MSU tuition during a pandemic.....

[Harrydawg]

Let me vent for a moment.....somehow during a pandemic the cost of a semester at MSU has increased. Online courses offered at a premium, course codes sold to students to access homework online, books appear to have gone up as well.

I smell a rat......profs sitting at home ?teaching?

Anybody else with college students notice this increase?

[DEDawg]

Let me vent for a moment.....somehow during a pandemic the cost of a semester at MSU has increased. Online courses offered at a premium, course codes sold to students to access homework online, books appear to have gone up as well.

I smell a rat......profs sitting at home ?teaching?

Anybody else with college students notice this increase?

Don?t disagree with your overall assessment but be very careful looping professors into your argument. They?re working hard as ever to provide a solid learning environment and criteria during all this

[Lord McBuckethead]

Don?t disagree with your overall assessment but be very careful looping professors into your argument. They?re working hard as ever to provide a solid learning environment and criteria during all this

Dude, professors write a syllabus once and teach it for 25 years. Not sure why they should be complaining having to put in a little work to pass that worn out prepared class a new way.

Online classes should be less money. No doubt.

[MetEdDawg]

Dude, professors write a syllabus once and teach it for 25 years. Not sure why they should be complaining having to put in a little work to pass that worn out prepared class a new way.

Online classes should be less money. No doubt.

I can't speak for professors, but my teachers in my building do more prep and work for their 80-90 remote kids than they do for their 150 kids they have in the building.

And I can promise you that as an AP, it's requiring me to do a hell of a lot more work too.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Is there anything more overvalued than a college education today?.... except Game Stop stock.

[RougeDawg]

Until the masses wake up to the racket, keep expecting to pay for the Ponzi scheme that is the US education system. Benefits the haves, waters down the degrees of the have nots, and takes the tax dollars of the 2/3rds of Americans that don?t go to college to keep the scheme alive.

Have to give them credit. They are pulling one of the biggest scams on the American public with barely any notice. Hats off to them.

[Tbonewannabe]

My sister in law works at UAH and they make most of their money on students spending money on campus. Their revenue is impacted by less students on campus. MSU is probably trying to get some money to recoup the lost revenue.

[Maroonthirteen]

My kid is a Freshman at another college. My observation is that she has more weekly assignments than I had in college. Typically she will have a writing assignment, quiz and test each class, each week. That's more than I remember having.

One class and a lab is completely online. Her other 4 classes are hybrid. So she still goes to 4 classes (once a week) but has this online work.

So my opinion is, you are getting the education the schools promised. Your student may be more challenged than in a classroom setting. Because they have to read and research more on their own.

The rip off is not going completely online and allowing students to stay home and save on housing.

[DEDawg]

Dude, professors write a syllabus once and teach it for 25 years. Not sure why they should be complaining having to put in a little work to pass that worn out prepared class a new way.

Online classes should be less money. No doubt.

Show me where I said they are complaining? Also your syllabus assessment is not correct.

[Johnson85]

Until the masses wake up to the racket, keep expecting to pay for the Ponzi scheme that is the US education system. Benefits the haves, waters down the degrees of the have nots, and takes the tax dollars of the 2/3rds of Americans that don?t go to college to keep the scheme alive.

Have to give them credit. They are pulling one of the biggest scams on the American public with barely any notice. Hats off to them.

Not just with the public barely noticing, with much of the public demanding that the scam be expanded and doubled down on.

[Extendedcab]

Is there anything more overvalued than a college education today?.... except Game Stop stock.

It depends on the major! Not all professions (majors) have the same pay scale. If you major in underwater basket weaving, your chances of making a decent living are very limited, especially if you have a student loan.

I think all potential students need to be shown, by the university and/or their parents, a comparison chart of what professions (majors) pay. One has to go to college with their eyes open and "know" what they are getting into. Also, whatever profession (major) is chosen, then be happy or content with what you make and do not be jealous or envious of others that have more than you do! This creates an entitlement mentality where they think they are entitled to more than they have, when in reality they had the same opportunity to make a sensible choice as others.

What you do in life is a choice!

There are a multitude of charts showing salaries of various college majors. I am showing one below.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-salaries-college-degrees/

[Maroonthirteen]

State (as well as other universities) has salary information for most degrees. Maybe all.... I recall from browsing the site with my kids and discussing potential majors.

[RocketDawg]

It depends on the major! Not all professions (majors) have the same pay scale. If you major in underwater basket weaving, your chances of making a decent living are very limited, especially if you have a student loan.

I think all potential students need to be shown, by the university and/or their parents, a comparison chart of what professions (majors) pay. One has to go to college with their eyes open and "know" what they are getting into. Also, whatever profession (major) is chosen, then be happy or content with what you make and do not be jealous or envious of others that have more than you do! This creates an entitlement mentality where they think they are entitled to more than they have, when in reality they had the same opportunity to make a sensible choice as others.

What you do in life is a choice!

There are a multitude of charts showing salaries of various college majors. I am showing one below.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-salaries-college-degrees/

Absolutely.

[R2Dawg]

It depends on the major! Not all professions (majors) have the same pay scale. If you major in underwater basket weaving, your chances of making a decent living are very limited, especially if you have a student loan.

I think all potential students need to be shown, by the university and/or their parents, a comparison chart of what professions (majors) pay. One has to go to college with their eyes open and "know" what they are getting into. Also, whatever profession (major) is chosen, then be happy or content with what you make and do not be jealous or envious of others that have more than you do! This creates an entitlement mentality where they think they are entitled to more than they have, when in reality they had the same opportunity to make a sensible choice as others.

What you do in life is a choice!

There are a multitude of charts showing salaries of various college majors. I am showing one below.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-salaries-college-degrees/

Dead on. My daughter is at MSU in engineering working her tail off and college is expensive but there are many majors that it is hard to justify the cost (engineering or medicine are not them). Many majors may have students get out making 25-35K a year. The model just doesn't give a return. While many are jealous of those kids who chose tough majors that make good money later, they don't want anything to do with the sacrifice it takes to get there. Just have the gov or someone give me the money.

[Johnson85]

Dead on. My daughter is at MSU in engineering working her tail off and college is expensive but there are many majors that it is hard to justify the cost (engineering or medicine are not them). Many majors may have students get out making 25-35K a year. The model just doesn't give a return. While many are jealous of those kids who chose tough majors that make good money later, they don't want anything to do with the sacrifice it takes to get there. Just have the gov or someone give me the money.

A lot of those degrees still end up having a solid return because while the starting pay is not great, it allows them to compete for higher paying jobs as they move up. I know plenty of people that started out in the high 20's or low 30's fifteen years ago that are now making anywhere from ok money to really good money. What they are doing doesn't really require anything that they learned in college, but I think without exception, the employers require a degree as part of the job requirement. So for them, they end up getting an ok to really good return on their degree. Of course there are plenty of other people that started off there or even lower and didn't move up. Sometimes that's due to luck; sometimes that due to them not being good workers; a lot of times it's probably due to them not being somebody that should have been in college to begin with.

Of course the real problem is that we have so tightly tied college degrees to the job market. You get sued if you just hire based on tests showing generalized intelligence (or even particular intelligence/knowledge if you don't do it correctly), but you can hire based on degree and college GPA and be completely safe. Really messed up and inefficient system the government has managed to set up and support. And of course, per the norm, the government managed to inflict disproportionate harm on minorities while imposing rules and regulations ostensibly meant to help them.

[KOdawg1]

Dude, professors write a syllabus once and teach it for 25 years. Not sure why they should be complaining having to put in a little work to pass that worn out prepared class a new way.



Just an ill-informed, incorrect statement all the way around.

[maroonmania]

Dead on. My daughter is at MSU in engineering working her tail off and college is expensive but there are many majors that it is hard to justify the cost (engineering or medicine are not them). Many majors may have students get out making 25-35K a year. The model just doesn't give a return. While many are jealous of those kids who chose tough majors that make good money later, they don't want anything to do with the sacrifice it takes to get there. Just have the gov or someone give me the money.

I feel your pain. My daughter is a JR at MSU and I'm paying the same ridiculous online tuition. Not only that, I'm still paying for her sorority fees and I don't even think they can have in person meetings or parties or events or anything. You are still paying the same money either way but you sure feel better about it when it seems a little more justified.

And on the other topic, when the dems get done raising minimum wage to $15/hour you will be able to make over 30K/year flipping burgers. Heck, why go to college?

[R2Dawg]

A lot of those degrees still end up having a solid return because while the starting pay is not great, it allows them to compete for higher paying jobs as they move up. I know plenty of people that started out in the high 20's or low 30's fifteen years ago that are now making anywhere from ok money to really good money. What they are doing doesn't really require anything that they learned in college, but I think without exception, the employers require a degree as part of the job requirement. So for them, they end up getting an ok to really good return on their degree. Of course there are plenty of other people that started off there or even lower and didn't move up. Sometimes that's due to luck; sometimes that due to them not being good workers; a lot of times it's probably due to them not being somebody that should have been in college to begin with.

Of course the real problem is that we have so tightly tied college degrees to the job market. You get sued if you just hire based on tests showing generalized intelligence (or even particular intelligence/knowledge if you don't do it correctly), but you can hire based on degree and college GPA and be completely safe. Really messed up and inefficient system the government has managed to set up and support. And of course, per the norm, the government managed to inflict disproportionate harm on minorities while imposing rules and regulations ostensibly meant to help them.

A large % of people have no reason to go to college. Many need to learn a skill. They will make more money and have more success than most college graduates of whom many never really use their degrees. I work in manufacturing and we have tons of college degree folks working shift that use nothing in their degree. They couldn't get a job in what they majored. Yes a few end up making more money but that is the rare exception not the rule.

[Maroonthirteen]

My advice to my kids, figure out what you love and do that.

Myself, I can live on a lesser salary doing something I love to be happy in life. Rather than getting a degree in a field I'm not interested but pays well, only to hate life.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Hot take - College degrees are mostly a scam at these elevated prices and are just pillaging middle class American families.

I am 100% certain that I could get a high-school kid with a 30+ ACT and a good upbringing and decent vocabulary and put them in an entry level job at a Fortune 200/500 company and they would shine and progressively rise. The merits and quality of the raw material (the student) is 90% of the ultimate value, the rest is mostly experience.

The good kid would only need to take some essential classes and teach themselves some mechanics, programming, and physics, they would do just fine. College professors don't really teach the 30+ kids very much, just give them the reading list and experience, then good to go. Colleges are merely a toll booth to many kids. Peter Theil, Paypal and Palantir co-founder, has written and spoken expensively about this and acts upon it to recruit premium talent.

Another reason the expensive college is a scam is that direct competitors overseas are being offered at a fraction of the price. Imperial College of London, Swiss Federal Institute, Munich TU, New South Wales, Delft TU cost less than Ole Miss. The best Universities in the world, with English language options cost less than a barely accredited college in Lafayette County Mississippi. That's not even factoring the high quality universities in the 3rd world and Eastern Europe. You can talk with a new grad of decent Philippines university, you would not be able to Pepsi challenge with Philippine immigrant graduating from the University of Illinois. Same with Romanian kids.

Only immigration laws and limits on work visas keep the bubble from a spectacular pop.

[Johnson85]

A large % of people have no reason to go to college. Yes and no. They don't need college to learn something particularly relevant to what they eventually end up doing for a living. They just need the sheepskin to be given a shot at a job they think they want to do.


Many need to learn a skill. Every body needs to learn some marketable skills. Anybody spending money on college without a specific application when they get out is rolling the dice when they don't need to.


They will make more money and have more success than most college graduates of whom many never really use their degrees. This is still not true on average. Supposedly if you put college grads in one group and non-college grads in the other, the college graduate at the 25th percentile in earning in the college grad cohort out earns the the high school graduate that is at the 75th percentile in the non-college grad cohort.



I work in manufacturing and we have tons of college degree folks working shift that use nothing in their degree. They couldn't get a job in what they majored. Yes a few end up making more money but that is the rare exception not the rule. We probably see the flip side. I see a lot marginal graduates that just barely get their foot on the bottom rung of a white collar ladder, and many of those end up moving up enough to be worth it and the ones that don't don't have a horrible deal. You probably see a lot of marginal graduates that don't get that bottom rung and get nothing out of it except debt and foregone earnings.

Even before the college bubble and credentialism really took off, only about 1/3 of college graduates worked in something related to their college degree.

But definitely agree that if you're a marginal student or your heart is just not in college, going the skilled trades route is probably a better option. We've gone so overboard with shuffling everybody with a pulse through college that it doesn't take much to stand out in skilled trades. And if you end up not liking it, it's a lot less painful to go do something else than it is to be a college graduate with $40k in debt and no real job skills.

[Liverpooldawg]

Dude, professors write a syllabus once and teach it for 25 years. Not sure why they should be complaining having to put in a little work to pass that worn out prepared class a new way.

Online classes should be less money. No doubt.

I have a lot of family in education. They all say the remote stuff is more work for them than the in person stuff is.

[Johnson85]

Hot take - College degrees are mostly a scam at these elevated prices and are just pillaging middle class American families.

I am 100% certain that I could get a high-school kid with a 30+ ACT and a good upbringing and decent vocabulary and put them in an entry level job at a Fortune 200/500 company and they would shine and progressively rise. The merits and quality of the raw material (the student) is 90% of the ultimate value, the rest is mostly experience.
That's not that much of a hot take anymore. Most people not in on the scam realize it's a scam to one degree or another. https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652


The good kid would only need to take some essential classes and teach themselves some mechanics, programming, and physics, they would do just fine. College professors don't really teach the 30+ kids very much, just give them the reading list and experience, then good to go. Colleges are merely a toll booth to many kids. Peter Theil, Paypal and Palantir co-founder, has written and spoken expensively about this and acts upon it to recruit premium talent. Trueish. There are still college professors that are great teachers that students benefit from quite alot. They are few and far between though, and often aren't as helpful to the higher aptitude students. For STEM majors where a lot of high aptitude students end up, you mostly have good students teaching themselves anyway (or learning from a TA) while highly paid professors focus on research. The teaching is secondary at best. That's also true to an extent at high prestige finance and economics programs. Certainly many college classes provide no more interaction and feedback than students could get through MOOCs at a single digit percentage of the costs of traditional classes.






Another reason the expensive college is a scam is that direct competitors overseas are being offered at a fraction of the price. Imperial College of London, Swiss Federal Institute, Munich TU, New South Wales, Delft TU cost less than Ole Miss. The best Universities in the world, with English language options cost less than a barely accredited college in Lafayette County Mississippi. That's not even factoring the high quality universities in the 3rd world and Eastern Europe. You can talk with a new grad of decent Philippines university, you would not be able to Pepsi challenge with Philippine immigrant graduating from the University of Illinois. Same with Romanian kids.

Only immigration laws and limits on work visas keep the bubble from a spectacular pop.

You've lost me here. Are you saying the bets foreign students stay at home? Or come to the US for education?

[R2Dawg]

Yes and no. They don't need college to learn something particularly relevant to what they eventually end up doing for a living. They just need the sheepskin to be given a shot at a job they think they want to do.

Every body needs to learn some marketable skills. Anybody spending money on college without a specific application when they get out is rolling the dice when they don't need to.

This is still not true on average. Supposedly if you put college grads in one group and non-college grads in the other, the college graduate at the 25th percentile in earning in the college grad cohort out earns the the high school graduate that is at the 75th percentile in the non-college grad cohort.


We probably see the flip side. I see a lot marginal graduates that just barely get their foot on the bottom rung of a white collar ladder, and many of those end up moving up enough to be worth it and the ones that don't don't have a horrible deal. You probably see a lot of marginal graduates that don't get that bottom rung and get nothing out of it except debt and foregone earnings.

Even before the college bubble and credentialism really took off, only about 1/3 of college graduates worked in something related to their college degree.

But definitely agree that if you're a marginal student or your heart is just not in college, going the skilled trades route is probably a better option. We've gone so overboard with shuffling everybody with a pulse through college that it doesn't take much to stand out in skilled trades. And if you end up not liking it, it's a lot less painful to go do something else than it is to be a college graduate with $40k in debt and no real job skills.

I agree on much of your comments but I think you took a few of my comments out of context a little. Look at the number of jobs in market, a small % actually require a college degree. Now we can debate some bogus requirements that a company may put on them even while 80% of mfg jobs require no degree. I even see companies promote non engineers for example into engineering roles if they have been in mfg long enough and know enough. Now they can't do what an engineer can do but they fill those roles anyway. Why, because they can't find enough engineers and they pay them less.

Throw in retail, etc. where the % is even higher of non degree requred. Yes those in management likely have a college degree whether it is in their field of study or not but then you have to ask what did the degree accomplish but meet some bogus phony requirement from the company? Answer is nothing. The % of people in mgr roles requiring degrees has increased over years but in reality it isn't necessary in half the roles.

Now look at the 250K or so investment for that liberal arts degree vs a skilled tradesmen that makes 150K a year. I see this all the time. it is about the rule not the exception. My wife is even an accountant running the finances for a large organization with a college degree and she only makes 35-40K a year working in her field. She does get some benefit perks so there is that. She is in her 40s age wise too. Ole Joe could learn her job on the fly but better with degreed person.

[The Federalist Engineer]

You've lost me here. Are you saying the bets foreign students stay at home? Or come to the US for education?


Not saying the best foreign students stay home, the rich and influential still want to study abroad. It's a huge status symbol in many nations to get your degree in the USA or Europe.

What I am saying is that for Business Purposes (setting aside the status symbol) - an undergraduate reading the same text book in physics in other nations is now On-Par in Education with the USA graduate.

Those kids can read Steam Tables, know Calculus, and know Excel as well as any American graduate.

Therefore, major companies don't need to send Ex-Pats to Thailand anymore. You can hire Thai professionals to run an operation just as well as you could in Utah or Georgia. It's being done everyday.

[Johnson85]

I agree on much of your comments but I think you took a few of my comments out of context a little. Look at the number of jobs in market, a small % actually require a college degree. Now we can debate some bogus requirements that a company may put on them even while 80% of mfg jobs require no degree. I even see companies promote non engineers for example into engineering roles if they have been in mfg long enough and know enough. Now they can't do what an engineer can do but they fill those roles anyway. Why, because they can't find enough engineers and they pay them less.

Throw in retail, etc. where the % is even higher of non degree requred. Yes those in management likely have a college degree whether it is in their field of study or not but then you have to ask what did the degree accomplish but meet some bogus phony requirement from the company? Answer is nothing. The % of people in mgr roles requiring degrees has increased over years but in reality it isn't necessary in half the roles. We're basically saying the same thing I think. I agree that the degrees don't really convey any objective value, just saying that the from the student's perspective, it may make sense to play the game anyway depending on what they want to do. And how much sense it makes probably depends on what field you're looking at. Things like manufacturing probably focus more on skills than credentials than professional industries or service industries. But even things like sales have seemed to change. For example, with equipment, used to see a lot of reps that moved up through the technical side or even operations and really understood the machines and the company just plucked up the ones that were personable. Certainly not all of them, but a good number of them fit that description. Now they all seem to come in as salesmen. Most of them are good salesmen and some of them really sound like they know what they're talking about, but at the end of the day, I'm like, you read that out of a 17ing brochure or manual just like I could have. I miss having the feeling, whether it was false security or not, that the sales rep really understood the shit out of what he was selling and that he was selling for a reason beyond he was personable and/or good at sales. Dealt with a guy that had moved over from medical devices to heavy equipment, and I just don't get what value he was supposed provide other than take me to lunch and be personable. Every question I asked, I wanted to be like, "what part of hte sales manual gave you that answer?"


Now look at the 250K or so investment for that liberal arts degree vs a skilled tradesmen that makes 150K a year. I see this all the time. it is about the rule not the exception. My wife is even an accountant running the finances for a large organization with a college degree and she only makes 35-40K a year working in her field. She does get some benefit perks so there is that. She is in her 40s age wise too. Ole Joe could learn her job on the fly but better with degreed person.

Don't disagree with this, except that $250k number is not representative, unless you are throwing in foregone earnings. Most people can get through college for wayyyyyy less than $250k. The media likes to throw out dumbasses that take out a loan to pay for all of their undergrad at a non-prestigious private liberal arts school. But the average student loan debt is still $32K after undergrad.

[Tbonewannabe]

I had a Physics 2 class at MSU that you taught yourself. Worst "teacher" I ever had. We were assigned homework for the chapter we would go over next time and was graded on it. He then would spend the class going over what you did wrong.

It made no sense to have a grade on problems that you hadn't been taught how to solve. I think it was even 25% of our overall grade.

[The Federalist Engineer]

I had a Physics 2 class at MSU that you taught yourself. Worst "teacher" I ever had. We were assigned homework for the chapter we would go over next time and was graded on it. He then would spend the class going over what you did wrong.

It made no sense to have a grade on problems that you hadn't been taught how to solve. I think it was even 25% of our overall grade.

My physics 2 or 3 teacher was also terrible, maybe it was the same person. Had to do it all myself.

She accused me before the final of "being in her office". Went nuts, frantic, shaking, and hysterical. Then my classmates said I was studying with them in the library all day.

This proto-Karen wanted me dead and expelled. Ah, memories. Maybe "being in her office" really meant something else.

[TimberBeast]

I had a Physics 2 class at MSU that you taught yourself. Worst "teacher" I ever had. We were assigned homework for the chapter we would go over next time and was graded on it. He then would spend the class going over what you did wrong.

It made no sense to have a grade on problems that you hadn't been taught how to solve. I think it was even 25% of our overall grade.

Was it Taha Mzougi? I?m sure that?s spelled incorrectly. Definitely one of the worst professors I ever had.

[Tbonewannabe]

Was it Taha Mzougi? I?m sure that?s spelled incorrectly. Definitely one of the worst professors I ever had.

Yes it was.