying to the outside world the students’ qualifications. There is a point when tuition costs are so high, that they don’t justify paying for those extras...[/quote]

You must not have been a very good professor, if you didn't feel you offered anything beyond what students get from books.

There is a question you should ask yourself: up until the early 1900s, you could get a degree by test (in fact, my great grandfather was the last to become a laywer by test in CA.  Abe Lincoln became a lawyer by test).  Why have we given that up?  When you can answer that, you'll understand why college is not going away (hint: it is not about learning facts which, as you said, have been readily available in books since Gutenberg).[/quote]

Well... you don’t seem to understand the difference between “anything” of positive value and something worthy of a half a million :) Of course, professors offer something beyond the facts in books, but is that “something” valuable enough to warrant spending so much money on? I can hire best professors privately to teach my kid at a fraction of a cost. [/quote]

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