If the UMass/Amherts/Smith etc consortium not happening in the fall? Will students be allowed to take classes and do activities at the other campuses?
Looks like Amherst is giving students the option of a January class for credit which hasn’t been done before. So 3 classes per semester plus the 1 in January would be 7 classes for the year. It would be helpful if students knew what the Jan offerings were be as they were picking for the fall so they could plan accordingly. And wonder if the number of classes required for each major will change at all.
I don’t know about Amherst, but Williams has changed the credit hours needed for graduation for this year.
I understand this, and I even understand the reasoning (keeping alcoholics out of the hospital when beds are needed).
However, as a matter of public policy, the kind of place I’d like to live would consider bookstores and museums more valuable to the public good than liquor stores. The “essential” designation, as determined on the fly by state governments, was not fully aligned with the common good, or at least the long-term public good. Why are casinos opening before museums in some states? And this was highlighted to me again, by that article.
This distinction is relevant on this thread because likely all CC participants would rank schools at all levels (daycare through graduate) as extremely important and good for the common good. This is distinct from any economic impacts.
Although I’ve come squarely down in the “wait to reduce restrictions” camp, that has been largely in response to the so-called economic arguments. I am much more swayed by the public good arguments (e.g. kids are falling behind). These arguments, in turn, could also be motivators for more investment in distance learning, help for special needs and poor children, etc.
I remember wishing in high school, college, and graduate school that I could have a couple weeks on a mostly-deserted island with my books at the end of each term to reread and re-process what I had learned to get more out of it and not feel rushed.
As a high school teacher, I think it is the rare student who has maximized his/her learning-per-time and has nothing more to “dig in” about.
@Knowsstuff I was responding to HD…who originally commented that kids at public schools might mix in easier classes to get the A. That comment was insulting. Do kids do that at some schools…whether public or private? My guess is yes…I did that when I went to college. I guess those of us with kids at public schools need to develop a thick skin…who knows.
My D graduated #1 in HS and graduated last May from a public school with a 4.0 and premed intentions. There was not one “easy A” in her schedule. One of her hardest classes was an international public health class where the level of discussion blew her away. She felt inadequate in the class (she says she has imposter syndrome, but that is another topic).
As far as covid…I still receive emails and I think they are doing a good job keeping people in the loop. They are having webinars with professors, infectious disease specialists, and students in order to develop …and revise…plans.
I am friends with somebody at my school who works for one of the administrators and is usually at meetings. Last night she told me she has no idea how schools will open in September (k-12). The money districts must spend on PPE, extra buses, etc, was not budgeted for and there doesn’t seem to be assistance right now from the federal gov (stopping here to avoid politics).
You are entirely correct, and as a teacher, I’m worried about being there through all the viral load, indeed. Add this to their recent guidelines to give N-95s only to nurses, and let teachers bring what they can made of cloth.
The reasoning is usually along the lines of how kids do better in person, and being there in person is also better for equity in terms of conditions at home. There are also ancillary considerations (like if your kid could go all mornings vs. every other day, it’s easier to arrange childcare for elementary-age students).
One of the ways to mitigate this situation for students is to have cohorts stay in the same room all day and the adults circulate. This of course is worse for the adults, who are potentially more at risk. And, it seems impossible to implement in high schools where no two students have the same schedule and/or many classes have specialized rooms/equipment/books.
And then you also have to consider that for us to teach everything twice or three times over, on a much longer school day (or number of days too?) - this is a harder and more time-consuming job, including its impacts on teachers’ need for childcare. I dearly hope that unions will resist this unless it comes with commensurate compensation.
The only part of the job that would be “the same” with 2 x 15 kids instead of 1 x30 at a time, would be the grading. Everything else would be more work, more hours, and more complexity in terms of shortening labs etc. (Well, maybe new teachers would have an easier time of classroom management.)
This, of course, is nonsense. My son just graduated Princeton a year early due to his AP credits (and he was a chemical engineering major). My next son can do the same at MIT (not sure if he will, for other reasons). Maybe google a few more colleges instead of assuming that Amherst is the whole world.
I suppose DS1 got more “value” per semester than some, by the logic some have used on this thread: he always took at least five courses per term (which I thought would be too much but he managed). At MIT, I took 4 or 4.5. I knew kids who took more, but it was extremely challenging.
Also, the kids I see (in high school) maximizing their course load with no free blocks - are usually the ones who take multiple sciences at a time or similar, not “lightweight” classes.
However, on the topic of exactly what you can get for your dollar - Princeton’s dorms have laundry machines that are free at the point of use, plus a lot of free T-shirts. I should have given DS1 all the family laundry to do to save a bit more. 
@homerdog - contrary to tour narrative about all public schools, D’s tuition is a flat fee regardless of credit hours taken. (Unless taking classes fully online). She could take as little as 12 credits and still be considered a full time student. Most Purdue students take 15-18 credits/semester. For an engineering student, 5 courses/semester is the norm to stay on track to graduate in 8 semesters. With APs covering gen eds there are a few semesters that could be 4 courses but then there would be issues for the concentrations.
To answer your question about if Purdue forced students to take fewer credit hours, they would have to change graduation requirements to keep their ‘graduate in 8 semester’ promise. Also, an ABET accredited program can’t just decide on their own that they are changing the requirements (again, I’m speaking as the parent of an engineer). It’s just not something the university would do. They would find other ways to mitigate the risk.
I continue to be discouraged with your underlying assumptions that public education is somehow easier and not as in depth as private. I know your kids aren’t engineers but the majority of the T10s for engineering are public universities They also have huge endowments in the billions. My D has lived in gorgeous, well maintained dorms, amazing food, new state of the art rec centers, concerts, arts, clubs, sports, and gasp, even small classes with engaged professors. The lab facilities, maker spaces, and research centers blew the privates we toured out of the water.
Bottom line - Higher tuition does not equal a better education.
I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of voices explaining that money doesn’t equal value for colleges - particularly for engineering programs at flagship state universities. I always advise my top STEM students to apply, sure, to the MIT’s of the world, but the rest of the list should be publics, where you get a fantastic STEM education and tons of research opportunities. I am not an expert in humanities education, but why wouldn’t that be true as well?
While I now understand that many who attend LACs take 4 classes per semester, it never occurred to me to equate “value” with the number of classes taken. In other words…it would not occur to me that taking 3 classes instead of 4 (due to covid) would result in lesser value.
My D was pretty busy in college doing things besides classes. The semester she took 3 classes (instead of 5 plus lab) .she had more time to devote to her research, more time to spend with her research team, and more time to write up what would eventually be published. This all seems valuable to me.
I suppose people are talking about value as it pertains to costs. And ugh…I wanted to get off this topic and I brought it up again…
My D’s public also did not charge by credit hour. We paid the same whether she took 12 or 18 credits. The exception to this was her final semester where she took 9 credits.
I am also disheartened by the assumptions regarding public universities. Her experience was nothing short of amazing.
“Encouraging” students to take one fewer classes in the fall isn’t a privates-vs.-publics issue. Nearly all colleges will return to normal grading (instead of relaxed P/F or similar grading schemes) in the coming semester/quarter. Whether teaching will be entirely online or mostly in-person (which could also become online at any point during the term), there will be more students who may struggle with a normal course load or complain about a potential lack of various resources. Encouraging a lighter load for these students (and perhaps others) may alleviate some of the stresses. It certainly helps the colleges too in de-densifying classrooms for in-person classes and reducing the stresses in resources. I don’t think colleges like Amherst is trying to collect more tuition down the road from its students. It’s just an encouragement, not a mandate, after all.
Exactly. Couldn’t say it better at our T10 engineering Big Ten. I won’t even go into if your kid wants to do a minor or two.
LACs have courses whose workloads range from light to heavy just like public universities do. You just can’t tell which is which at LACs because they don’t weight the credits based on workload. That leads to all kinds of problems. Advisors at public universities can tell just by looking at a schedule if a student has an overload. An advisor at an LAC can’t.
The expensive, elite LAC where I work lets students graduate early, and it’s not an uncommon occurrence there. It wasn’t unusual at the LACs that my family and I attended either. That doesn’t surprise me. College is expensive. The 6 year graduation rate at our state colleges suggests that not many students are graduating early, but I’m sure it’s possible to do. It’s less probable than it used to be because credits that count toward high school graduation can no longer be used as college credit. So you may be able to use an AP class to place out of a 101 class, but it doesn’t reduce the number of credits you need to graduate.
Those 2 topics, course difficulty and college expense, are helping drive the response to covid. One of the challenges for scheduling fall classes is the number of students who failed classes this spring. Requiring fewer overall credits allows students to retake failed courses and stay on schedule to graduate. If classes are required to run at less than 100% capacity to meet social distancing requirements reducing total credits will ease demand for those classes. LACs don’t seem to have as many sections to spread students across as public universities do, so they have to figure out other ways for students to get the credits they need without adding a lot of extra expense.
@twoinanddone The Five College Consortium will still happen in the fall, but students will need to take classes for the other colleges in the consortium remotely.
@wisteria100 The number of courses we have to take for graduation has been reduced from 32 to 30; I highly doubt majors will reduce their requirements.
I’ll take a Bowdoin and raise you a Cal/UM course any day of the week!
UCI announced they will be online in the Fall, with very few exception for in-person. I won’t be surprised if the rest of the UCs doing the same. They will announce soon.
Can we go back on topic? Maybe open another thread about the value of 3 versus 4 classes and LAC s versus other schools.
RIT is holding town halls with small cohorts of parents but not giving any info yet, but gathering what parents concerns are. They are offering a hotel as a freshman dorm option as well.
I think all of this is on topic as it pertains to school opening, choice, and content in the fall.
“A preparation plan for the college football season was completed Thursday by the Division I Football Oversight Committee.”
I thought this article published a few days ago about the potential OSU season was interesting because it provided speculation on each opponent’s potential for spectators.