(rant) I hate some university practices (money grab)... Any stories of your own?

[Locut0s]

First off I'm very liberal and love university, not hating on the education system. This is about some practices that some universities partake in that stink of a money grab.

I'm in IT (computing). So I switched degrees (from one computing IT degree to another) after the first term at the university I'm in. I've gotten excellent grades (91% avg) and even got into the Co-Op program. But I'm told I still have to make up 2 courses that I missed from the first term that I missed due to the transfer. Fair enough that makes sense.

So what exactly are these courses? 1 is a beginner level business course, the other is called essentials of computing and is basically (how to use MS Windows and MS Office). I already took a beginner level business course last term but apparently the credits don't transfer, a little annoying but I guess I'm willing to accept that.

So the equivalent courses that I can take now to make up these courses are 3 night courses. Ok, let's go see how much these courses are. ........ $1500 Total !!! D:.....

So I've proven that I can program well, I've gotten a very high GPA, I can handle a heavy work load and have even taken another beginner level business course very similar to this one. Yet I still have to prove that I know where the start menu is and how to use a word processor to the tune of $1500. :'(

There are probably going to be ways around this, I hope so anyway. Perhaps I can challenge the exams for some of these. I've seen the program head and he's very nice but didn't offer me much hope that I could skip these in any way.

Anyone else have stories of expensive "filler" courses they were forced to pay for in school?

[eilen]

1. One of my colleagues is working towards her BSN

Her program will allow her 3... three credit hours for her 18 years of experience-- this is a Med Surg certified nurse with her ACLS, management and intensive care unit experience. Of course, she has to pay for them too. Not that she is complaining, she is thrilled to be able to get the credits without having to sit in class for them. But really, Three Credits?

[freethought]

2. Mine is more of rising tuition and fees.

As of the typing of this reply, I am in Charlotte, NC going to University of North Carolina, Charlotte, a decent school for the most part.
I'm here to re-educate and retrain for a new career, either that or I am going to be living on the street. This will be my second undergrad degree.
My first semester here ran around $2200, give or take. I don't live on campus so room and board and a meal plan aren't on the semester bill. After my first two semesters, tuition and fees went up to a little over $3000. This was partly because of two reasons...first-you have to get health insurance or be covered by an insurance plan to attend, you can be covered by your parents plan (I'm 45, and both of my parents are gone) or you purchase coverage through some outfit through the university. The university provided plan more than doubled from about $350 to over $725 from one semester to another(supposedly due to the increased costs of Obamacare)...second-a previously graduated class voted on a funding a blasted football team, something the school did just fine without previously. But when the students voted, they had to build a football field, various facilities, hire coaches and staff, and go hunting for players. That added to the cost of attending.

Classes start up for the spring semester next week and students are beginning to trickle back. So I have gotten the email bill for my next 12 credit semester. It's over $4000 and my financial aid reward/loans have not changed (I wouldn't be able to do this without it). So with in the space of about a year the cost of attending this school has nearly doubled! It absolutely sucks!!

I don't have "filler" courses per se. Much of what I am taking for the coming semester are requirements for my major and high level courses. But to see tuition and fees rise that rapidly in so short a time is frustrating.

[Locut0s]

3. Damn sorry to hear that. General tuition is a struggle here too, always rising. But...

it's not the nightmare that I've heard for a lot of US schools. My degree is about $3000 per year right now and that's relatively high. When I attended a different university about 6 years back by tuition was more in the $2300 range but that was for a different school and degree so the two aren't comparable.

I've heard of numbers in the $10,000 range per year for people attending universities in the US, out of state. Yikes!!!

Luckily Canada has universal health, but we also have a student extended health plan which is part of the student fees we pay, It's not that much money though.

[freethought]

5. Do they need accountants in Canada?

How's the immigration policy up there? I'm currently studying financial and cost accounting. It's a profession that seems to be in demand and one that potential employers like to see. I'll be done in a year. Seriously!

Out-of-state students always pay more than their in-state fellow students. It's always been that way as far as I know. Back in the late 80s I attended Univ. of Massachussets, Amherst. Then, the school had the reputation for the best bargain university education you could get. Semester bills were a little shy of $2k. Now it's between $6k and $7k. Out-of-state students will typically pay twice to three times the cost of in-state resident students.

[Locut0s]

9. I'd welcome you with open arms as a Canadian, but as for jobs I don't know lol...

I'm sure there is demand, our economy is doing better than the US's. But I don't know about the breakdown by sector.

Out of province and international students also pay more here, so what I said about out of state education isn't foreign to me. But some of the costs you guys have to pay are. Depending on degree of course. You certainly can pay and arm and a leg for an education here too.

[Silver Gaia]

4. "Perhaps I can challenge the exams for some of these"

That's the route I would try first. You can probably test out of these. Is there a student advocate or academic counselor on campus that you can talk to about this? When I entered grad school, the dean of the department waived a course for me. I didn't even ask him to do it, but he said it would be redundant for me and a waste of time. I still needed the equivalent number of credits, but was able to take a course that better suited my needs. Surely there is someone on campus you can talk to who would be more sympathetic than the guy you mentioned. Don't give up yet!

And yes, I've seen stuff that I thought was money-grabbing... in my major for my BA, there were two courses that you HAD to take, but only in your senior year. They only offered these two courses once a year each -- one in the fall semester and the other in the spring -- and they limited the class size to 20 students. You can imagine how well THAT worked, especially when one of the professors had a a first-come-first-served attitude, and often accepted students from other departments taking the course as an elective over students who actually needed the course for their degree requirements. That also truly sucked.

[white_wolf]

7. My school does the second thing you mention.

There is one course at UT that is required for Journalism called Media & Law. There is only one professor who teaches it so you can imagine how hard it is to get a spot. I was lucky enough to get it in the coming spring semester so I won't have to worry about it in the fall, but I've heard a lot of seniors complain that they had trouble getting in. I'm sorry, but these are universities. If they don't have enough professors to teach required courses then go out and hire some. Give the damn coaches or chancellor a pay cut if they have to, but they should hire enough professors to do their job of educating.

[white_wolf]

6. Try a single course for over 1K.

Last semester I tried to take German over the summer. I wanted to focus on it alone since I'm really bad at foreign languages. They wanted over 1000$ for a single course. It was highway robbery.

If you want to hear about real scam check out law school scholarship programs. A lot of times lower ranked schools will pretty much trick students into going there by offering them full ride scholarships. Of course, what they hide very well is that you often have to make all A's to keep that and the bell curve ensures that only a small number of students will make that so it's a total ripoff. Not to mention the degrees from a lot of those schools are pretty much useless especially in competitive markets such as New York or California.

[Locut0s]

8. $1000 for a language course, holy shit!...

I'm not surprised about the law school fees, law schools in general cost an arm and a leg and a lot of it has more to do with the prestige of the position of "lawyer" than the cost of said education, at least over something similarly priced like med school.