So a cartoon that struck me as quite a bit deeper than an average cartoon - from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Let's see - $17,000 per semester, I'll swag 15 semester hours or $1133 per semester hour, probably $3400 per class (3 hr class) with 30 students in class, or $102,000 paid in tuition for one class. The adjunct professor makes median $3000 for the semester. We'll double that to cover overhead and estimate that to host the class costs the college $6000. In return, they get paid $102,000. For one class.
Nice racket if you can get it.
In 1929, elevator boys swapping "buy", "sell", and "short" orders on stocks was a clue that the game was rigged, and the bubble was about to burst.
ReplyDeleteWhen a cartoonist can apply basic math to underline the scam in higher education, somewhere just ahead in the mist is an iceberg right in the path of the S.S. University.
The hilarity to come will be instructive.
And, bonus: absolutely for free!
It's a scam. It's all a scam.
ReplyDeleteI paid $8.50 per credit hour at the local community college in 1977. It about killed me to pay $21 per credit hour when I transferred to the local, state university.
ReplyDeleteI saw a story this last week, socialist imploring their members to become teachers....
ReplyDeleteAs my Father told me years ago - Timing is everything...
Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of swindlers,
Someone pass the popcorn, this is going to be GREAT!
(As Flounder would say)
MSG Grumpy
I saw a story this last week, socialist imploring their members to become teachers....
DeleteFunny they run it this week. They've been doing it since the '60s. Look at domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and his wife, among tons of others.
I've read that Harvard's "endowment", valued at $37 billion, could pay the tuition of every student that can be predicted for the next hundred years at the rate it grows, but somehow when it comes to giving their money away, Harvard thinks it's good for the students to learn to sacrifice for their long term gain.
A truly sad day it was when Universities became "Profit Centers"....
ReplyDeleteI am somewhat surprised that on line learning hasn't become more of a thing (yet). It will require independent verification that an online degree is not a sham piece of paper, and possibly co-op agreements with a community college for labs. Once those are in place, traditional university's will become social clubs, and sports venues.
ReplyDeleteI know that MIT has online (tuition-free) versions of virtually everything they teach, and before they did that, they had put up a lot of machine shop related videos.
DeleteI suspect that's going to get more widespread.
The distributed labs coordinated with local community colleges is a good idea.