Massive, open, online course.
Basically, open enrollment ‘learn on your own’ offerings by higher education. Usually free. Typically not interactive.
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A bunch of schools did not remove fees at all, they cannot because of state regulation/budgets. There’s also lots of costs for those experiences that are part of the overall tuition. Additionally, many higher ed institutions charged ADDITIONAL fees for online classes as a “technology fee.”
I’m assuming you’re enrolled as a regular student and have the option of taking either which is why the price is the same.
I think this year has pointed out the inherent issues with US and UK education that have led the massive cost inflation - they are both selling an experience and a certain type of learning that is viewed as consumer good.
Countries with affordable and quality higher education with affordable prices do not have college sports teams, rec centers, their own bus systems, their own police force, cafeterias, dorms, etc. But they do research and provide an education. the US and UK both sell an experience.
I do not think we get a quality of education on par with the cost inflation that the US has experienced - but because we had freely-flowing gov’t backed loans, US colleges kept trying to justify the increased cost to often cost-indifferent (or sheilded) students. And then also did not put regulations on the upper cost of public education.
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The cost of university education in the US is insanity. I’ll agree with you on that.
I know many students who deferred their freshman year enrollment in 2020 because they wanted the experience, and knew they would not get it.
No one, in any sector of anything, had a 2020 they expected. And likely won’t have a 2021 either.
And yes, I am enrolled in the program as a regular student, and have had some classes available to me online, some in person, and some both. All were moved online due to covid. The “online due to covid” classes have a different production quality than the “planned online” classes, but have much the same interactive experience I’d expect in person (a few classes I previously took I have a hard time seeing how they’d translate.) But the classes that are mostly lecture style, with small group breakout, have still been lecture style, with small group breakout. Our professor calls on us to answer questions. He takes questions when we raise our hands. He also follows questions in the chat. In previous classes we’ve actually maybe even had better conversations because TAs have led a side discussion in the chat while the main lecture has been going on. So questions that may have gone unanswered got answered.
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I know! It’s just such a bummer because like…this is a good year to study in so many ways… but not to pay the same price per credit as you would during the “wrap around” college experience.
It’s just such a mess all around.
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I agree. This would have been a great time to just make progress towards a degree, because what else can you do?
And I feel bad for those who missed their “college experience”. But what about those who missed their “early 30s dating experience” or the “play date with my baby experience”. EVERYONE missed something. I feel for my coworker who moved from a nice house, to an insanely expensive studio apartment near our downtown manhatten office to be able to have a shorter commute- and then never once went to the office. But paid a fortune for the privilege.
I think upperclass students who need specialty courses were in the hardest position, because they were basically stuck, and you can’t generally transfer those credits. But lowerclass students could have done general ed classes at a community college for less. Or studied for CLEP tests at home for free, and gotten credit for the price of the test. There were options, but I think people were optomistic this would be over quickly and therefore didn’t take them. (Or like international students, couldn’t. Our university actually had to create a weird in person class for international students to take, when no other classes were offered, just so they wouldn’t lose their visas).
But we effed up massively for this to be “over quickly”
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Yea, although I will say, those don’t transfer for a lot of picky schools. My school was very selective and very few of my CC classes transferred and none of my APs did.
It’s not just the missing out on “college experience”, I think it’s worth recognizing that student loan refunds or grants/aid are crucial for a lot of young people’s financial stability (which was not/is not a good system.) And a lot of people did not have a safe or stable home environment to do this studying and/or they were helping younger siblings/parents with remote schooling. And especially the younger folks had a lot of trouble finding employment with much of the retail and service sector closed and those being the easier jobs to get without much experience in normal times.
This was a mess for many people, but it really exposed what people have been yelling about college all along. It isn’t a good system and the house of cards came crumbling when colleges couldn’t relying on cashing checks this year.
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The stable home environment is an issue for so many students, not just college students. Inability to go to elementary and secondary schools is a major issue too.
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It’s all just a mess.
And since it’s america, you have to pay for the privilege of it being a mess.
But many international students are funded by their home countries, hence the many Saudi students in US university programs.
There is a program in my very dull town for Chinese students to attend the local Catholic high schools, for which their families evidently pay megabucks. It’s all rather opaque - as far as I can see the kids are not outside the residence for anything but school - but the point seems to be to position them for YS universities.
Dh’s bottom tier state university gets a LOT of African grad students.
It’s my understanding that colleges with very strict lockdowns are hoping to be able to test their way to more freedom of movement at some point.
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The situation at my institution is so radically different from anything described here that I don’t know that I have very many points of comparison. We cost less than most community colleges as a four-year, literally the lowest cost outside of the tribal colleges in the country. Please don’t Google that…
Also we have exactly 7 international students (I know because of temping in institutional research), all of them on soccer scholarships. Also we have 270 beds in dorms for a population of a little under 5000 students. And only about 2/3 of the beds are filled.
But college dorms are not what are used to be. Almost none of them are the old model of two twin beds and two little desks built into a small dorm room; almost all are several bedrooms surrounding a common kitchenette and living room arrangement, so everyone in the suite is treated as a family unit for quarantine purposes.That’s now part of the “college experience.”
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There are only a handful of university owned dorms at dh’s university. It’s surrounded by privately owned dorms. I assume - but no one publicly knows- that those developers have some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement with the university - but the university has no say at all over what the residents of those buildings do.
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Same here. We got suites. Fully functioning kitchen, living room, two full bathrooms.
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Man, I wish our dorms were like that.
Both my undergrad and the university I live near mostly have very old dorms. Many with community bathrooms.
Private dorms are a thing, but they cost a freaking fortune. Those are nice like you’ve described. Though I think mostly just freshman live in them, as older students just get apartments.
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Vassar’s dorms were terrible. I’m pretty sure the furniture dated from the 1920’s, possibly earlier. Almost everyone lived on campus, though, and you worked your way up to a less terrible dorm/apt. by senior year. But they definitely did not waste that tuition money on dorm upgrades.
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