<p>lol earlier in this thread you were complaining about huge lectures. colleges just can’t get anything right!</p>
<p>Right, because 30 people in a class = huge lectures. Way to miss the point entirely. </p>
<p>The role of a good professor should be to encourage and facilitate discussion on the topic. It’s a bit difficult to do that when you’re:</p>
<p>A) lecturing to 300 kids
B) 75 years old
C) incapable of public speaking</p>
<p>so should schools hire more professors or fewer professors? you seem to know what these schools are doing wrong</p>
<p>They should hire professors that are capable of being professors. Not hire ineffective professors.</p>
<p>That’s not the main point, and professors aren’t really the problem. The university wastes loads of money and really has no reason not to. Like I said, they’re stuck in the more=better mentality. Let’s build more stadiums and hire more professors so we can get more students to charge more money.</p>
<p>Well, most professors are old because they are into their 2nd or 3rd career by that point; it’s almost like semi-retirement. This is good from a “real world experience” perspective.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But I thought the problem wasn’t that there were too many professors . . . and this is just a guess, but stadiums are probably paid for with revenue from football & basketball. I don’t think that having more students inherently means that you can charge more money either . . . did you mean make more money?</p>
<p>i guess what i’m saying is that ‘things could be more efficient’ is a lazy critique, if you don’t have any plans for improving efficiency. it sounds good though. this trick has been used by the republican party for quite some time now . . .</p>
<p>
Very few athletic teams generate enough revenue to cover their ongoing costs, let alone pay for a stadium.</p>
<p>^agree, at Clemson sports other than football and basketball are losing money and they only continue to compete because football/basketball revenue covers the extra non-revenue sports.</p>
<p>do schools that have unpopular sports programs try to entice students by spending a lot of money on stadiums?</p>
<p>whatever, I do agree, sports could be one area where colleges can cut costs.</p>
<p>Since the 70’s the trend in faculty hiring is overwhelming to hire part time adjunct professors. I believe they make up more than half of the overall higher ed teaching staff. That’s an approach that has saved colleges huge amounts of money and provided tremendous scheduling flexibility. I doubt faculty salaries are the driving force for the college cost financial “bubble”. I don’t really think it’s a bubble anyway.</p>
<p>Perhaps we should also consider that salaries for middle class and lower income workers have been stagnant for many years. Had they been increasing even at the rate of inflation, we might not be having this discussion. College, especially a state flag, is a very good deal for wealthier families. Many of whom pay more to go to a private high school.</p>
<p>I think the sports programs are actually a positive for colleges. The big sports (football and basketball) have the potential to make a lot of money and the more popular a school’s sports program is the more college related merchandise is sold. Popular sports programs can foster school spirit, which can lead to stronger alumni loyalty.</p>
<p>A strong sports program may lead to a certain type of alumni loyalty but it does not necessarily lead to well prepared alumni. If the profits from the sports program are utilized for academic purposes, then great, keep the program. Otherwise, attending a school because it has a strong sports program is a poor decision (unless you are an athlete).</p>
<p>In any case, the problem with higher education is that US society believes a college education is “job training” and not what is intended to be, a place where intellectuals gather to research and teach for the main purpose of advancing knowledge.</p>
<p>This “bubble” is exactly what the gov. wants to happen. Money spent anywhere will help the economy, so the higher tuition is, the better from the gov’s perspective. It also helps the gov. feel better about economic stimulation in the social services/education instead of silly econ support in military research/obama stimulus. Government grants to universities and bills like the 20 year debt forgiveness are designed to raise the cost of college.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, this is on purpose.</p>
<p>Also, those presidents earn their salary. </p>
<p>Agreed with whoever said that grad school is the next college. boo</p>
<h1>93</h1>
<p>So it’s all part of the vast government conspiracy.</p>
<p>yeah, if you call economic planning a conspiracy. is the stimulus bill a conspiracy? was cash for clunkers a conspiracy? </p>
<p>if you ask me, the word conspiracy is a conspiracy</p>
<p>It’s not a government conspiracy but there’s little reason tuition costs should rise sharply if the education remains the same. Except for technical students who need access to advanced equipment, the vast majority of undergrad students are learning much of the same knowledge available 50 years ago. Most new changes may be attributed to advances in science and technology. There are other costs such as energy use, faculty, facilities, etc. </p>
<p>More people should ask themselves how much does their education actually cost. Is it financially savvy to pay $100k for a Women’s Studies degree?</p>
<p>The reason is that it helps the government, the universities, and people who give out student loans. Oh and it helps big companies that hire the smart grads. Kids complain a lot but still come up with the cash, so prices keep going up and the people at the top are happy. It also helps that job competition is rising. </p>
<p>higher education is kinda funny like that</p>
<p>cute edgy article but not real</p>
<p>My opinion is that the high cost of college is due to the high numbers of people chasing a college degree. US society believes a college education is job training; bachelor’s degrees are slowly becoming the new high school diploma while master’s degrees are the new bachelor’s.</p>
<p>The perfect example is the housing bubble. Houses that were priced at $500k suddenly dropped to $200k, in many cases the house had no physical improvements. The market will correct itself once more people realize that you can only have so many bachelor degree holders and not enough welders, machinists, electricians, plumbers, etc.</p>
<p>for the most part I agree with #98, however, many kids go to college not just for the degree but for the experience. Many parents are willing to pay for that or even further, consider it an obligation.</p>
<p>^Enginox, I think the reason college has become job training is because of the economy. I wanted to do either history or engineering in college but I heard enough “horror” stories about people who couldn’t get a job and were doing volunteer work at non-profits (after graduating from colleges like Brandeis) after majoring in a liberal arts field. I decided to go with the major that I was pretty sure I could get a job in (engineering) and get a minor or take history classes. If the economy was better and people weren’t freaking out about getting a job, I’m sure college would be more than just job training.</p>