So long as the University is fulfilling its mission as the flagship state school (and it is), why would you turn down free money -- which subsidizes in-state tuitions-- simply because it comes from an out of state source?
Tuition cost when I was in school.....
- Thread starter Bazza
- Start date
Didn't want to start a separate thread for this but I just found out my roommate from my senior year died in March.
He was a fellow horticulture student and as seniors we were both approved to live at the department greenhouse facility in a cottage on the grounds for our entire senior year. In exchange for board, we locked up the facility after hours during the warm season when days were long and also did odds and ends for the professors who had research projects in the greenhouses. Floriculture projects with artificial manipulation of night and day length (black cloth and lighting) and some hand watering and monitoring of stuff here and there. It was a very nice opportunity for us. We had the run of the place and it was huge with a couple ranges of greenhouses and a huge conservatory with all kinds of specimens used for teaching and such. The Orchid House was pretty cool as well.
Gary had this beater somewhat faded blue Chevy Impala....he had a good sense of humor but was a bit reserved personalty-wise. In his obit it said he spent his career with the sheriff's dept. in IT. Not surprising.
I never had a chance to talk to him before he passed away although I did look him up on FB last year and sent him a PM to which I never got a reply.
62 years old and gone.
Really puts things into perspective....
He was a fellow horticulture student and as seniors we were both approved to live at the department greenhouse facility in a cottage on the grounds for our entire senior year. In exchange for board, we locked up the facility after hours during the warm season when days were long and also did odds and ends for the professors who had research projects in the greenhouses. Floriculture projects with artificial manipulation of night and day length (black cloth and lighting) and some hand watering and monitoring of stuff here and there. It was a very nice opportunity for us. We had the run of the place and it was huge with a couple ranges of greenhouses and a huge conservatory with all kinds of specimens used for teaching and such. The Orchid House was pretty cool as well.
Gary had this beater somewhat faded blue Chevy Impala....he had a good sense of humor but was a bit reserved personalty-wise. In his obit it said he spent his career with the sheriff's dept. in IT. Not surprising.
I never had a chance to talk to him before he passed away although I did look him up on FB last year and sent him a PM to which I never got a reply.
62 years old and gone.
Really puts things into perspective....
I'm so sorry, Bazza. It's tough to lose old friends, even when you've lost contact with them. Maybe especially when you've lost contact. Godspeed, Gary.
There are so many factors in the rise of cost for academics. I think the US approach to the university from very early in this country's history has been more geared toward skill acquisition than academic enrichment. For example, the ag school approach that sought to teach people a technical skill in a trade...that trade being farming and the surrounding science around it. Second, I think the Montgomery GI Bill, Pell Grant, and federally subsidized loans widened the net for university as a trade skill acquisition platform. This led to the proliferation of undergraduate business school degree programs, applied science degrees such as criminal justice, and create-your-own-degree programs within public higher education. This continual redefinition of the mission for university has created a feedback loop that has further widened the net for college students because so many jobs require a degree now.
I'm a firm believer in cutting down the university system to a more pure concept of it that existed before the 19th century. Lets get back to just teaching the arts and sciences. No more engineering schools. Learn a science then go into a smaller focused trade school or apprenticeship to learn the applied science of engineering. No more business schools. If you want to be a marketer, go learn about the arts and psychology then go to a trade school or apprenticeship in marketing. Economics? You're just a sociologist who likes explaining things with dollar and cents math. If it isn't a pure liberal art degree, it shouldn't exist in the university. If you aren't interested in that kind of study, go to a trade school directly and get equipped with job skills.
I'm a firm believer in cutting down the university system to a more pure concept of it that existed before the 19th century. Lets get back to just teaching the arts and sciences. No more engineering schools. Learn a science then go into a smaller focused trade school or apprenticeship to learn the applied science of engineering. No more business schools. If you want to be a marketer, go learn about the arts and psychology then go to a trade school or apprenticeship in marketing. Economics? You're just a sociologist who likes explaining things with dollar and cents math. If it isn't a pure liberal art degree, it shouldn't exist in the university. If you aren't interested in that kind of study, go to a trade school directly and get equipped with job skills.
Oh I just remembered a funny story. The very first week we moved in...one of Gary's indigenous buddies comes over with fresh turtle meat and those guys proceeded to make turtle soup!
I had never eaten turtle before but have to admit it was pretty good.
Ha...good stuff...
I had never eaten turtle before but have to admit it was pretty good.
Ha...good stuff...
I went to South Alabama for undergrad (87-91). We were on the quarter system at the time. I believe tuition was $1500/year ($30/credit, I think). The summer after high school and during the first couple of years of college I worked rotating shift work at a factory more than an hour from home. Did nothing that summer but work. Pay was $9/hr when minimum wage was $3-something. Made a small fortune for a 17-year-old. I made enough money over the summer to pay the following year's tuition, books, rent, etc.
Yesterday I received some mail from my US Rep, Gerry Connolly. He was touting all he's done for his college-age constituents: supporting student access to greater loans. Ah, the left wing, big government solution to higher education: encouraging kids who have no business going to college to accumulate massive debt in pursuit of a degree that's likely neither lucrative nor at all useful.
Reminds me of the argument that everyone needs health insurance.....instead of doing something about the out-of-control health care costs.
Won't get a fight out of me.
Know what I learned, in all 4 years of undergrad school??
"You guys all need to join the IEEE, as student members. We need to form a professional 'union', to get fair wages, etc."
Yeah, that also went over like the proverbial lead balloon. One of my useless (an understatement) profs eventually became head of the IEEE, sometime in the mid-90s. I hope he was proud of himself. I would have fired him, long before that point. Lucky for him all I did was pay his salary, involuntarily.
My recollection was it cost around $500, per semester, when you added in the cost of books. I heard the BIG state school (another useless ag school, like the one in West GA) cost around $150 less, per semester.
I honestly feel the only reason I performed as well as I did, in my career, was that I started fooling around with ham radio stuff, back in Jr HS. There were a few others like me, in my class. We were clearly the best "engineers" in the lot.
We also had some of the worst grades. Apathy and boredom has a way of doing that.
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