The Future of College

Interesting topic. I have been thinking about this for a few weeks. I have a Big Ten Soph studying Business.

He is paying huge out of state prices and experiencing little of real life or college experience under the new on line rules.

It occurred to me that a different approach maybe necessary if colleges do the same in the Fall. I can think of lots of ways to do this but my approach would be something like this:

1. Continue on line learning in a very targeted approach (pick the things you need to learn)

2. Get a mentor to help guide you and tell you what you  need to learn because you do not know what you do not know.

3. Work with business owners as an intern/apprentice to learn the ropes from the bottom.

4. Seek out opportunities in unusual enterprises (political realm, business, non profit, etc)

5. Work for free and it still costs you less and teaches you more.

The challenge comes when you want a "Real" job that requires a Diploma. Thinking about that.

Aren't most colleges in the USA state funded? At least public universities are funded by taxpayer money and not go out of business, right?

@Dominik85 posted:

Aren't most colleges in the USA state funded? At least public universities are funded by taxpayer money and not go out of business, right?

Public Universities can be closed down or merged with other campuses, even though it is very rare.  Also, I expect many Universities to enact emergency measures, which could include cutting sports, cutting programs (and thus faculty), and other factors.

I have a friend who will be sending 2 boys back to a very expensive out of state school, 40k each. She is thinking if they have online classes, she will just have them get their degrees on an online school, then go their for grad school.

Was talking to a NYU sophomore today(Business). He says that the NYU Admins are adamant on not taking a paycut, and are getting a lot of flack for it.

Gunner Mack Jr wrote, “the impact on sports world be obvious, fewer places to play.”

100% correct. This is going to provide an unwanted reality check for many players and their parents. Up til now if a kid wanted to play bad enough there was usually a place for him. Those days are over. Competition will be fierce at the most competitive programs and it will step up everywhere else. There are likely to be less scholarships to be offered at many schools. It’s never again going to be the way it was. It will be way more difficult going forward. 

@57special posted:

Was talking to a NYU sophomore today(Business). He says that the NYU Admins are adamant on not taking a paycut, and are getting a lot of flack for it.

   

I will be you that this student knows who Professor Galloway is since he's NYU (The guy interviewed for the article).  Galloway started an internet business, sold it for good money, got into education, and is an extremely rational voice on business models and stock valuations.   I only have one problem with the professor and its that he's blocked me on twitter.  I have him on my burner account...... HA!!

@adbono posted:

Gunner Mack Jr wrote, “the impact on sports world be obvious, fewer places to play.”

100% correct. This is going to provide an unwanted reality check for many players and their parents. Up til now if a kid wanted to play bad enough there was usually a place for him. Those days are over. Competition will be fierce at the most competitive programs and it will step up everywhere else. There are likely to be less scholarships to be offered at many schools. It’s never again going to be the way it was. It will be way more difficult going forward. 

Never is a really long time. Life is in a constant state of evolution. What’s occurring now will likely have a ripple effect that lasts three years or longer. But the ripples smooth out. Baseball has always been a vulnerable sport given the season lasts longer than the school year. And in some areas weather plays a factor.

PG has changed college baseball. A lot of players stayed in state until PG. Now any kid in a cold weather state with the ability gets out of Dodge. UMaine used to be nationally competitive. Now their best players are leaving the northeast. They’re terrible now. Boston College lost a #1, 2, closer and cleanup hitter to Vanderbilt when they won the CWS. These were all high draft picks from Massachusetts. Twenty years ago they would have gone to BC. 

@RJM posted:

Never is a really long time. Life is in a constant state of evolution. What’s occurring now will likely have a ripple effect that lasts three years or longer. But the ripples smooth it. Baseball has always been a vulnerable sport given the season last longer than the school year. And in some areas weather plays a factor.

PG has changed college baseball. A lot of players stayed in state until PG. Now any kid in a cold weather state with the ability gets out of Dodge. UMaine used to be nationally competitive. Now their best players are leaving the northeast. They’re terrible now. Boston College lost a #1, 2, closer and cleanup hitter to Vanderbilt when they won the CWS. These were all high draft picks from Massachusetts. Twenty years ago they would have gone to BC. 

Yes, never is a long time. And I could be wrong now. But I don’t think so. Cuz it’s a jungle out there! 

@Dominik85 posted:

Aren't most colleges in the USA state funded? At least public universities are funded by taxpayer money and not go out of business, right?

In 2010, Iowa's public universities got most, but by no means all, of its money from the state. In 2016, the last year I can find information, only 34.7% of its money came from the state. Tuition and fees are now the largest source of money, providing more than 55% of the revenue for our three state universities. The three schools are projecting that they will lose $187 million in revenue and added expenses due to COVID. They will definitely be looking at cutting programs, staff, etc. They may not go out of business, but they will definitely not look the same as they did before. 

Well now is a pretty good time to cut the hell out of all the unnecessary administrators added over the years that contribute little to education.

Strong message to follow.

I think hell might have just frozen over... Williams lowers tuition by almost $10k.....

https://williamsrecord.com/202...ith-reduced-tuition/

@57special posted:

Was talking to a NYU sophomore today(Business). He says that the NYU Admins are adamant on not taking a paycut, and are getting a lot of flack for it.

   

This is always the reaction to a disruptive event in an industry, any industry.  It's always the same - the incumbents take steps to preserve the business model, hold the line on pricing/revenue, ride it out.  Sometimes it works, but when the disruption leads to permanent industry change, the dinosaurs die off.

I have no doubt NYU will survive, along with the Ivy's, the likes of Duke and other top private and public universities.  But there are many, many universities that are pretty mediocre yet charge stratospheric prices.  People will figure out they don't need to pay $60k+ for a mediocre education, or even a great education.  The genie is out of the bottle with regards to online learning.

In that Williams article, they also stated no fall sports competitions.  :/

No fall sports, but they allow practices.  I wonder if their faculty and staff are taking pay cuts?  or just saving the money on sports and extra-curriculars, plus their endowment, is enough?  I also wonder how many of their students were paying full-freight anyway, as opposed to having it reduced through need-based aid?

I disagree completely with Galloway and online education.  He thinks Harvard et al can "leverage their brand" by going online.  The whole point of their brand is gathering students in one place, for in-person learning.  None of that happens online.  Education is not detergent.  One thing the shutdown has shown is the value of in-person education, both at that k-12 level and college.  I am now much more aware of it than I used to be.  It is really hard for students to do online education, not just because of the technology and new teaching modes, but because of all the external factors. 

It is really hard for students to do online education.

I majored in Econ/Quantitative Methodology (now called Quantitative Analytics). I was strong in math. I didn’t find college hard. I went to class. I read the assignments. I never studied for tests. My view was if I didn’t learn it already what was staying up late and boring myself going to do for me. I didn’t let Finals in the fall semester get in the way of Dollar Pitcher Night 

What a class schedule did for me was provide structure. It put a professor in front of me I had to show enough respect and courtesy to pay attention. I’m not sure how well I would have done with time management online at eighteen years old. 

My son took a couple of summer school classes online while playing college summer ball. He said it was hard to wake up and be disciplined to do the work on his own every day and not fall behind. 

@Gunner Mack Jr. posted:

I think hell might have just frozen over... Williams lowers tuition by almost $10k.....

 

https://williamsrecord.com/202...ith-reduced-tuition/

Now that is interesting.

I think Williams' decision to lower tuition is shocking.  That is not a school that would have trouble attracting students at full price.  And the cost of attending private universities hasn't had any relation to inflation or anything else in the real world (except what the market will bear) for a long while, if it ever did.  Williams should be able to easily afford the cut though--and this may put (some) pressure on other wealthy, super-HA institutions to do the same.

Unfortunately, not many schools are going to be able to follow Williams' lead.  Public schools have seen declines in state funding for at least a couple of decades (while spending generally has gone up). ( https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/statesupport  )  Most private schools rely on tuition for operating funds--only a relative few have large endowments.  And every school has been thinking about the fact that the number of college-aged Americans is set to decline significantly in the next few years.

I don't think Harvard and other big names will need to change their model much, if at all.  But there does seem to be some kind of shake out coming among U.S. schools.  Many were predicting that pre-C19; the pandemic is just going to add to the stresses on colleges.

In the northeast there’s a snobbery about attending private colleges. I’ve never understood the benefit of paying 60K to attend a no reputation private versus a campus of the state university system. One person’s reaction to my telling them my son was at a Big Ten was to ask if he took high school grades seriously. 

These insignificant privates have been struggling, merging or going under as tuition rises. I have to figure COVID will have a devastating effect on these privates over the next couple of years.

@Gunner Mack Jr. posted:

 ……………………………………………………………………………….

I personally worry about how a little shit like me will experience what I did at UCLA. I tested my limits freshman year. I drank too much and threw up too often. I joined crew and pushed myself harder physically than I ever imagined possible. I fell in love for the first time. I gained resilience when I had my heart broken. I met people from different economic backgrounds who gave me a sense of empathy. All of those things would have happened, but unfortunately they wouldn’t have happened in such a gentle and joyous and safe environment had I not been on campus.

Ditto.  I had the exact same gut wrenching experiences 3K miles away, and so glad I did!

What would you consider an "insigificant" or "no reputation private?"  I think there is a broad spectrum of private colleges in this country.  Many in the middle have little name recognition outside their region but are giving their students good educations.  There may be lots of reasons to send your kid to one of them if you can afford it that have nothing to do with snobbery.   

@LuckyCat posted:

What would you consider an "insigificant" or "no reputation private?"  I think there is a broad spectrum of private colleges in this country.  Many in the middle have little name recognition outside their region but are giving their students good educations.  There may be lots of reasons to send your kid to one of them if you can afford it that have nothing to do with snobbery.   

RJM, you are crazy if you try to answer that one with specific examples.  

I'd suggest that any given person hiring for any given job has schools in mind they think of as "good schools" and others they hold in less esteem.  It's also true that some schools are highly regarded locally or regionally, but aren't well known in other places--which can lead to an HR person tossing a resume because it shows a diploma from a school s/he is not familiar with.  When choosing a college, IMO it's smart to think about a school's reputation as one significant factor.  But one factor among many.  A school with a "good reputation" may not be a good fit for other reasons.  

And "reputation" is a slippery and context-specific notion.  My son expressed concern that several NESCAC schools were places he had never heard of, and neither had his friends.  My wife and I explained to him that the opinions of 16- and 17-year-olds in Charlotte might not necessarily be indicative of how future employers regard, say, Middlebury or Tufts.

Funny, I had remembered a very good post about the value of a small college education, looked it up, turns out it was LuckyCat!

https://community.hsbaseballwe...23#54518501226685723

I have to say I would have agreed with RJM until recently.  Now that I have a son at a small college, I really appreciate the value of it.  Smaller classes, knows his professors, all kinds of advantages.  You can get that at a big state school too, but it's a lot more work on the part of the student.  I can also see the advantage of it for a student who is not as strong academically, and whereas before I would have said why not just go to a big state school, now I can definitely see why, if you can afford it, you might choose a smaller school where such a student can thrive.  The point of college is to succeed at your education; it's very easy, at a large school, for a whole variety of reasons, for a student to slip through the cracks and fail.  Too small doesn't make sense, because there is not enough variety of instruction, and I think those are the ones that are failing now.

1. @LuckyCat posted:

What would you consider an "insigificant" or "no reputation private?"  I think there is a broad spectrum of private colleges in this country.  Many in the middle have little name recognition outside their region but are giving their students good educations.  There may be lots of reasons to send your kid to one of them if you can afford it that have nothing to do with snobbery.   

It’s a snobbery thing in the northeast and even more so in New England. I consider an insignificant private college to be one where parents pay 60K per year rather than 20k for a state school and the kid doesn’t come out with any advantage heading into the job market. 

How about a private for 60K where acceptance is based on the kid fogging a mirror and dad can write the check?

I’m not judging school and class size in my comment. There are large privates with large class size. There are state university system campuses that are smaller with smaller classes. 

I am a big believer in small colleges.  Although large universities do offer some things smaller schools can't.  So both my kids chose medium-sized universities.  They are either getting the best of both worlds or the best of neither--I'm not sure.  Both are private schools though, so I may never be able to retire.

Here’s an insignificant private college ... enrollment 2,700. While New England has a reputation for high academic small colleges there are plenty of these in the region.

How hard is it to get into ABC and can I get accepted? The school has a 100% acceptance rate ranking lowest in the state. Last year, 2,916 out of 2,922 applicants were admitted making ABC an easy school to get into with a very good chance of acceptance assuming you meet the requirements. ABC typically accepts and attracts average high school students. Most incoming freshmen graduated in the lower half of their high school class.

The graduation rate is 32.4%.

@Chico Escuela posted:

RJM, you are crazy if you try to answer that one with specific examples.  

I'd suggest that any given person hiring for any given job has schools in mind they think of as "good schools" and others they hold in less esteem.  It's also true that some schools are highly regarded locally or regionally, but aren't well known in other places--which can lead to an HR person tossing a resume because it shows a diploma from a school s/he is not familiar with.  When choosing a college, IMO it's smart to think about a school's reputation as one significant factor.  But one factor among many.  A school with a "good reputation" may not be a good fit for other reasons.  

And "reputation" is a slippery and context-specific notion.  My son expressed concern that several NESCAC schools were places he had never heard of, and neither had his friends.  My wife and I explained to him that the opinions of 16- and 17-year-olds in Charlotte might not necessarily be indicative of how future employers regard, say, Middlebury or Tufts.

Just as an example, my kid had heard a lot from his peers about how great Elon was but had no idea about Tufts or Middlebury . . . or Amherst or Swarthmore or . . . .

(Not knocking Elon, it's very popular among Atlanta suburbanites who can't get into UGA, but it is not Amherst.)

@anotherparent posted:

Funny, I had remembered a very good post about the value of a small college education, looked it up, turns out it was LuckyCat!

https://community.hsbaseballwe...23#54518501226685723

Okay, this obviously shows that this is a pet topic of mine!  Sorry to harp on it!  I do believe that "no name" private schools often get a bad wrap.  Sure there are some that will take anyone with a pulse and pump them full of expensive student loans (private parent loans too) and push them out into the job market after 6 or more years with little help finding a job that will help them pay off all those loans.  But, that's not all of them by a long stretch.  Plenty of solid, middle-of-the road private schools trying to provide an education people are willing to pay for and send their grads off into the world employable and employed.  Elon is one of them.

Actually, there are LOTS of crappy state schools and junior colleges that do the same thing the crappy private schools do.  I can't throw a rock in Georgia without hitting one.

@RJM posted:

Here’s an insignificant private college ... enrollment 2,700. While New England has a reputation for high academic small colleges there are plenty of these in the region.

99.8%

Admission Standards		Unavailable
Applicant Competition		Very Low

How hard is it to get into ABC and can I get accepted? The school has a 100% acceptance rate ranking lowest in the state. Last year, 2,916 out of 2,922 applicants were admitted making ABC an easy school to get into with a very good chance of acceptance assuming you meet the requirements. ABC typically accepts and attracts average high school students. Most incoming freshmen graduated in the lower half of their high school class.

The graduation rate is 32.4%. 

I know two really good kids going there to play baseball this coming year.... One was recruited at better academic schools but stated he didn't want to leave college with debt.   The net cost of this school is $27k per year, he will get assistance and he's not only a great SS but this kid is awesome. Has a brother playing at UMASS-Boston.  The second kid needed the easier enrollment hurdle to play baseball somewhere but is a great CF.  They got two really good players for different reasons but this is not HA nor is it a snooty expensive private school.  

The NEWMAC conference just came out an hour ago and stated that Fall, Winter and Spring sports WILL be played BUT only conference play or local travel. This makes sense.  If you need to qualify for NCAA tournaments you will have to find the games to qualify which should not be too hard.  NEWMAC is New England D3 conference, mostly Massachusetts, with a few snotty private schools! I take no offense RJM.  My son will come out of this with a great education with a very valuable degree.

** I might be confusing the schools now that I think about it.... I thought you were talking about new england college and the kids I know are going to Western New England college.  I could have your school wrong too..... 

I wasn’t going to name the school but you did. It’s NEC. I had never heard of the school until they played in the D3 regional at Southern Maine. They were a real class act. The team was mouthy and the fans so unruly. A couple of players started a shoving match in the handshake line. Then their fans started challenging USM fans to fight. The police had to be brought in.