Comment on Millennials Owe 500% More in Student Debt Than Their Parents Did
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 9 hours agoI’ve also seen professors who get kickbacks from the sale of textbooks up to and including professors making their own textbook that they authored a required text for the course.
Are you asking why education is so expensive? It’s because the amount of staff (especially non-teaching admin staff) employed by universities has ballooned way out of control. A modern university campus is basically a miniature city at this point. It has its own police force, hospital, doctors offices, therapists, many different restaurants, laundry services, recreation and entertainment facilities, gyms, climbing walls, libraries (had those forever though), residential buildings, academic study (outside class) facilities… On and on and on it goes.
All of that stuff is paid for by the students through tuition, residence fees, meal plans, and miscellaneous fees. Sure, the construction of the buildings is usually paid for by donations, government grants, or the school’s endowment fund, but the day-to-day operating costs and staffing are all paid by students.
You might then ask how we got here, or why we don’t have a “bare bones university” with none of that extra stuff? Simple: competition between universities combined with student demand. Bare Bones University is not going to attract the top students who already have a ton of better options.
up to and including professors making their own textbook that they authored a required text for the course.
one university i was at, the instructor pulling this shit had a tear-out homework section at the back of his book to prevent resale. I was all ready to stab a bitch, but thank the crablord and my parole officer for good breathing exercises. Calms the vinegar.
You forgot one factor that’s also highly important: sports. College sports ALONE makes a lot of universities an eye popping amount of cash, and also costs them a boatload too. Couple that with donations and profits from those sports being earmarked ONLY for those sports (can’t use your basketball money to do anything but improve your basketball facilities and pay the staff), and you’re putting a stranglehold on a lot of ways to reduce cost.
I didn’t want to include sports because I live in Canada and sports are so minor they’re basically a non-factor here, yet tuition costs are still insanely high (for international students, which reflects the true cost of education).
musicalphysics@discuss.online 1 hour ago
Nobody is getting rich by writing a textbook. The most likely reason for using a book they wrote is that it includes information they thought was important.