IanTheCool
CS! Gold
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 21,492 
Likes: 2,864
Location:
Last Online Nov 21, 2024 22:52:07 GMT -5
|
Post by IanTheCool on Jun 6, 2021 13:22:07 GMT -5
I really dislike the "schools being run as businesses" mentality, but its one that keeps being pushed in on us. I see the argument for more trade-based schooling, but I think higher education through universities is important as well and I don't like the view of schools as simply job factories.
|
|
PG Cooper
CS! Silver
Join Date: Feb 2009
And those who tasted the bite of his sword named him...The DOOM Slayer
Posts: 16,645
Likes: 4,060
Location:
Last Online Nov 21, 2024 23:47:45 GMT -5
|
School
Jun 6, 2021 14:41:22 GMT -5
Post by PG Cooper on Jun 6, 2021 14:41:22 GMT -5
A lot of this has a certain "old man yells at cloud" vibe, but I do agree with what I think is the core point here: that colleges/universities operate as a business. Inflating tuition costs (which is also an issue in Canada despite our rates on average being much lower) is the most obvious thing, but textbook companies also buy into the grift. That students pay for a course and are then expected to pay hundreds of dollars for the mandatory course readings is an absurd con that's just accepted as normal. Oh yeah I totally agree. I graduated in 2007 and while you could hopefully obtain used textbooks online back then it wasn't what it is today. I usually was forced to buy the $400 textbook I barely had to use over the course of the semester just so I could sell it back to the bookstore for $30. It's an insane racket. Me and the other teaching assistants successfully lobbied to get the textbook removed from the intro to film course at one point but a year later the new profs brought it back. It's especially bullshit because that textbook is only used for the first couple of weeks and after that the profs just kind of do their own thing. I really dislike the "schools being run as businesses" mentality, but its one that keeps being pushed in on us. I see the argument for more trade-based schooling, but I think higher education through universities is important as well and I don't like the view of schools as simply job factories. I'm with you completely. |
|
Dracula
CS! Gold
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 26,101
Likes: 5,731
Location:
Member is Online
|
Post by Dracula on Jun 6, 2021 15:06:37 GMT -5
As a History/English major I had the privilege of having most of my "textbooks" be mass market paperbacks I could buy at used bookstores for a fraction of their already small cover price. My friends in the business and stem fields always loved hearing me talk about that... I think they had the last laugh though.
|
|
PG Cooper
CS! Silver
Join Date: Feb 2009
And those who tasted the bite of his sword named him...The DOOM Slayer
Posts: 16,645
Likes: 4,060
Location:
Last Online Nov 21, 2024 23:47:45 GMT -5
|
School
Jun 6, 2021 17:07:19 GMT -5
Post by PG Cooper on Jun 6, 2021 17:07:19 GMT -5
As a History/English major I had the privilege of having most of my "textbooks" be mass market paperbacks I could buy at used bookstores for a fraction of their already small cover price. My friends in the business and stem fields always loved hearing me talk about that... I think they had the last laugh though. Mine were all over the place. Upper level courses were usually a lot more affordable, but intro courses always had these marked up intro books. In their defense some I've continued to draw on well past first-year (The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology certainly has had mileage) but having to pay $200 for a collection of philosophical pieces written 100s of years ago was always irritating. Especially when those readings had nothing to do with the lectures half the time (god damn Intellectual Origins of the Contemporary West). |
|
IanTheCool
CS! Gold
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 21,492
Likes: 2,864
Location:
Last Online Nov 21, 2024 22:52:07 GMT -5
|
Post by IanTheCool on Jun 6, 2021 18:19:29 GMT -5
I still have a lot of my old textbooks downstairs, for reasons unknown. But I did break out my medical microbiology textbook last year to look up Corona virus. It said that "control of transmission would be difficult and probably unnecessary because of the mildness of the disease."
|
|
Jibbs
Administrator 
Join Date: May 2000
Posts: 75,725
Likes: 1,657
Location:
Last Online Feb 20, 2024 18:06:23 GMT -5
|
School
Jun 6, 2021 18:34:33 GMT -5
Post by Jibbs on Jun 6, 2021 18:34:33 GMT -5
The further you get into a math degree, the more hundreds of dollars that go into the rare textbooks.
|
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,765
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 21, 2024 17:53:27 GMT -5
|
Post by Neverending on Jun 13, 2021 8:18:41 GMT -5
|
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,765
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 21, 2024 17:53:27 GMT -5
|
School
Jun 22, 2024 2:38:08 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Neverending on Jun 22, 2024 2:38:08 GMT -5
|
|
Wyldstaar
Producer
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 4,900
Likes: 1,267
Location:
Last Online Nov 20, 2024 20:53:38 GMT -5
|
Post by Wyldstaar on Jun 22, 2024 16:35:26 GMT -5
It's been going on for longer than that. In '76 the local public schools offered free pre-school, but it was in a double-wide trailer behind the school. I overheard them tell my Mom that the trailers were "temporary." I just checked Google Maps, and there are now eight trailers at that same school! When I moved on to Kindergarten, I didn't even get a trailer. It was held on the floor of the gymnasium/cafeteria/auditorium. |
|
Neverending
CS! Platinum
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 65,765
Likes: 8,646
Location:
Last Online Nov 21, 2024 17:53:27 GMT -5
|
School
Aug 13, 2024 18:46:44 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Neverending on Aug 13, 2024 18:46:44 GMT -5
|
|
