'Free' College

[RedEye]

Dag blammit.

You know you guys missed me.

[dougdirt]

Sign me up.

[TRF]

Sign me up.

My institution is now offering free college to HS graduates here in the city with an 85 GPA. Covers tuition, fees and books.

[Ohayou]

I've been enrolled at Western Governor's University for the past year. Legit. $6k a year. Pass/fail type classes. 6 (I think) chances to pass a final, which you can take at any point during the semester. Some people have knocked out 4 years of classes in 1, for the same, static $6k number.

[Kinsm]

I've been enrolled at Western Governor's University for the past year. Legit. $6k a year. Pass/fail type classes. 6 (I think) chances to pass a final, which you can take at any point during the semester. Some people have knocked out 4 years of classes in 1, for the same, static $6k number.

Weren't they just ordered to pay back like a billion dollars in tax money?

[Ohayou]

Recommended, not ordered. The Dept. of Ed doesn't have to do anything. The main complaint seems to be a lack of interaction between instructors and students, which, from my experience, has been untrue. I've worked in IT for years, which is the main industry WGU appeals to, alongside Healthcare Pros. The curriculum is solid. Complaints about WGU are almost nonexistent from current students/alumni.

[klw]

[Redsfaithful]

Recommended, not ordered. The Dept. of Ed doesn't have to do anything. The main complaint seems to be a lack of interaction between instructors and students, which, from my experience, has been untrue. I've worked in IT for years, which is the main industry WGU appeals to, alongside Healthcare Pros. The curriculum is solid. Complaints about WGU are almost nonexistent from current students/alumni.

WGU is a model for online education - they are great.

[Caveat Emperor]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A8I9pYCl9AQ

[Yachtzee]

Seems like something that ventures into the realm of politics, but, as someone who has lived and studied in a another country, I've always felt that the way we fund education is completely backwards. The problem is that you have a system where the costs of education are borne by those who aren't necessarily sure what they want to do and, even if they do know what they want to do, they don't know what exactly the job requirements are to pursue their desired career. In quite a few other countries, the cost of education is borne by a partnership between the state and the employers, so degree programs (or apprenticeship programs for that matter) are geared toward making sure graduates have exactly the skillset needed to do the job in their chosen career, as opposed to here, where college graduates spend $100,000 on a degree where many of the classes where superfluous and getting a job required additional training to be able to understand what the job requires.

Here, I've known people who have gone into deep debt on school loans to get a Bachelors in Accounting, only to have difficulties finding a job and being told the answer is to go get an MBA to be a Management Consultant. Meanwhile, my wife's cousin in England was able to get into an Accountancy Apprenticeship Program with a "Big Four" accounting firm. She was not required to get a university degree, her training coursework was paid for by her employer, and now she has a good paying job that doesn't require her to put in 50-60 billable hours a week and she can afford to take vacations to Thailand or Dubai. So she's a debt free accountant in her 20s working for a big firm. Meanwhile, we have folks in their 40s still paying on their college debt and now have kids getting ready to start college and worrying about how their going to pay off their own debt and try to help their kids out with their tuition.