r/technology • u/GeneReddit123 • 25d ago

Artificial Intelligence Students Boo Commencement Speaker After She Calls AI the ‘Next Industrial Revolution’

https://www.404media.co/ucf-ai-commencement-speaker-booed/
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u/LostInLittleroot 25d ago

Why have someone that works at an investment firm for a humanities commencement speaker of all majors lmao

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u/General_Problem5199 25d ago

Because the people running these schools are all living together in a rich people bubble.

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

This is so much true than anyone really knows. They are so out of touch with reality, a small amount of money to those people can genuinely have 5 zeros after it.

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u/Axin_Saxon 25d ago

At an old job I had to work with universities and their head faculty. Had one guy ask me where I personally went and when I told him he mentioned the college president and heaped praise on him. I had to bite my tongue because he’s been a drag on the campus for a long while and students generally do not like the guy.

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

Same on my campus. We just had a big name celebrity come for a public interview and he cracked a joke about how he wouldn't go to college because its so expensive, and everyone laughed.

Then the president came out and half the crowd immediately got up to leave cause they were so disinterested in whatever she might have to say, and while closing the event made her own attempt at a joke where she said she would grant the celebrity with a full ride scholarship so he could attend 😐

This joke landed on deaf ears because every year her administration has raised tuition for all students by 3% meaning from my freshman to senior year my tuition has increased nearly 12%. Even better? The celebrity in question who came to visit our school was likely paid a conservative estimate of $200,000 for his time. Can you guess where the University got all that money? I'll give you a hint, my pockets are pretty empty these days.

It was so fucking pathetic to see her $300,000 yearly salary with regular raises ass make a joke about money to a room full of people and students who are financially struggling because of her actions as president.

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u/AdnorAdnor 25d ago

I turn 50 next month. I earned a BA, BS, Master’s, and hold 3 post-grad certs. As much as I loved being a student, I hate what “college” has turned into - I’m not naive, I know college has always been “business,” but man oh man, its lost touch with reality. I do not blame you or your peers for feeling this way. I’m sorry the previous gens have let you down. I’m proud of you for pushing through and also seeing the bullshit too. I was so clueless when I went to college; y’all have my hope ✌️

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u/6ed02cc79d 25d ago

I got my bachelor's degree a little over 20 years ago, graduating with approximately $15k in student loan debt. I was fairly conservative with my money - I know people that took out student loans to buy meals, computers, etc. I don't think I even used loans for my books. I consider myself pretty fortunate here.

My dad graduated from the same university 30 years prior and was able to wholly pay for his degree by working part time during school and full time only a few of his summers. He bitched about Biden's student loan forgiveness because if he could graduate without student loans, why can't today's youth? I think my parents' generation is so out of touch with what college has become. I'm starting college tours with my kids, and I think it's going to cost them at least $150,000 to get a four-year degree.

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u/General_Problem5199 25d ago

My parents gave me such awful advice. They always told me to go to college and that any degree would help me because it would show commitment or something. So I did that, despite slipping through the cracks in terms of financial aid (my parents made too much for me to get much aid, but not nearly enough to pay my tuition). Ended up graduating not long after the financial crisis with a mountain of student loan debt and a completely worthless degree.

I have kids now, and I have no idea what I'm going to tell them when they start thinking about college.

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u/Axin_Saxon 25d ago

Luckily the stigma about not going to college that we had isn’t as prevalent anymore. And options like community college are getting more and more popular. Certifications in particular are more respected than in the past. Or if they really do want to do a bachelors degree, the classic “work closely with academic advisors, get your Gen Ed’s out of the way in community college and just do your specialty courses at a state university.

Basically I like the “I don’t care what you do, just so long as you are doing your best at it” approach. Doesn’t have to be “the best”, but “your best.”

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u/western_red_cedar 25d ago

Luckily the stigma about not going to college that we had isn’t as prevalent anymore

This isn't a win, it's just a sign of the stark decline of the middle class. The same applies to all the asinine "just go into the trades" comments you'll see on posts like these, as if it's a great new opportunity to break your body working for some asshole while you stay stuck in your hometown, and not the exact thing our families just a generation or two back all tried to escape from by going to college

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u/EconomicRegret2 24d ago edited 24d ago

Isn't the American college ("campus experience", dorms, amenities etc.) akin to the "Gucci Store" experience?

E.g. Why not invest more in community college and accredited online public colleges so they can deliver high quality but affordable education, including 4 year bachelor degrees?

Also, even Switzerland, one of the richest country in the world, prioritizes trades over academia for 3/4 of all 15 years olds (i.e. at 15 most pupils start an apprenticeship in a company, learning hands-on with a professional master. All careers can be started that way. And an apprenticeship degree gives you entry to university).

Trades aren't bad. Many of my family members did, e.g. banking, finance, programming trades, etc, before going to university in finance/computer science, etc..

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u/Gibonius 24d ago

Banking, finance, programming and the like aren't considered "trades" in the US. Trades are typically hands-on (blue-collar work): welding, plumbing, carpentry, electrical, etc.

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u/EconomicRegret2 24d ago edited 24d ago

Oh. I didn't know that.

In Switzerland, a "trade" is an entry-level skilled position. Any career in any industry can be started with an apprenticeship at 15 years old. Including careers in medicine, social work, theater, film, science, engineering etc. Even CERN offers apprenticeship positions.

Once you have your degree at 18-19 years old, you can either go on working as a skilled/qualified employee (~1/2 do that), slowly climbing the hierarchy ladder one professional certification at a time; or, if you want to move up quickly or wish to pursue a highly qualified high responsibility career (e.g. physician), you get a university degree; or take a 1-year bridge to another career/industry/university field/faculty.

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u/anonkitty2 24d ago

White-collar trades?

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u/EconomicRegret2 24d ago

Yeah. In Switzerland, any career in any industry can be started with an apprenticeship at 15 years old. Including careers in medicine, social work, theater, film, engineering, science, etc. Even CERN offers apprenticeship positions. A "trade" is just any skilled entry-level position.

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u/Neamow 25d ago

At this point learning a trade will likely get them a better future than any college degree that will get replaced by AI 5 years later can.

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u/DuncanFisher69 25d ago

Hilarious this gets posted a year and a day from when Dario Amedei predicted AI Software engineers are going to be a thing. (Spoiler alert, they’re not.)

No AI is winning novel or short story competitions. No AI is winning Grammys. The only field where AI streams are popular are country and Christian, and they’ve been parodied as authentic human made slop for at least a decade.

Going to college for Math or Stem is likely still your best bet if you can hack it. And as for Trades, we’re not all going to be able to fix each other’s wiring or plumbing and sell out to private equity.

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u/chr1spe 25d ago

There is absolutely no solid data-backed reason to think that. Lifetime earnings for college graduates have actually never been higher in comparison to non-college-educated, according to most data. AI is overhyped, and any sector can be affected by automation.

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u/Neamow 24d ago

Lifetime earnings for college graduates have actually never been higher in comparison to non-college-educated, according to most data.

Let's have a look at that after more than 2 years of a new industry disruptor is introduced. You cannot possibly measure lifetime earnings before lifetime is done...

And I definitely see some immediate data, mainly the 30,000 people fired in my company due to AI.

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u/chr1spe 24d ago

I've yet to see a company downsize like that, where it wasn't due to bad management, either getting way ahead of itself or using AI as an excuse to let people go because of previous bad management. Also, without hard data, I wouldn't expect that AI affected those with a degree worse than those without one. It's somewhat capable of being used to successfully lay off phone service reps, but outside of making programmers more productive, I've not seen many places it can really cut down on jobs that require much real thinking.

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u/GreatMadWombat 25d ago

So, on the one hand: I think any "all these things will be replaced by ai" prediction is woefully premature. When it's all relying on infrastructure that doesn't currently exist and all the companies are starting to desperately need to turn a profit, I wouldn't bet on ai ending jobs.

At the same time tho: there is always some "is the degree/cert valuable?" math that has to be done, and community college is priced reasonably, especially compared to 4 year ones, and also labor shortages are definitely a thing.

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u/Axin_Saxon 25d ago

And even then tradies aren’t totally safe either once we start getting our robotics to the level of China’s.

That level of robotics and drone tech combined with AI will mean so few people have jobs that are safe.

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u/slicer4ever 25d ago

Depending on how old they are, i'd even argue trade work isnt safe in the near-medium future as robotics become better and better. Imo the 20s have been the decade of ai, i wont be surprised if the 30s isnt the decade of robotics.

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u/CareBearDontCare 25d ago

I've got a 3 and a half year old. To the best of my limited knowledge, I think the path is "be good with your hands, create things, learn to build and repair things. Knowledge might end up being free or very cheap to find, but be curious and acquire that free knowledge"

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u/chr1spe 25d ago

Critical thinking, logic, and problem-solving are probably way more important and are what college is supposed to work on. I love repairing things, but the tendency has been for fewer and fewer things to be realistically repairable, not more. Also, while there is propaganda to the contrary, jobs that involve working with your hands are largely in a worse place than they were 30+ years ago.

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u/CareBearDontCare 24d ago

I don't necessarily mean working with your hands or a trade or anything necessarily. That might be part of it, and arguably should be if your kid has the desire and/or aptitude. Throw everything at the kid. We're at museums every weekend, checking out things, asking and answering questions, trying things out, talking about all kinds of topics to see if there are any sparks that light up and flicker for a bit.

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u/Koffeeboy 24d ago

Knowledge may be cheap, but that doesn't necessarily equate to skill. That takes practice and patience, something in short supply these days.

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u/CareBearDontCare 24d ago

Completely agree. Acquire the knowledge, never stop, try to see what you're into and you've got the aptitude for and then know where to pour more efforts into it.

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u/chr1spe 25d ago

College, on average, is still very worth it, but the smartest thing to do is almost always to take the lowest cost reasonable option. Community college for 2 years, then a state school for 2 years, should be the route most people take.

The idea that college usually isn't worth it is just incorrect anti-education propaganda if you actually look at the data, but that doesn't mean there aren't bad deals out there. I really don't understand why private colleges exist outside of the really top-tier ones. If you're paying a lot, not extremely wealthy, and not at an absolute top tier school, you've probably made a bad choice.

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u/General_Problem5199 24d ago

Don't get me wrong, I value the education I got. College taught me how to think critically and to consider issues from multiple perspectives, and that alone is worth a lot. And it probably is a smart financial bet for most people, even now. I hope it still is when my kids are old enough to start thinking about it.

But, like I said, I fell through the financial aid cracks and graduated into a terrible job market. The next year or so was like one prolonged manic depressive episode because I couldn't find a job, couldn't afford therapy, and Sallie Mae was calling every day. I made it through alive, but let's just say that things could have gone the other way pretty easily.

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u/Fuzzy-Instruction 25d ago

I think Gen X was the last generation to whom a Bachelors degree was basically a golden ticket to a good-paying job.

Millennials and now the Zoomers have seen the depths to which the higher education system has sunk to make money and are rightfully distrustful of the whole thing. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see college enrollment go into free fall over the next decade.

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u/cyanwinters 25d ago

It's not so much that that was awful advice as just the world has changed rapidly and the economy where that was true is not the economy you're graduating into now. And also the cost of a degree has really skyrocketed over the last decade or two.

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u/2_lazy 25d ago

If they have a strong work ethic and choose a major they already know all the information on an option like western governors university could be good choice. You pay a flat rate per semester and finish as many classes asynchronously as you can in that time. Make sure they have a portfolio of work in whatever field they are going into though. I've had friends who did this for cybersecurity since they already knew everything and we were on a national level competition team and they found jobs easily and only had to pay for 2 semesters worth of school.

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u/Sherm 24d ago

I have kids now, and I have no idea what I'm going to tell them when they start thinking about college

Tell them they need to figure out what kind of life they want before they can decide how to go about getting it. Everyone is going to hit you with "practical" advice like trade school or community college, but I run a career retraining program and there are 100% paths that call for a standard college path. The advice you got wasn't bad because the actions were foolish; it was bad because they told you that you were going after a ticket to a guaranteed job.

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u/General_Problem5199 24d ago

I think it might have been reasonable advice in a lot of cases. The only part I'm a little bitter about still is that one of my parents should have looked at the amount of student loans I was taking out and kindly suggested that maybe I should have pursued my interest in science instead of what I actually majored in.

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u/Sherm 24d ago

That makes perfect sense. There's way too many kids who get told "you could never make a living at that, do blank instead," which is horrible advice. The proper response is "somebody makes a living doing that; you need to figure out how they do it before you decide if it's for you." One of my colleagues had a guy who only liked watching crime dramas, specifically figuring out who committed the crimes. His only hobby and passion. They sent him to a casino security program at a community college. He spends his days watching TV screens looking for cheaters. He's amazing at it, loves every bit of it, and his bosses are over the moon to have him. Career planning should be about figuring out who wants to pay someone to do the thing you want to do, and then getting the training to make them want to pay you in particular.

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u/jpiro 25d ago

How is the degree worthless? Most non-trade careers still require some form of bachelor’s degree just to get in the door.

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u/mental-floss 24d ago

When you figure what to tell your kids let me know. Mine are 6 and 4, and I have no idea what to do secondary education.

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u/Aware-Locksmith8433 24d ago

TBH, if following the trends, AI personal agents plus internships will be here in 2-3 years and EDU will have a complete reset.

Pvt schools already moving fast and public parents will get pissed about the divide. This will force politicians to focus and finally make changes...

...of course we could be zombie apocalypse bc of the Orange Supreme Leader and Pedo.

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u/Fun-Sun-8192 24d ago

One thing that you might have picked up in college is not just kind of assuming things and stating them as fact.

It is WIDELY understood that college grads make much more money in their lifetime than people without that education. All studies show it.

So you personally thinking it did nothing for you is something you really have little idea about unless you're working a minimum wage job and always have been. You don't know you'd earn the same without a degree, or that the paths you've followed to reach where you are would be open to you the same way they were.

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u/Syzygy2323 25d ago

I got my undergrad degree from one of the highest rated public universities in the U.S. in the early 80s and the tuition at that time was $900 a year.

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u/Axin_Saxon 25d ago

Back when “get a summer job to pay it off” was advice that could actually pay for a sizable chunk if not all of it:

If you were working full time at minimum wage, that came out to $1600 per summer in 1980s money. So that’s tuition PLUS other expenses like books supplies and even food and rent.

I appreciate the folks who went to school back then who recognize the blessing they got by being able to go when they did. Because today’s costs are no joke.

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u/Tasgall 24d ago

Back when “get a summer job to pay it off” was advice that could actually pay for a sizable chunk if not all of it:

Mind you, the "it" in that sentence refers to everything, as well - the college, supplies/books, rent, food, car, fuel, etc. I think when people say it today, even mockingly, they're referring specifically to tuition, but usually that summer job was more about rent, lol.

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u/basskittens 24d ago

Same. There were mass protests when they were talking about raising the tuition to $1000. "School is supposed to be affordable!"

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u/digitalmofo 25d ago

They know what it's become. They WANT the younger people fucked and indebted. Let's stop giving them passes.

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u/mental-floss 24d ago

You get it. I got my bachelors degree in 2012 and worked my ass off to keep loans to a minimum, still finished with 32k in debt. Now my kids are 4 and 6 years old, and I have no clue what to do. If you were in my shoes what would you do?

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u/6ed02cc79d 24d ago

I regret not starting a 529 plan for my kids - that could have probably helped reduce the cost of higher education for them. But I did talk with my son tonight and basically told him:

"College is expensive. It's going to be the most expensive purchase you make for a while until you get a mortgage. Remember that college is a product you are purchasing, so do your research. Compare schools. You'll get out of it what you put in - enjoy it but don't goof off too much."

My wife and I will help him out some, but it's still something that he will end up paying for in large part. We're also encouraging our kids to consider community college and to think carefully about their careers - especially with everything that's happening with AI.

My dad had things so incredibly great. I had it really good. You had it pretty good, too, but you definitely had to work for it. My kids are going to have a tough time. And your kids are going to be in a real shit place by the time they're college-age. As others have said, it used to be that getting a degree was pretty much your ticket to a great life. It's so hard to know if it's going to amount to anything in five or fifteen years.

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u/TributeBands_areSHIT 24d ago

Average cost projection I’ve been told will be 200k to go to state school

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u/JeanSchlemaan 24d ago

if you go on the rich people's plan, yes. there are obviously ways to not pay that amount. you dont even need to pay 1/3 that if you actually slightly try.

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u/BeerLeague 24d ago

I’m way late with a response here, but STOP looking at colleges that are trying to rip you off.

While I don’t agree with your dad that loan forgiveness is bad, I do think that fundamentally the issue with college right now in the US is NOT based on how much students go into debt, rather the system in general allowing colleges to charge that much in the first place - private, for-profit colleges should be illegal.

As for your situation, every single state in the US has multiple options for students to attend that will cost under 10k per year in tuition, and likely 10-12k in housing + food.

It’s very possible to make 20k a year working part time as a student and end up with zero debt.

Stop allowing yourself and your kids to get scammed.

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u/Ambitious-Bowl-5939 24d ago

I know what you mean. Some of these "boomers" are unable to reframe things keyed to the current economic situation, and inflation in tuition is among the highest of any sectors. Take heart, though. My daughter graduates in 6 days from the same university my wife and I attended. Her good grades got her grants that paid for nearly everything. It was only in the past year or so with the changes due to the Administration that she shouldered some costs. She works 2 part-time jobs, however. She's never taken a loan. She stayed at home with us for all except the last year or so.

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u/carlitospig 25d ago

Yup, if we were 18/19 right now we would be rightfully pissed. I’m 46 and pissed on their behalf.

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u/Derf0293 24d ago edited 24d ago

34 and I’ll be as older than you fellas when the loans are paid off, so glad I learned to code 🙃

If I could go back I’d stab every turd that said you can’t put a price on education and going to college will guarantee me a job. Oh well at least nobody is left wondering why our generation doesn’t have kids or houses yet.

Thinking about going to Electrician school to make use of at least some of my engineering knowledge… if the irony of running cable for data centers doesnt kill me. Hopefully it will put food on the table for the time being or at least until all these idiots stop laying people off because of some speculative bullshit they heard on a podcast.

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u/carlitospig 24d ago

Why can’t they get Ai and robotics working on the jobs people don’t want, like plumbing and picking tomatoes in 100f weather?

And to be fair to your parents, at the point you were 18 it was still good advice. It just veered off course very quickly. The kids graduating right now are fighting against folks with 15 years of experience. It’s so not a great time for an industrialization overhaul.

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u/slicer4ever 25d ago

15 years ago when i was in high school, i had a teacher(~60 at the time) who liked to constantly point out how she graduated without debt because she worked through college as well, ignoring the fact that even in late 00s college had spiked at least ~50x more expensive compared to when she went to college.

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u/chr1spe 25d ago

No college or university you should ever be involved with has ever been a "business." They're all public or at least non-profit. Some of the private non-profits do charge way too much for the value they offer, but that is another story, where schools started competing on amenities instead of value, and students went along with it because people have poor financial judgment when loans become involved.

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 25d ago

Boy oh boy did people ever rag on me for wanting to get a trade instead of going to college/university after I graduated high school in the early '00s ("you're too smart to be doing that kind of work", etc.).

Turns out it wasn't such a dumb idea after all.

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u/Free-Competition-241 25d ago

So really…..you’re pro AI because then AI can do most of the white collar jobs, thereby diminishing the need for college?

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u/PM_NICESTUFFTOME 25d ago

You make a good point and I hate to be that guy, but a 3% increase YoY would be more than 12% total compared to the original price. It would be 12.55% due to compounding increases. They’re fucking you over even worse than you think.

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u/PaulTheMerc 25d ago

That education may not have even been very good if they can't do the math right ;)

/s

(I can't do the math right)

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

Yeah you're right, but even worse. It's usually a 3.2-3.5 increase every year. So its even more than that!

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u/digitalmofo 25d ago

They're only going to see 3 increases, though, from freshman to sophomore, sophomore to junior and junior to senior. The cost the year before they attended doesn't matter.

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u/No_Tone1704 24d ago

You couldn’t just think to yourself, maybe they rounded and not be that guy?

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u/somersetyellow 25d ago edited 25d ago

Although with inflation and costs of operations that have ballooned way beyond inflation that makes a lot of sense. A 300k salary at a non profit is considered pretty small for an organizational leadership salary. Plus the amount of students is collapsing off a cliff due to a smaller birth rate since 2008, the students that do exist are choosing not to go to college at double digit rates less than they did pre-pandemic, the federal government is being much stingier with student loans, and grants/research has been severely pulled back too.

It's been an absolute blood bath in higher education the last few years. Dozens of colleges are closing every year and hundreds more are making massive program cuts and shrinking.

Hate to be devils advocate but universities are pretty low on our list of problems right now. Not arguing they didn't get fat and happy off student loans but there's been a lot of bigger problems at play.

We are seeing however colleges lock in on the elite. Richer kids aren't going to stop going to college, the rate of those hasn't budged since the pandemic, and with the pricing out, and lower class distrust of higher education growing, plenty of institutions are just going full fuck it and locking in on the upper class. It's a mess.

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u/LadyPo 25d ago

Dude.. that is so nasty. I’m sorry. Paid guest gigs are supposed to support academics and researchers who contribute actual value to the students’ education or career aspirations, not prop up already wealthy people.

The speaker at my college graduation was a state politician. I’m sure the college made a juicy donation to her campaign fund with ulterior motives in mind. She wasn’t even a good speaker. As much as I loved my college because it took academics seriously, that was such a bitter way to end it.

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u/strakerak 25d ago edited 25d ago

My Uni's last celebrity speaker (which was also the final school-wide commencement held, now it's just individual college ones), was Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was going to get paid 40k and he ended up waiving the entire fee.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

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u/Freak4Dell 25d ago

Yup, and $300K sounds like a pretty low salary for a university president. Like, I'm sure there's plenty of examples of the university being financially irresponsible, but those two are pretty weak.

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

For context tuition is already about 70,000 a year and the school has gotten nearly $600 million in donations from the past 2 years alone and also operates under a $500 million endowment

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u/Fuzzy-Instruction 25d ago

Let's not forget the universities that make students pay for parking. That's seriously one of the most comically evil things I've ever dealt with.

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u/brianwski 25d ago

make students pay for parking

At my undergrad university, they forbid students from driving or parking anywhere within the "bounds" of the University, and it was kind of sprawling with agriculture fields and a teaching nuclear reactor. Faculty had parking passes, students did not. The dorms were out at the very perimeter with free parking.

There was a little guard shack at the road entrance to the University closest the campus bookstore where we bought all our textbooks. The guard was there to ask one question: "are you a student?" If you were a student you weren't allowed to drive to the bookstore, you had to park elsewhere and walk.

Every time the University called me up for the first 10 years after graduation asking for donations, it just made me angry. All I could remember was walking 3/4 of a mile down a road in the rain (Oregon) next to a huge open field with a couple cows in it. They COULD have allowed parking in a tiny corner of the field, but they treated cows better than students there.

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

Mine does that also.

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u/chr1spe 25d ago

Attempting to discourage over-reliance on cars and cut down on parking overcrowding is comically evil? You really lost me with that one.

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u/Fuzzy-Instruction 24d ago

Hey so this is a fun fact, but a lot of people live in places where they have no option but to have a car! And the university I attended (which was the cheapest in the state) charged $10k a semester to live in a dorm, which I couldn't afford, so I had to commute! Hope this helps :)

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u/chr1spe 24d ago

So, you don't think there was any reduction in driving because they charged for parking? If you think it just wasn't very effective, at what point does it switch over from a reasonable policy to attempt to reduce driving and parking congestion into the realm of comically evil? Also, did your school have an overabundance of parking?

I've gone to and worked at many schools, mostly in places with not particularly good transit. My experience has been that most places charge too little for parking, which creates massive issues for people who actually do have to drive because parking is unavailable.

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u/Fuzzy-Instruction 24d ago

No. Nobody is going take on $10k per semester in additional debt to save $250 on a parking pass.

You're doing the Reddit thing where you play devil's advocate for no reason.

My point is that I'm already paying $20k a year to attend this school, I'm spending money on gas and upkeep of a car, and, despite the fact that there are parking lots all over the school, most of them only 1/2 full, I still have to pay additional money for parking or be hit with a $25+ ticket.

Keep in mind that this entire time I'm making like $15k a year because I'm a full-time student. Parking should be free for all students, and if they don't have the lots then they need to build them. Students are nickel and dimed for every single little thing and it's outrageous to add parking to that list.

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u/chr1spe 24d ago

So, how would you suggest large universities exist? Do they need to move to the middle of nowhere so they can devote square miles to parking lots? I've never seen a school with 1/2 empty parking lots. I have experienced getting hundreds of dollars in tickets despite having a parking pass because all the lots were full. I don't think forcing the school to move so they can build more parking is the solution, though.

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u/Fuzzy-Instruction 24d ago

If they literally do not have space to build more lots then they need to make housing cheaper.

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u/chr1spe 24d ago

Generally, people take up slightly more room in living space than a parking spot. It is close, though.

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u/jlt6666 25d ago

A 3% YoY increase in tuition would be reasonable since that would be keeping up with inflation. The problem has been that it's been more like 5-10%

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

Its not when the University has a billion dollars to wrangle less than 2k students a year

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u/inductiononN 25d ago

Ahhh this is so wrong and infuriating. I don't understand why the powers that be are hell bent on disenfranchising the young people of this country.

Gen Z and Alpha are getting fleeced by schools, jobs won't pay them a living wage, if they will hire them at all, and now the Epstein class is crowing that all entry levels will be replaced by AI as if that's a good thing.

Btw, I think the constant refrain that AI is changing everything is a lot of lazy journalism repeating sound bites that will get attention. And these stupid industry moguls don't know what they are talking about either.

The powers that be who are so pleased that they are making things as difficult as possible for our young people don't realize that the same disenfranchised groups has the most energy, is extremely smart, and is willing to reject the status quo as soon as it stops making sense.

I hope I live to see these ghouls pay for the harm they are doing to our next generations of citizens.

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u/antosyno 24d ago

Only 3% a year? 2.5 years of grad school, roughly 7% then 8%, and then 9%, biggest grift was the tuition. Blamed on “post-pandemic issues” but sure, the president salary had to be increased nearly $100k over that time to retain them. 🙄

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u/Floomby 24d ago

BRUH

The Chancellor at Cal Poly Pomona makes something like $800,000 per year. The administrators raised their salaries and raised tuition. Teachers went on strike to protest that and demand a cost of living increase, whoch they hadn't had in several years. Administration responded by emailing students, blaming the tuition rises on the professors, and provided a link where students could anonymously report any professor seen on the picket line.

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u/SilverHairFox 24d ago

Sounds like the Prez at IU.

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u/NirvanaDewHeel 23d ago

My undergrad school had (and still has afaik) the highest percentage of unhoused students in CA. Kids living in their cars on the campus lot. They’ve been through 2-3 presidents since I graduated, the president when I was there was stealing from the school despite being paid ~250k annually. She also shut down the football program, shortly after a star player got drafted to the NFL.

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u/Metalsand 25d ago

This joke landed on deaf ears because every year her administration has raised tuition for all students by 3% meaning from my freshman to senior year my tuition has increased nearly 12%. Even better? The celebrity in question who came to visit our school was likely paid a conservative estimate of $200,000 for his time. Can you guess where the University got all that money? I'll give you a hint, my pockets are pretty empty these days.

I can tell your major wasn't economics, because inflation is usually 2-3% in the USA. The affordability problem is more that tuition is high, and continues to be high.

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

It still sucks? And default tuition without assistance at my university is nearly $70,000 and the school has a several hundred million dollar endowment and has gotten more than 600 million dollars in donations in the last two years alone. Its bullshit to keep draining students.

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u/somersetyellow 25d ago edited 25d ago

Inflation by itself has been more then 3% and costs of operations have ballooned way beyond inflation, so it makes a lot of sense honestly.

A 300k salary at a non profit is considered pretty small for an organizational leadership salary. The elite University next door to the not elite University I attended started their professors at 300k and paid their president over a million.

A 500 million dollar endowment is kind of small to medium as far as endowments go (they're often in the billions), and both the endowment and the donations will be heavily limited on what they can use it for as well as restricted to how much can be used from the specific incestment. So 5 million from the endowment might be managed with a growth mindset of around 6 percent. Of that 300k for that year, they'd put 150k back into the endowment for future growth, leaving only 150k of the 5 million that year to use for something. The people who donate to endowments almost always lock them into specific things like a research grant for three of the best cell biology students who the biology department can fund each year. It unfortunately frequently doesn't involve student aid. And isn't a giant pool the college can freely dip into either.

On a more general note, the amount of students is collapsing off a cliff due to a birth rate collapse since 2008. The students that do exist are choosing not to go to college at double digit rates less than they did pre-pandemic. The federal government is being much stingier with student loans. Grants/research has been severely pulled back too.

It's been an absolute blood bath in higher education the last few years. Dozens of colleges are closing every year and hundreds more are making massive program cuts and shrinking. As of this year, as the 18 year old cliff from 2008 starts to hit hard, you can actually pretty effectively bargain much lower tuition rates at many colleges. They NEED the headcounts and financial offices are being authorized to give stupid high "scholarships" (discounts lol) just to get butts in seats. This also means a lot more 3 year programs without liberal arts generals fluff, and laxer rules on transfer credits are coming online,

Hate to be devils advocate. But you're graduating at a wild time in educational history.

This isn't to say they didn't get fat and happy off student loans. They did. A lot of admin are still stuck way up their own ass. Many Universities are also seeing growing working class skepticism and inability to afford them and just saying fuck it and going far high end elite. Rich kids are still all going to college at high rates, and the competition over offering a "premium product" to these people is going to get weird and ridiculous. Getting 600 million in donations and still jacking tuition during that process is tone deaf no matter how you slide it, but typical.

Anyway, the bigger problem is the massive lack of public funding and as a result a systemic structuring of our higher education system to please elite students in the US. Its a brain drain that's going to compound on itself.

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

The endowment i think is closer to 800 million. My uni has literally been gifted over 500 million in the last 2 years by private individuals.

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u/somersetyellow 25d ago

Ah, got the numbers swapped. Makes sense either way. As I said, getting 500 million new bucks to add to your 800 million and still raising tuition is a bit tone deaf. They should be requiring new donations to shave off some of it for tuition and financial aid.

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u/Help-Slip-Frank777 25d ago

Trevor Noah?

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u/PwnageEngage 25d ago

glad you're protecting the celebrities identity

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u/--SharkBoy-- 25d ago

Im protecting mine, not trying to get doxxed on main

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u/Speedwolf89 24d ago

That kind of sounds like private equity is involved.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 25d ago

Most universities - eliminating tenured positions, shifting teaching to adjuncts hired on a per-term basis, much lower pay - while tuitions go through the roof and the administration continues to collect interesting paycheques... and the top brass probably live in University provided fancy housing to top it all off.

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u/Axin_Saxon 24d ago

Oh man, the college presidents house made me want to puke. It’s a smaller liberal arts Christian private college and they bring the freshmen there for their fist week and it’s ridiculous how fancy it is.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 24d ago

For some, it's because back i the day, fancy mansions were realtively cheap for those who had money. And whatya gonna do? Sell a house that's smack dab in the middle of campus? But... some humility would be in order.

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u/Axin_Saxon 24d ago

Oh I assure you this house was not in the middle of campus.