UC's For-Pay Online Course Draws 4 Non-UC Students 177
slew writes "In the shadow of Stanford and Harvard offering free on-line courses, The University of California has been attempting to offer pay-courses for credit. UC online took out a $6.9M loan from UC and spent $4.3M to market these courses. For their efforts, they've been able to quadruple their enrollment year over year. The first year results: only one person not already attending UC paid $1,400 for an online pre-calculus class worth four credits. Now four non-UC are signed up. 'UC Online has to pay back the loan in seven years and expected to sell 7,000 classes to non-UC students for $1,400 or $2,400 apiece, depending on each course's duration. China was thought to be a lucrative potential source of students, but few expressed interest. The U.S. military also fell through.' Methinks head will roll on this one..."
$1400-$2400 per course? (Score:5, Interesting)
I could go full-time to my local community college for less than that. Hell, I could almost go full time to my local 4-year university for that (paying in-state tuition). And UC isn't even that prestigious.
They seriously thought the Chinese were going to pay that kind of tuition, for a single course at the fucking University of California, that probably isn't even applicable to a degree? And the U.S. military? Hey, the military may be legendary for wasting money, but even they have limits.
For that, you would think they would at least have offered a complimentary reach-around.
Agree 10000% (Score:5, Informative)
It's been about six years since I've been in school, but even my most expensive semester of graduate school was only about $1750. Last I checked prices were still in the low $2000 range there. That's for 12+ credits (9+ credits in Graduate School), not a single 4 credit course.
These big schools and their even bigger price tags. What the flying fsck are they smoking?
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I thought that sounded a bit rich. $1400 for ONE class ?!?
I don't really think we need to say much more.
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I paid about $2000 for 20 credits at my local community college this quarter, and right now the 4 year college I want to go to charges about $4000 for 12 to 18 credits.
So yeah, I'm not interested in their deal.
Re:Agree 10000% (Score:5, Insightful)
Well considering they only offer 4 classes, and have 6 more pending approval.... that's a very, very limited audience available. I mean, one of the classes offered is "The Joy of Computing". Really? I actually would be interested in this sort of thing, as an adult college student with my employer picking up a lot of the tab. The class selection really leaves something to be desired though! If I could really knock out most of my degree online thru them I'd be interested. Having 4 weird elective classes online isn't going to attract anyone.
Re:Agree 10000% (Score:5, Insightful)
These big schools and their even bigger price tags. What the flying fsck are they smoking?
Not only that but they expected China to be a major market? Chinese students have US University level pre-calculus in elementary school.
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Not only that but they expected China to be a major market? Chinese students have US University level pre-calculus in elementary school.
Not only that, but thinking that China would be a major market for online classes shows a complete and utter lack of understanding of international students. One of the major reasons Chinese students go to American schools is so they can live in the US for several years. You can't get a student visa to take online classes.
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And UC isn't even that prestigious.
It's the best state school system in the U.S. Admittedly, the way the budgets are falling, it'll go private one of these years...
These big schools and their even bigger price tags
But you know, brick and mortar, textbooks, electri...oh, right. Online. You think there'd be some sort of discount. Especially for a class I took in Junior year of high school. I can see paying $1400 for a specialized course like Nuclear Physics or Laser Science. But pre-calc?
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At the University of Florida (a "best value" school), graduate tuition is $524.56 / credit hour for a resident. Undergrad is $204 / credit hour. Non-resident undergrad courses are....$947 / credit hour. Where did you go to school?
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Re:Agree 10000% (Score:4, Funny)
The leads... are weak!
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"The leads are weak." The fucking leads are weak? You're weak. I've been in this business fifteen years...
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And coffee is for closers.
Just to throw some numbers in the mix, since someone mentioned community colleges. The cc not far from me is $363 / credit hour for out-of-district and $439 / hour for out-of-state. It is a ridiculously nice community college, though.
Re:beaurocrats! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not thinking institutionally, and you know that one bucket is not connected to another bucket.
Re:Agree 10000% (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what they spent the $4.3 million in Advertising on... Surely after the first million or two you would have to be wondering why you were getting such a poor response.
Seriously. $4,300,000.00 on advertising and this is the first I've ever heard of the program.
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Wait for it.
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Trust me, it'll be worth it.
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I work for the UC.
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Probably because the University of Cincinnati and the University of California don't talk much anymore after that awkward moment at the last social mixer.
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I'm wondering if somebody pocketed the money, or perhaps paid their wife and uncle $5,000 an hour each to wave a sign around on a street somewhere.
There is way to much put on getting a degree / 4 y (Score:5, Insightful)
There is way to much put on getting a degree / a 4 year or more one.
I say more 2 years ones / more tech and trades schools with apprenticeships.
College costs to much and takes to long they has to be ways to cut time and costs.
Also not everyone is college material and a lot of people should not be there. There are people who are better in tech / trades schools.
The tech / trades schools are being held back and getting a bad rap from having to be part of the collgle system.
Look at tribeca flashpoint it's a real good school with lot's of real hands on work but it's only a 2 year place so in some cases it's will not get you past HR.
I saw a job posting for a master control job at a Major sports channel that wanted a 4 year communications degree so whats better some with 2 years of very hands on work in media working with hardware that you will see in master control or a 4 year communications degree that was a lot of theory and non tech communications parts to it.
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A high school diploma used to provide some confidence that the graduate could read and write. Now, it's little more than a gold star for attendance (and avoidance of criminal behavior.) That's why there's an emphasis on four year degrees. If you are lacking the basic skills of reading, writing, math, and science, you simply won't advance.
A tech program is fine for those people who aren't cut out for furthering their education. I'm not saying anything bad about them, as they serve a very useful purpose for a lot of people. But you should recognize they are producing people with only a subset of skills, that are trained only for a specific career, and someone with a plumbing certificate is not going to be expected or even permitted to do anything but plumbing. On the other hand, while a degree in English Literature isn't going to land you a job as an engineer, it shows a certain ability to communicate and to learn. Such a person could easily end up in marketing, business analysis, management, or technical writing.
Ironically, your post is filled with a number of spelling and grammatical errors that telegraph your lack of language skills. If I were hiring, and I read a cover letter from you that had that many mistakes, it'd be in the bin before I got to your signature. I need people who can communicate clearly, regardless of the job I'm hiring them for.
I would be quite surprised if you could land a job at a media company like a sports network. Their entire product is a professional looking stream of information, and a person with an unfinished education isn't going to add value. For example, you couldn't be trusted as an editor or producer, because you wouldn't recognize poor quality content. You might land a job as an electrician or a grip, but you would go no further.
Here's the bottom line: people with four year degrees (at least) are doing the hiring. Therefore they get to set the bar - not you.
but a 4 years can easy be trimmed down to maybe 2-3 years by cutting a lot of the fluff and filler.
So you are saying that going to tribeca flashpoint an unfinished education?? They do real world work there and I say it better to have people who have done real work to be trusted as an editor or producer. Well someone with mostly theory based education wouldn't recognize poor quality content or they may say why X like that that if they went to tech school they would learn that that's the way it works.
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There are a lot of completely worthless 2 year degrees for white collar positions, just as there are worthless 4 year degrees. Apprenticeships seem tough (I have never done one) but generally don't lead to poverty. The real problem is that laying out a career path for the rest of your life is probably beyond the abilities of most 18-year olds. I did a good job of it
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Good point. Although that 4 year degree is no guarantee that a person can read or write.
I teach a GenEd class that involves a term paper and other strong writing components. It's sad how many upper division students cannot write intelligibly. *Many* have poor grammar and poor spelling. A considerable number aren't *that* good--it's a challenge to understand what they're trying to say.
To be fair, some write fairly well, but they're in the minority.
A significant number of our CompSci students come in suff
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A tech program is fine for those people who aren't cut out for furthering their education.
Wait a minute; are you saying that getting a degree is the only way to further your education? Many people just don't do well with certain TYPES of education - such as those provided in a college/university - but it is completely possible for them to go into a tech program while furthering their education on their own.
Ironically, your post is filled with a number of spelling and grammatical errors that telegraph your lack of language skills. If I were hiring, and I read a cover letter from you that had that many mistakes, it'd be in the bin before I got to your signature. I need people who can communicate clearly, regardless of the job I'm hiring them for.
You're assuming that cover letter would be in English...
He may be unable to land a job at an American sports network, but the sports networks pretty much the only networks making a profit n
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You can get college credit for your military service.
http://aarts.army.mil/ [army.mil]
You need SSN, Birthdate, and Basic active service date. Many colleges will grant you at least some credit, based upon what you did in the military of course. Lol mine only recommends 4 credit hours for my 5 years in service. But that was because I was a grunt. If you were in a technical position, it can be very different.
Note: This is only for enlisted, officers have something different.
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Tiny problem with that is that people try to kill you in the process - both your own side (through incompetence) and the other side (through policy).
Which is not too different to trying to negotiate the sports twats at some colleges.
tell that to HR (Score:2)
tell that to HR / who put need X degree in the job posting.
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Because it's a dream. If it were $10 people would think it's a scam. The $1000+ price tag means they aren't dicking around. Even if the $10 and $1000+ curriculum was the exact same, I bet they'd come out about the same in terms of revenue, but the $10 course would require a lot more upkeep and resources.
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Especially for an online class. I've never comprehended why the hell schools believe they can get away with charging more for an online class (usually usual tuition plus a fee). Having an instructor sitting at home in their underwear has got to be cheaper than finding room on campus, etc.
This whole trend is down to short-termism from the bean counters. Classes go online for "cost-cutting" reasons: travel, time, accommodation, photocopying etc etc etc. Unfortunately they consistently forget that there's a lot of work involved in putting a course online, and that costs money. But by the time they realise this, they're personally invested in the idea that online is the way forward, and start to justify it to themselves in terms of convenience, flexibility etc and they therefore rationalise
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The sad thing about that is the only thing about actually going to college I missed was the fact that you might actually meet girls in close proximity who might get somewhere near someone's bed.
If you take online courses, then it's just like school and stuff.
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...Thats a whopping $200 per student. Now can you tell me why the cost to the student is higher than that by almost an order of magnitude? I can, its because the universities have the same delusion as the content industries did, they thought that the internet somehow added value to their product in and of itself, when in reality, the only value it adds is to reduce operating costs and distribution costs. The value to the end user (and the value they expect to receive) is in lower prices.
The problem is twofold:
First up, the move to online is very expensive in the short term if done properly (planning, quality assurance, technology, rewriting of materials), and very expensive in the long term if done badly (constant firefighting, multiple changes of technology, multiple rewrites of materials). The actual goal of reduced costs won't be apparent for years. (And as most places are under pressure to go online for cost reasons, they mostly don't invest enough in the initial move and spend years
UOFP costs less then that and they offer more clss (Score:2)
UOFP costs less then that and they offer more classes as well.
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They seriously thought the Chinese were going to pay that kind of tuition, for a single course at the fucking University of California, that probably isn't even applicable to a degree?
I totally agree. I was very excited this morning to discover some predictive analysis graduate level courses online at Northwestern. I stayed excited right up until I spewed coffee all over myself when I saw that they wanted $3800 per course. I don't need that course to predict that I won't be taking it.
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that's the other Northwestern college is not the U (Score:2)
that's the other Northwestern college is not the the big ten one.
Advertising (Score:4, Insightful)
Why pay so much when you can audit most courses for $10 - $200 at almost any university? Ivy League schools like Princeton charge a paltry $150. It is a tough sell getting someone to spend $1400 to audit a boring online course at a state school.
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Careful how you define 'course'.
Typical tuition here is 7k-11k for a local student for 10 courses lasting 12 weeks each (4 month courses, 12 weeks of instruction + exams). If a 'course' is actually an 8 month then 1400 dollars per course is about right.
Now the catch: Tuition for a foreign student is 20k/year. Ah ha. That's why the chinese market is so interesting. UC is a very prestigious school if you're in india or china, because even bad north american universities are way better than most of the sc
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I dunno what you mean by "UC isn't even all that prestigious," but the Times Higher Education Supplement rated UC Berkeley as the #8 university in the world and #6 in the U.S., behind Caltech, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Princeton. In particular, they feel that it's better than the entire university system of every country that isn't the U.S. or the U.K. I'd say that's pretty good. UCLA is world-class as well, and UCSF is one of the top three or four medical schools in the world. Even the lesser-known cam
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You're not allowed to mention UCLA, Irvine, and Riverside without giving UCSD some credit. They have some top ten programs, and have been doing lots of incredible research lately.
I'd say depending on the student's level and area of study, UCSD and UCLA are roughly on par. I'd rather do engineering, biotech, or IR/PS at SD. Poli Sci is a toss-up depending on research focus. LA has a ton of great programs, too... and even the worst UCs are better than most universities.
Pay for education ? LOL (Score:2, Insightful)
In most civilized countries education is free not a commodity to be bought and sold, the market spoke and this universities education got handed the real market price, zero.
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What are you smoking?
He or she is not smoking anything. If you are poor and you take advantage of what is out there, you can get a college education paid for. There are thousands of state, federal, charitable and private programs that help pay for education. A good academic adviser can help you get access.
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What are you smoking?
He or she is not smoking anything. If you are poor and you take advantage of what is out there, you can get a college education paid for. There are thousands of state, federal, charitable and private programs that help pay for education. A good academic adviser can help you get access.
Probably half of all students are already on some sort of grant, scholarship or other financial aid. I once worked with the financial aid office at a college and about half were getting at least some assistance there.
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Under IBR your loan payments are set at 10% of your adjusted gross income past 150% of the federal poverty level, and capped at a maximum of what you would pay on a 10 year repayment plan. After 20 years the remaining balance is discharged an
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they also have more trades schools / apprenticeshi (Score:2)
they also have more trades schools / apprenticeships as well. Not just one size fit's all college systems.
Too much for an online class. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how they justify the cost, when it probably costs them all of $20 to manage the average online student. I guess people realize this, and for that kind of money they want the *full* college experience with hazing and all that.
I'll just stick with Coursera - it's free and awesome, (As long as you just want the knowledge and don't care about credits.)
Coursera is the problem... (Score:2)
I'll just stick with Coursera - it's free and awesome, (As long as you just want the knowledge and don't care about credits.)
Unfortunately that "not caring about credits" is what is going to eventually cripple the university system. The free MOOCs are widening education, but they're liable to draw a fair amount of custom out of the paid-for distance education sector, which means that the free stuff is going to increase the cost of accredited education in the medium term.
And even leaving aside the matter of credit points and certificates, a MOOC is not equivalent to a good paid-for online course, because the assessment is far mor
Re:Too much for an online class. (Score:5, Interesting)
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23 years of professional experience in IT, and that I've taken 8 different 6-11 week online courses in the last year.
Most courses use automated and peer grading, the only expense is hosting/bandwidth costs.
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By your logic, no one can ever estimate the cost of anything. You can't tell me $500,000 is too much for a Toyota unless you've run the company.
It cost Coursera $15,000 - 30,000 to design a MOOC (one time cost). That's less than a dollar per student (for a single schedule, and they have them on a loop!) for most of the classes. Everyone here has IT experience enough to know that the bandwidth and server resources is also inconsequential per student.
Or, do you think Coursera is eating $2B in expenses over
Useless to non-UC students, and $$$$$??!!?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
What the hell? Full classroom price for an online course? Are they serious? Who do they think they are? The RIAA?
Also, as a non-UC student, this is wildly useless to me. Free courses are excellent because they can help me through my existing classwork, or I can participate just to enrich my own learning.
For-credit is useless unless that credit applies at my own university. It might, but it would be a hassle to figure it out, and I am ALREADY paying full tuition at my university. Why would I pay another $1,400 for another class AND have to figure out if it transfers?
Terrible idea at a terrible price point.
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What the hell? Full classroom price for an online course? Are they serious? Who do they think they are? The RIAA?
Of course not! The RIAA would charge double for the privilege of online classes. Then go cry to the government when they got only four students, who they would sue for copyright infringement (they're obviously uploading all their valuable knowledge to the limetorrentz or pirate bays), before finally deciding that on-the-job training should be made illegal because it horns in on their monopoly.
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Horrifyingly realistic.
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It should be much more than normal tuition because you can study in the comfort of your home and don't have to get up in the morning!
After all the UC system isn't about education, it's about money.
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Well then, I won't be crying crocodile tears for their multimillion dollar bad idea...
Free alternatives are out there (Score:2)
First, there are free alternatives out there, like Coursera, that offer the same thing.
Second, consumer sees value in credentials, not education. Kinds of people that tend to value knowledge are more than capable of gaining it on their own. Kinds of people that would pay for education are only interested in acquiring credentials.
No problem (Score:2)
If the numbers are anywhere near right then they should easly recoop their money. Even if they fall short and have only 5000 sudents instead of 7000 then at $1400 each then they will earn 7 million dollars.
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If the numbers are anywhere near right then they should easly recoop their money. Even if they fall short and have only 5000 sudents instead of 7000 then at $1400 each then they will earn 7 million dollars.
I know that it's customary on slashdot not to read the linked articles but you didn't even read the summary, did you? They got four students. Four.
Priced themselves out of it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Who did the marketing research and how much ganja were they smoking when they did it?
The loss on this reminds me of an ill-considered plans where I worked ages ago. Someone bought a $20,000 system and contract to move EDI packaged records between institutions around the state. I has it foisted upon me (make it work, you peon) and spent the next year chasing down contacts and attending seminars. After a year the person who "bought" the product angrily wanted to know how it was I hadn't made any headway - this because none of the other institutions ever went through on the project and it was effectively dead. Then I had the gall to ask, so how much work are we saving by doing this anyway, and found we would move about 4 records per quarter. 4. End of project. That person should have been sacked, but was promoted. Go figure.
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You should rather ask who got a big bonus and/or a golden handshake in the meantime.
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You should rather ask who got a big bonus and/or a golden handshake in the meantime.
These days people like to put the success of their projects on their resume. If only prospective employers followed up on these things.
"So how did it work out?" "It was deemed a waste of resources and scrapped after they left, further it damaged team morale, which took a lot of milk and cookies to restore."
Well Yeah. (Score:2)
6K a year for all you finish credits online for govenours college compared with 1400 for 4 credits seems expensive.
I'm sure there are even more cheaper places not even counting the free courses.
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for all you finish credits online for govenours college
Huh?
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Perhaps he got what he paid for.
Sell volume (Score:2)
If the appstores have taught us anything it's that you can make a lot of money off impulse buy pricing. If they dropped the fee to $14 / credit (so $56 for the course) they'd make it all back and more in 1-2 years.
I'm certain their fear is that those prices would eat into regular tuition as many would do online instead of in person. They'd have to run more numbers (maybe they have) to find the best market rate. Clearly they've priced themselves out of the market completely at their current rates though.
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Goals? Bueller? (Score:3)
FTFA (yeah, I know)
"UC leaders say they will focus online efforts mainly on students already enrolled at UC, in hopes that such classes will help them zip through school more quickly and cheaply. "
1. It's not cheap. I can go to a local community college and get an actual interactive course with an actual professor for a lot less than $350/credit. I can go to an actual local accredited 4 year university for a lot less than that too.
2. If you want outside students, you need to, you know, actually market to outside students instead of the students you already have.
--
BMO
Well... if they can hold their quadrupling rate... (Score:2)
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But in 64 years, they will undergo gravitational collapse and turn into a neutron star.
As a current UC student... (Score:3)
I had no idea this existed.
The current course listing is as follows:
American Cybercultures: Principles of Internet Citizenship
Intro to Probability and Statistics for Business
General Psychology
Beauty and Joy of Computing
I guess it's not much of a loss, the only course I could have taken for credit was Psychology. A helpful suggestion would be for you guys to put the University wide requirements on here. The American History and Institution's requirement is generally unfulfilled by international students for instance.
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Gosh, $1400 to learn the Principles of Internet Citizenship? A steal at twice the price! Can't imagine why they don't have more takers...
Only 4 students? (Score:2)
Everything will be fine... (Score:2)
...assuming they quadruple enrollment every year. By the 7th year, if my math is correct (and it likely isn't), over four *thousand* people will be enrolled, and even at $1400/class, that's over $5.5M. So they'll be able to pay back the loan no problem!
What kind of cources? (Score:2)
Probably
- not economics,
- not business plan 101,
- not calculus,
- not linear optimisation,
- not common sense and
- not "let's google if these courses can be found for free" either.
Test problem (Score:3)
How is an online pre-calc course worth 1400? Solve.
It's ok, we passed prop 30 (Score:2)
It's ok, we passed prop 30, because not passing prop 30 would have resulted to funding of UC being reduced. Assuming it won't be cut anyway, they'll still have money for clowniness like this.
Oh, and when I say "we passed prop 30", I mean "we" as in people who were actually allowed to vote, which means not me. I just get to pay taxes.
Not that I'm opposed to subsidizing education. But it has to be possible to do better than burning through more than $5M to offer 5 classes and underperform your sales projectio
Nonsense (Score:2)
In the Free Democratic People's Republic of Mexifornia the less money you make from such things the more heroically revolutionary and counter reactionary they are! If they need to cover their costs just make it more expensive for the running dog lackey plutocrats!
Then charge the UC students themselves even more for the course compared to the classroom version then cancel the classroom version - - like UNC Chapel Hill does.
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Why would anyone pay for online courses for UC general reqs at the regular UC prices when most of California's community colleges offer online courses for a tenth of the price, all of which are transferable. Whoever thought this up needs to spend some time out of their ivory tower.
I would consider paying $1,400/class for an online class through UC. It would look better than my community college and would be taken more seriously than a lot of 100% online colleges. However, not for the few crappy classes they offer. The course catalog only has a few courses, and they all are entry level and non-serious.
As a professional, I would be willing to pay $1,400 for an upper level finance course from a respected university, but Pre-Calc, intro psych, and "climate change" are all courses th
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No one would ever know you took those classes at a community college. You would transfer them elsewhere to get the degree.
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Yeah, I think where they failed was getting: 1) serious, prestigious courses; that are 2) taught by top professors. Intro psych taught by a not-particularly-famous psych professor is not going to draw. But I think the concept could've worked if they had, say, a solid bioinformatics course taught by someone like David Haussler [wikipedia.org]. There are plenty of UC professors across the campuses with similar draw potential. But they need to target higher-prestige than generic intro courses, because nobody is going to pay $
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Here's a program that actually looks appealing, and I'd consider paying for it (I think about $2k for the year-long program):
http://www.pce.uw.edu/certificates/data-science.html [uw.edu]
It's a graduate certificate in data science. It's my understanding the guy behind it (J. Nathan Kutz) is the same one who teaches a couple of the data science courses on Coursera for free. So for some money and a bit more rigor in your work and assignments, you get an actual certificate you can put on your resume.
Here are the Cours
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I don't disagree entirely, and lean Democratic myself, but I don't think you can blame the Republicans entirely for this one. A bunch of the plutocrats on the board are Republican appointees, but a bunch are Democratic appointees also. Perhaps the most egregious one is Richard C. Blum, an investment banker who owns significant stakes in for-profit universities, so directly benefits from the weakening of their public competition. Oh, and he just happens to be married to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.
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I was fine with online classes. Most /.ers out of school don't understand how popular hybrid is, especially for lower level classes. All the schools around me are doing great offering degree program enrolled for credit online / hybrid classes.
The mystery is why anyone would sign up, out of the blue, to blow $1400 on a precalc class (or whatever it is). Why?
If you want a degree you apply for admission and take online precalc for $1400 and are removed from this metric goal because you're a student now.
I do
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My guess is that the precalc student is in high school. The student couldn't fit the class into his schedule with other classes he wanted to take, so taking it online at the university gets him the high school credit, and also gets you a college credit when you do end up enrolling wherever you go. That sort of thing happened a lot where I went to high school.
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Ridiculously overpriced even without that idea.
Re:Not worth it (Score:5, Insightful)
The prestige of an American university does not warrant the cost. We pay for the implied value of the college we go to, and it is cheapened when the class is not taught in person.
The professor is one thing, but it's not connecting with your co-students that is the real downfall. Nothing sharpens your mind as much as having to discuss/cooperate/compete with other very bright minds and you're not networking the same way either. The professor is of course also good, but most of it is just putting all these people in the same room and watch the sparks fly.
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Not to mention the networking potential - at least some of your classmates at a prestigious university are likely to go on to positions of power and/or prestige. If they know you to be competent (or even just know you) you can potentially leverage that into more lucrative career opportunities for yourself. Without actually spending considerable time on campus all you get for your money is a lecture that *hopefully* clarifies and expands upon what you've read in the book.
Slashdot university (Score:2)
"Nothing sharpens your mind as much as having to discuss/cooperate/compete with other very bright minds"
Thus we have Slashdot; I have learned so much from it over the past twelve or so years. :-)
BTW, Alfie Kohn on "Competition versus Excellence":
http://www.alfiekohn.org/miscellaneous/cve.htm [alfiekohn.org]
"In a comprehensive review of 245 classroom studies that found a significant achievement difference between cooperative and competitive environments, David Johnson and Roger Johnson of the University of Minnesota reporte
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LOL the really poor aren't going to have the credit limit to put more than a class or two on it anyway.
Its really aimed for tuition reimbursement people like I was for my BS degree (BS in several ways I guess). You pay the registrar or whoever in full on your CC, submit a reimbursement form to work, get a direct deposit right into checking in a week or so, write check or online bill pay to pay off the CC all done. Toward the end of my degree $employer required I submit a C or better report card or transcr
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The problem is with schools that don't let you pay using a credit card. Then, on most credit cards, cash-outs ("balance transfer" checks) have higher APR, and are usually limited to a part of your credit line. I know of at least one Big Ten school that doesn't take credit cards for tuition. They only accept bank transfers online and checks in person (perhaps maybe cash too).
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Wow thats wild. I guess to avoid processing fees and people who drop out reversing the charges.
That is interesting, that anything other than tuition, if its faulty or fails to meet expectations, you can reverse the charges, but get a degree in art history and end up unemployable and you're just stuck with the bill. You should be able to mail the credential back and have the charges removed, ending up as if nothing ever happend, just like anything else you pay for via credit card.
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If only life was that way :)
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How many people outside the university actually know about this? I doubt many. $4.3 million spent on marketing seems to say they tried but I get the feeling they failed.
Google and census.gov think there are 20 million full time college / university students. There's probably about as many non-traditional students as traditional students. Doing some estimation and division, they should have been able to at least junk mail a significant fraction of the possible students.
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You can get it (Calculus Made Easy) for free: http://books.google.com/books?id=BrhBAAAAYAAJ [google.com]
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This stuff has been filtered out of the basic high school package in the states. Calculus is an 'AP' topic. I.E. Advanced Placement. They let the white kids take AP classes. When someone tried to sneak non lily whites into an AP exam and succeeded, it was so shocking that they made it a film about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver [wikipedia.org]
I went to school in Britain. No calculus => no college entrance.
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I was exaggerating for comedic effect. The wife was a teacher, then an ed PhD, then an education prof. She knows all the dirt on testing.
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