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A college degree is a lousy investment

i'm going to ignore where wake is on that list, because i'm clearly biased. but any list that puts GT at the bottom of the ACC is completely invalid, IMO.

That list clobbers engineering schools because it highly weights 4 year graduation rates. Graduating in 4 years at GT just isn't even a practical expectation
 
That list clobbers engineering schools because it highly weights 4 year graduation rates. Graduating in 4 years at GT just isn't even a practical expectation

I agree with this as it takes half of your students about 2.5 years to learn to speak English.
 
I do undergrad accounting recruiting at both UVA and Wake, and my general feeling is that UVA's undergrad business program (McIntyre) is doing a better job preparing the kids to think intelligently from a broad business sense than Wake's FASB idiot-savant accounting program. Most grads from both programs do great, but I give the edge to UVA.

So a very specific example, but in this case even putting the money aside the kids who paid $125k to go to UVA are better trained than forking over $250k for Wake.

Going to McIntyre is very similar to getting an MBA based on what I have heard about the program. They actually have you working on projects for actual companies and you are video taped during your groups and presentations and get feedback from staff and the companies themselves. In my opinion this would better prepare you for the business world.
 
McIntire is great but UVA's College of Arts and Sciences sucks.
 
Great article in the Atlantic on this topic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/the-debt-crisis-at-american-colleges/243777/

"Nor is it just about money. There are moral dimensions as well. Recent actions by Dartmouth and Williams, two wealthy schools, convey a lot about academic priorities. In the past, both schools announced that anyone they accepted would be able to enroll without having to take out loans. That is, the colleges would ensure all the aid that was needed to make attendance possible. This was heralded as the kind of noblesse oblige we hope for from well-off institutions. That was before 2008. But when Dartmouth and Williams' endowments tanked, hard decisions had to be made. Among the first was telling their needy students they would henceforward have to borrow, just like those at Loyola and Franklin Pierce. What struck us was who was chosen for sacrifice. At no point did their senior professors, whose total packages average $189,600, volunteer to take even a five percent cut. That could have preserved many if not most of the scholarships."





Also, I :heart: the search function on these boards.
 
I agree with most of that Atlantic article, but this part is certainly misleading:

For four years away, look at public liberal arts colleges, where you can get an Amherst-quality education at the fraction the cost. A sampling of in-state tuitions: Glenville College in West Virginia ($5,384), Florida's New College ($5,364), Evergreen in Washington State ($6,679). We've observed classes at many of them, and the only difference between their professors and Amherst's is the graduate schools they attended.

A huge difference is the caliber of your peers. So much of an education comes from one's peers. If you're always the smartest person in the room, you just won't be learning that much.
 
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I agree with most of that Atlantic article, but this part is certainly misleading:



A huge difference is the caliber of your peers. So much of an education comes from one's peers. If you're always the smartest person in the room, you just won't be learning that much.

Lost all credibility by including New College, and claiming there is no difference.

My ex went to New College and it is like nothing else. More often than not, students show up to class wearing no shoes. Majority of classes don't have tests or grades, just lots of discussions and some papers. I am not saying their academics are easy, but they are extremely progressive and unorthodox.

Out of the classroom, the place is even crazier. They have an agreement with the city of Sarasota that cops don't come on campus and they have an agreement with the students that no one physically hurts themselves or others, all is good. I had never seen so many different kinds of drugs in my one visit.
 
Lost all credibility by including New College, and claiming there is no difference.

My ex went to New College and it is like nothing else. More often than not, students show up to class wearing no shoes. Majority of classes don't have tests or grades, just lots of discussions and some papers. I am not saying their academics are easy, but they are extremely progressive and unorthodox.

Out of the classroom, the place is even crazier. They have an agreement with the city of Sarasota that cops don't come on campus and they have an agreement with the students that no one physically hurts themselves or others, all is good. I had never seen so many different kinds of drugs in my one visit.

Go on...
 
Yeah, I definitely thought the strength of the article was in the discussion of how and why prices and borrowing have gone up. It's amazing some of the amenities that new dorms have, even at public schools like UNCG here in town. People need to be reminded that is being paid for by borrowed money - it's just that the students, not the university, are doing the borrowing.

I wish I had a product to sell that people thought was so vital they would take out gigantic, non-dischargeable debt to buy it. As far as I can tell, higher education is the only thing in our economy that occupies that kind of market niche.

The part where they recommend alternatives is not supported by any data other than the price tag and the authors' opinion.
 
"If cigarette packs are required to have pictures of diseased lungs, college brochures should be required to have pictures of graduates working at Starbucks."
 
San Diego State just announced 69,000 applications for next fall. That is insane. It's SDSU for fuck sake.......said it is a 15% increase from last year. No way the exorbitant cost of tuition ever gets corrected.
 
San Diego State made a run in the Bball tourney last year, I think that is part of it. Sweet 16 usually gets you more applicants the next year.
 
San Diego State made a run in the Bball tourney last year, I think that is part of it. Sweet 16 usually gets you more applicants the next year.

Yeah I know sports can pump up applications, but SDSU is the ultimate commuter school and is not well regarded academically. 69K still boggles the mind for a place like SDSU. What the hell is UCLA getting, 150,000???? This is beyond out of control, there will be no reform in tuition or student loan debt with that demand.
 
How does a school even process 69,000 applications?
 
Yeah I know sports can pump up applications, but SDSU is the ultimate commuter school and is not well regarded academically. 69K still boggles the mind for a place like SDSU. What the hell is UCLA getting, 150,000???? This is beyond out of control, there will be no reform in tuition or student loan debt with that demand.

I know Arizona State/Arizona are getting more applicants this year because California in state tuition is almost the same as our out of state tuition. To me, that's nuts. UCLA's in-state tuition is like $11,200 and ASU's out of state is $10,900. The cost of living is way cheaper here then in California too.

And San Diego State's tuition is $6,578. That might be a big part of it too.
 
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