@thomas4881 does that include private loan or just federal loan? I meant I probably would have any loan for undergrad, but probably buried with loans after med school.
@Angelababy30 That includes any loan. Some private loans can be forgiven if you’re 100% disabled.
@i012575 getting internships in the engineering field is much more dependent upon GPA then any school you attend. I know my DD friend that attended a not in the top 100 engineering school, got a great internship in MechE and started at over $100k upon graduation which is stellar for MechE. GPA had a lot to do with it. Again engineering is a field that public universities pour what money they have into. I think I’ve made that pretty clear.
@CU123 People just don’t read the entire thread before commenting
@CU123 I think the problem with this thread is that it began with a ‘the sky is falling’ premise that had an unclear purpose.
In my opinion the original post made weak generalizations, but with the (biased) message to choose a private school…unless of course, you can’t…and then, “an in state public is still a reasonable deal especially in STEM”.
People began to push back on several points. So the discusssion of “The public university crisis” evolved to exclude state flagships and ‘STEM and business’ at public universities… because that’s where the money and attention goes.
Therefore, I guess you were trying to say your concern is directed at non-STEM and non-business education at non-flagship, public universities. That’s fine, but if that is the case, no wonder there is confusion. I had trouble just typing it.
What is the purpose of this thread? I went back and looked at your posts and two phrase popped out at me…“the degradation in the quality of education” and “the slow erosion of the quality of education”. Obviously you are upset about something. Whether it’s frustration over public education funding or fewer quality professors…or something else…I can only say in my very limited first-hand experience, I feel our public university does a good job dealing with funding issues, while still providing educational opportunities that frankly, exceeded my expectations.
They didn’t and don’t exceed my expectations so we are definitely coming from different places. Personally I believe that most courses are self taught at large universities which you have to expect with the size of the class and the research requirements levied on most professors.
BTW, no, I include flagship public universities, just to a lesser extent.
Well, I think that may be a big part of it…expectations.
I’ll start with my expectations when it came to my children’s education, K-12. I expected good and bad teachers. I took it upon myself as the parent to ‘fill in the gaps’. I saw the developmental years as an opportunity to teach my children that they needed to become self-directed learners. That doesn’t mean I didn’t hold teacher’s accountable, but it did mean that I realized there were big differences among teachers. There were nurturers. There were strict task masters. There were some who would be indifferent and some (fortunately just one in our experience) who might be incompetent.
In every case…even the one teacher who barely taught honors geometry…I held my kids accountable for learning the material. My children realized that learning was easy if they had a ‘good’ teacher, who explained things clearly and made connections to prior knowledge. Learning was much more difficult if the teaching style was out of sync with their learning style.
As long as there was a rubric or a set of learning objectives, I encouraged my kids to figure it out…and they did. The most challenging time was dealing with the geometry teacher. For about a month I sat with my daughter and we read the book aloud and worked every example and proof. It didn’t take that long before she said, ‘mom, I got this’ and was able to teach herself.
Both of my kids, learned ‘how to learn’ in high school.
Then when it came to college I told them to expect good and bad. I talked about weed out classes and huge lecture and discussion sections taught by teaching assistants. I went to U of I over 30 years ago. I remember learning physics using PLATO, computer-assisted instruction. Yes, I often think of learning as a solitary endeavor…probably because I studied chemistry and physics. My children, as business majors, do a lot of collaborative group projects and presentations. Is it perfect? No, but that’s the real world.
Academics are important. However, college is so much more than that…time management, social skills, professional skills, personal care, independence, prioritizing, etc. Educational opportunities must be seized and in this environment young people have to be proactive advocates for themselves.
I’m sorry you and/or your children have had less satisfying experiences. Did you come from small schools? I do think the adjustment to college is easier from a large high school. Having to deal with frustrating situations due to large classes and competition may help with the transition to a large public university. It’s food for thought.
I absolutely agree with you that college is much more than simply academics, and quite frankly, life is much more than academics. But going to a non-flagship public university (or even some flagship universities) with intro classes with 500-600 students per professor and maybe a couple TAs, there just not enough support to those not in the STEM field. It’s simply not fair to those who need to suffer a worse education (and then got blamed on for not being able to learn on their own) than those in the STEM field just because the state college putting all their money into the Engineering department. I know I didn’t go to a public university and not every public university is like that, but I do believe that everyone should deserve the same education level if they are paying the same price as those in the STEM field.
I am a little incredulous about the perceived inadequacies of a large lecture…most large lecture classes are broken down to smaller discussion groups and it is easy enough to go to the profs office hours to develop a one on one relationship and deepen the course value. In fact, many professors love it when a kid shows interest and initiative by seeking contact beyond the classroom. I did it with my professors for classes at the core my major, my eldest does it with just about all of her professors. Nether of us at a small LAC.
Instead of speaking in non-specific terms, what Flagship or non-Flagship public university is having a “crisis”?
@sushiritto Agreed.
@CU123 Can you specify a particular public university with such a crisis? Making blanket statements about “crises” at public institutions is misleading. Also, all of your points on the first page have no sources. Are they just your observations?
@sushiritto @MrElonMusk If you just do a little google search, I bet you get a ton of examples that you are looking for. I just did a simple goole search, and found an example that you wanted (just in case that you don’t have time for a simple google search).
From the article itself:
“Cheyney is in a category of its own, facing tens of millions of dollars in unpaid debts to PASSHE and other creditors and seeing enrollment dwindle from about 1,500 to 750 in the last five years. Earlier this year, it accepted an $8 million line of credit from PASSHE. The school has not had a full-time president in years. In the background of its precarious financial situation is belief by alumni and other supporters PASSHE has been shortchanging Cheyney on funding for decades.”
Source:https://billypenn.com/2017/07/12/pennsylvanias-public-university-crisis-and-what-the-fixes-could-be/
.^^^^^Are you serious with that one? Cheney is a HBCU and not a particularly desirable one in that category to begin with. Endowments at HBCU are historically smaller. They have had less time to build wealth, have smaller graduating class sizes from which to mine $, and often a radically different business model and mission than other schools. It is hardly a prime example of a public school funding crisis. You gonna have to do better than that!
Historically Black Colleges Try to Catch Up as Rich Schools Get …
https://www.bloomberg.com › articles
HBCU Money’s 2017 Top 10 HBCU Endowments |
https://hbcumoney.com › 2018/02/05 › h…
With all due respect, the “burden of proof” is yours, not ours. I still believe your “thesis” is not supported and I’m “not buying.”
Even the much-maligned UC system and specifically Cal Berkeley with their budget issues, student to faculty ratio has gone from 17:1 to 18.3:1 since 1999.
Also, I checked Wisconsin-Madison, Mississippi State and Ohio State and their ratios have increased, from roughly the low teens (13-15) to high teens (17-19), roughly up 4 students in each case, there’s no “crisis.” Also, LSU’s ratio went down by 1 student, 21:1 to 20:1, IIRC.
@Angelababy30 I know that I can google that. My question was directed to the OP @CU123 . I want to know what university that caused the soap to make such a statement.
^U of Chicago.
I’ve shared this more than once on CC, but my very favorite class at UT was American History with George Forgie. Over 300 kids in the class. But he was such an amazing story teller and gifted teacher that I could not wait to go to his class. Even his exam questions were outstanding.
I would go to his office hours and talk about history with him. He tried to get me to switch majors from engineering to history, ha. If I had been scared off by the large class size, I would have missed out on one of my top college experiences. I was happy that I got one of the handful of As in the class, too!
On the other hand, I was in a couple of very small classes that I could have done without.
Sorry instead of “soap”, I meant OP.
@MrElonMusk I guess you don’t see a crisis, which is fine, but here are some examples. Both flagships.
“Illinois is starving state colleges and universities”
http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/29/pf/college/illinois-budget-higher-education/index.html
UC system’s global rankings slip amid funding cuts, international competition
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/higher-ed/la-me-uc-global-rankings-20180228-story.html