why is college so expensive?

[kaisersozei]

Originally Posted by The Poet

Most of them don't make nearly as much as you seem to fear they do, with a full tenured professor at all but the fanciest schools topping out around $80K or so, with top administrators getting perhaps twice that on average. There are exceptions, on both sides of the curve.

In other words, your average educator earns in a year about what your average corporate scumbag steals in a week . . . or a good day.

I would disagree with you. Salaries at public universities are available for some states per FOIA:

http://www.collegiatetimes.com/databases/salaries

Data here show that most of the administrators & many of the top faculty at even the "non-fancy" schools are raking in considerable salaries, not to mention state-provided benefit packages. Your state may vary, I just checked Virginia & NY schools as a basis.

[Dave128]

I wish I had had access to a GI bill or something of the sort when I went to college straight out of high school. My grades weren't the best, so there were no schlarships available to me. Took me darn near ten years to pay off my loans. All on my own with very little help from my family. My dad told that if he had to pay for his education that I should too. I guess in the end it made me appreciate it that much more, but a little help would have been nice.

[mosesbotbol]

College is a scam in general. They are all in collusion like insurance companies.

[loki]

Originally Posted by Subvet642

Once the format becomes obsolete, the electricity goes out, the battery dies, you drop your reader, or whatever; then where are you? Books are already perfect the way they are, and require nothing else in order to read. All electronic media requires hardware, software and power support in order to function. A book requires only itself.

you can misplace a book, you can get it wet, books become obsolete and are more expensive to change leading to fewer changes and they are all but unsearchable. Books are dead tech, it's time to move into another format.

[shilala]

If you think college is expensive, you oughta see how expensive stupid is!!!

[Subvet642]

Originally Posted by shilala

If you think college is expensive, you oughta see how expensive stupid is!!!

I work at a Harvard teaching hospital, and believe me, college is no inoculation against stupid.

[Subvet642]

Originally Posted by loki

you can misplace a book, you can get it wet, books become obsolete and are more expensive to change leading to fewer changes and they are all but unsearchable. Books are dead tech, it's time to move into another format.

You can misplace a reader, it can get wet, dropped, corrupted by a virus or destroyed by EMP. Books are indeed searchable; it's called an index. If you lose a book, it's one book; if you lose a reader, you lose all your "books". If you drop a reader, it's toast. I wonder how old the oldest surviving e-text is. The Dead Sea Scrolls are about 2000 years old. Does anybody expect any electronic text to survive that long?

[loki]

Originally Posted by Subvet642

You can misplace a reader, it can get wet, dropped, corrupted by a virus or destroyed by EMP. Books are indeed searchable; it's called an index. If you lose a book, it's one book; if you lose a reader, you lose all your "books". If you drop a reader, it's toast. I wonder how old the oldest surviving e-text is. The Dead Sea Scrolls are about 2000 years old. Does anybody expect any electronic text to survive that long?

I can count on one had the number of times I've damaged a piece of electiontics to the point they needed repaired, it's one, and the number of times I've lost one is never. I'm not going to argue this with you because there's no reason to. you like books and I prefer ereaders. not a big deal in the grand scheme of the board. have a good weekend mate.

[M1903A1]

Originally Posted by Subvet642

I work at a Harvard teaching hospital, and believe me, college is no inoculation against stupid.

Sometimes I swear it enhances it....

[mosesbotbol]

The eReader should have its data in a cloud so nothing is lost beyond the hardware itself.

[The Poet]

Originally Posted by kaisersozei

I would disagree with you. Salaries at public universities are available for some states per FOIA:

You may disagree all you wish, and you may even be correct. However, one cannot within reason compare (for instance) the salary of a renowned research scientist in charge of a cutting edge lab at Illinois or UCLA with a professor of sociology at Podunk College . . . and there are a LOT more of the latter than the former. The initial question was regarding the cost of a college education in general, with an inquiry about how salaries affect the expense. The aforesaid researcher may indeed earn (and I do mean EARN) $200K, while he is leading to discoveries which others without his skills or knowledge will make billions.

[Mugen910]

half.com was where I used to get mine...or just make friends from a different section of the class and split the costs.

[tedrodgerscpa]

Ouch...

Before "lynch a professor weekend" starts, please be aware that not all involved in the Ivory Tower are corrupt.

Painful generalizations can sometimes bring harm to those you least intend.

Best,

Ted

[Mugen910]

Originally Posted by tedrodgerscpa

Ouch...

Before "lynch a professor weekend" starts, please be aware that not all involved in the Ivory Tower are corrupt.

Painful generalizations can sometimes bring harm to those you least intend.

Best,

Ted

So you admit that there is corruption!!!

[The Poet]

Originally Posted by Mugen910

So you admit that there is corruption!!!

There is malfeasance of a sort, anyway. E.g., as relates to the original complaint regarding the high cost of textbooks, note that is has long been a practice of professors to pen their own textbook, then require it to be purchased for their own course . . . regardless of whether or not a suitable text already exists, and one that might be superior to said prof's creation. In this way, the professor can enhance his income without benefit of a raise in salary from the administration, yet the practice can increase the cost of the education process for the students.

[kaisersozei]

Originally Posted by The Poet

You may disagree all you wish, and you may even be correct. However, one cannot within reason compare (for instance) the salary of a renowned research scientist in charge of a cutting edge lab at Illinois or UCLA with a professor of sociology at Podunk College . . . and there are a LOT more of the latter than the former. The initial question was regarding the cost of a college education in general, with an inquiry about how salaries affect the expense. The aforesaid researcher may indeed earn (and I do mean EARN) $200K, while he is leading to discoveries which others without his skills or knowledge will make billions.

I'm not sure I follow. Not picking an argument with you, Thomas, but your original post drew a comparison of salaries between professors/college admins & "corporate scumbags." My link showed that very, very many of those professors earn considerably more than $80-160k/yr, even at the Podunk Colleges. And that was only for public universities in 15 states. So I think you can reasonably infer that some of what Devan & others (like my kids ) experience in the high cost of college education is related to these salaries.

I'm not sure why you're bringing in a comparison to business executives and those in corporate America--I can't see what that has to do with the price of education.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by loki

you can misplace a book, you can get it wet, books become obsolete and are more expensive to change leading to fewer changes and they are all but unsearchable. Books are dead tech, it's time to move into another format.

Aren't all these true for electronic devices as well? Not a good counter-argument.

[shark]

Originally Posted by The Poet

Most of them don't make nearly as much as you seem to fear they do, with a full tenured professor at all but the fanciest schools topping out around $80K or so, with top administrators getting perhaps twice that on average. There are exceptions, on both sides of the curve.

In other words, your average educator earns in a year about what your average corporate scumbag steals in a week . . . or a good day.

University of Michigan-Dearborn pays a lot of their top people well over $200,000 per year...ask anyone going there or who has gone to any of the U of M campuses (there are 3) and they'll tell you that the tuition, books, etc. was not cheap. I'd imagine it's pretty much the same with others like Michigan State, Oakland U, Wayne State, Western, Central, Lawrence Tech, Michigan Tech, etc. etc.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by The Poet

Most of them don't make nearly as much as you seem to fear they do, with a full tenured professor at all but the fanciest schools topping out around $80K or so, with top administrators getting perhaps twice that on average. There are exceptions, on both sides of the curve.

In other words, your average educator earns in a year about what your average corporate scumbag steals in a week . . . or a good day.

This doesn't pass the smell test. We have fully tenured public high school teachers with M. Ed. in my school district earning upwards of 50k a year (not including benefits).

[shark]

And remember, kiddies: PhD really means Piled High and Deep!