Interesting article on future of colleges

[Blunt Pony]

Interesting topic. I loved my college experience at SMU and I do look at it as an experience. I have always looked at college as more of a social growing up experience rather than about academics. You learn to live with and be around other people without family around.

The problem that I see is that it is too expensive and is getting worse.

I would have a really hard time spending $60,000 a year for an SMU education (or any education for that matter). You are going to have a hard time convincing me that an undergrad degree is worth that. You could make a case for Graduate degrees in medicine, law, etc. where the education is a requirement, but I think the undergrad pricing has become ridiculous.

Online will become huge, but if it becomes the norm than this society is going to be more socially awkward than it has already become.

[CalallenStang]

I'm graduating in May with an engineering degree and with absolutely zero knowledge (besides own personal readings) about investments, basic accounting, personal finance, etc. Which is a shame because I will most likely need to know about those things in the near future.I feel like everyone needs to know a little about that stuff no matter what industry you are involved in there is money and business principles that are valuable to anyone. Its a joke and a disservice to future employers that I know more about "asian cinema" than basic accounting principles or how/why to invest in a 401K. (thankfully I've read a couple basic books)

Interesting business idea: offer low cost "personal finance" courses to college seniors.

Someone on this board could make some serious money doing that.

[CalallenStang]

Interesting topic. I loved my college experience at SMU and I do look at it as an experience. I have always looked at college as more of a social growing up experience rather than about academics. You learn to live with and be around other people without family around.

The problem that I see is that it is too expensive and is getting worse.

I would have a really hard time spending $60,000 a year for an SMU education (or any education for that matter). You are going to have a hard time convincing me that an undergrad degree is worth that. You could make a case for Graduate degrees in medicine, law, etc. where the education is a requirement, but I think the undergrad pricing has become ridiculous.

Online will become huge, but if it becomes the norm than this society is going to be more socially awkward than it has already become.

There is no question about it: I wouldn't pay full price. Not many do.

[PoconoPony]

I think SMU should get out ahead of the curve and give students the option to get expedited bachelor's degrees in 3 years and drop the stupid CF requirements or whatever they're called. All those stupid requirements for BS classes do is keep students in college longer and drive up their student loan debt if Mom and Dad aren't footing the bill.

I was a liberal arts major at SMU- I took maybe five classes that I actually learned something useful in. Archaeology? no. Anthropology? no. Modern Novels? no.

This idea flies in the face of the millions that have recently been spent for all the new SMU facilities. I have questioned for several years now why colleges are not factoring in all of the online educational opportunities when they blindly keep building facilities and pursuing $$$$$ losing sporting teams. I could easily envision kids saving thousands of dollars by being either online or in an online learning environment and pacing their educational pursuits as fast or slowly as they wish. Why not speed through a course or use a full emersion approach to difficult courses and labs.

[whitwiki]

I'm graduating in May with an engineering degree and with absolutely zero knowledge (besides own personal readings) about investments, basic accounting, personal finance, etc. Which is a shame because I will most likely need to know about those things in the near future.I feel like everyone needs to know a little about that stuff no matter what industry you are involved in there is money and business principles that are valuable to anyone. Its a joke and a disservice to future employers that I know more about "asian cinema" than basic accounting principles or how/why to invest in a 401K. (thankfully I've read a couple basic books)

I minored in business to get some of this (ME degree).

However, the English and history and other essay based classes are often overlooked by engineers, despite providing very good written and comprehension skills. Don't discount the core if you ever want to lead people (directly or indirectly) .