why is college so expensive?

[357]

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.

PDF format has been around for over 18 years. Yes that pales in comparison to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but that's hardly a valid comparison. Old formats can be opened in the new versions of the FREE reader application. BTW, it costs $0.000000000000000001 in electricity to create duplicates of your books in another place such as in your GMAIL inbox. Which, by the way, is on redundant disks, hosted on redundant servers, which have physical off site backup copies, possibly even on multiple CONTINENTS. I'm thinking my electronic data can survive a coffee spill better than a paperback POS. Worst case scenario, you can purchase and download a new copy 24/7. Good luck finding a bookstore with your book in stock and open at 4:00 AM on finals night.

Originally Posted by sikk50

My last semester they had just started offering most books in electronic forms. I got one book like that bc it was a ton cheaper, but I discovered I prefer to have a hard copy. Highlighting and flipping pages checking you're scribbled margin notes is a lot more effective, IMHO, on a hard copy than an electronic one.

This is a much better argument for paper books but still falls short. The fact is many people just prefer them. Fine. I have no problem with that, but don't make that the only option so you can swindle students. Offer the electronic version for 1/4 the price. Let those who want to buy the full version do so. Let the rest who want a paper copy simply print the PDF off at their own cost. Then they can highlight, scribble notes, etc, without actually modifying the original file.

I guess you can count on higher education to be 10-20 years behind in technology. We're in the midst of the information era, with streaming 1080p to handheld devices/phones, and we expect intelligent college students to pay $400 for a bound pile of paper equvalent to 3-4 MB worth of data? I get there is valuable information contained in that book, but our generation has grown up plugged into the internet. The whole concept of the internet is free or cheap information. It's a tough pill to swallow. Not to mention the situation above when a professor writes his own book, makes it mandatory, rapes you on the price, and happens to be the only professor for that course; which is in turn required for your degree. In my meager 18 months of college I experienced this twice.

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by 357

PDF format has been around for over 18 years. Yes that pales in comparison to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but that's hardly a valid comparison. Old formats can be opened in the new versions of the FREE reader application. BTW, it costs $0.000000000000000001 in electricity to create duplicates of your books in another place such as in your GMAIL inbox. Which, by the way, is on redundant disks, hosted on redundant servers, which have physical off site backup copies, possibly even on multiple CONTINENTS. I'm thinking my electronic data can survive a coffee spill better than a paperback POS. Worst case scenario, you can purchase and download a new copy 24/7. Good luck finding a bookstore with your book in stock and open at 4:00 AM on finals night.

Not to mention pure physical space. When I think of the amount, and weight, of crap I carted about in uni compared to the size of a tablet I just shake my head. Especially given that text books were in my experience typically just reference material I'd guesstimate that 90% of the text books I owned over the course of my degree never had the spine cracked because everything I needed to know for the course was in the lecture material.

Many programs in Canadian universities are now going entirely to ePub and other electronic formats. Several trades schools in my area now require the purchase of an iPad because all materials will be distributed on it and in doing so many programs have cut book costs from several hundred/thousand per year to just $50 - $100 (excluding the one time iPad cost of course).

Physical books will always have their place, however they have less and less importance in daily life. I have over 400 novels and technical reference materials on my iPad... a device that weighs just over 1 lbs and occupies less space than 1 week's worth of handwritten notes (w/o the binder to store them in). When I get around to returning to uni for a masters I can't imagine why I'd ever want to go back to lugging around big heavy textbooks?

[shark]

I still read books, and I read them by candlelight! (no, not really...)

[shark]

I'd like to see how much the professors and university administrators rake in every year in salaries...

[markem]

Originally Posted by shark

I'd like to see how much the professors and university administrators rake in every year in salaries...

For public institutions, you should be able to request a copy of the budget at the library. It should include a breakdown of salaries by name/department. I would imagine that it would be available both in print and electronic formats.

For private schools, well, good luck with that one.

[The Poet]

Originally Posted by shark

I'd like to see how much the professors and university administrators rake in every year in salaries...

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.

[mithrilG60]

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.

This. For example I currently work as a senior IT admin in a public health authority (completely unrelated to my degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry btw), my father was a toxicology professor and my uncle-in-law a history prof.. both retired as full profs at the top of their institutions pay scales. 10 years into my career I make about $12K - $15K more than my uncle and about $5K less than my father, compared to wages at retirement in both cases. Academics is not a profession to choose if your career ambition is to become wealthy.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[shark]

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

[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).

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.