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Rant: College ripoff


Crazy Lee
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I dropped one of my classes and I still owe the college money.

It was pretty evident by about the third week of this class that I wouldn't be able to pass it. Dealing with too much in real life, and possibly depression or seasonal depression (just shrug it off they say. Get over yourself they say. Try harder they say....). So I decide to drop it.

Well, you have to drop the class in the first week or two in order to get a full refund. Okay then. But I very strongly remember that if you drop it after that, you'll get a pro-rated refund. The later the drop, the less you'll get back to about 2/3 or 3/4 into the class where you'll get nothing. And I had only attended two class sessions. Now however, if you drop it after the second week deadline you get NO REFUND. So the greedy college gets to keep all of your money!

So, after dropping it and finding this out I visited a few places to find out if I could be re-admitted into the class. If it was paid for, might as well give it a try. If I fail at least I tried. Turns out in order to get back into the class I have to reapply and then I'd have to pay for the class TWICE.

Mind you I paid for some of this out of my own pocket so I'm actually losing money because of this. I'm starting to get tired of colleges being so damn greedy. They jack up tuition prices, book prices are through the roof ($300 for one book I saw). And the only sure way you can get a better job, and even then not sure you'll get a better job.

*grabs some gasoline and walks around trying to burn the college down*

If any of you want to use this thread to discuss college being expensive, books being expensive, if you think college is necessary, if it's too liberal or whatever, I consider it on topic so mods shouldn't lock it.

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Ugh, book prices. What a crock of shit that is.

I paid a hundred or so dollars for a fucking grammar book for one class, and the fucking thing started falling apart before the semester was over! I mean, if you're going to rape my ass like that, at least use some good glue to bind the damn thing. FFS.

College is a shitty, shitty business.

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If you're a quality person with potential, college is a great place to waste your time being babysat. Have fun doing bullshit busywork assignments and learning extremely specific ways to regurgitate information.

Maybe when you're done, you'll be qualified to be a professional word regurgitator. I hear the market for writing papers about the symbolism in Proust is really hot right now.

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20 minutes ago, Sylver said:

Textbook prices are murder. I never buy them unless I absolutely need to and there are no illegal copies on the internet.

Illegal copies on the internet saved me so much money on my final year of school. Not sure why i hadn't thought of that prior, but damn. Few hundred bucks there! Helped that I majored in English and a lot of the books I needed were novels. Public domain ones = yes. Pissed off a few teachers because my page citations didn't match theirs, but fuck buying thirteen novels and not even reading all of them.

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It is kind of dumb how the college doesn't refund you by at least the third week, you don't really know your workload until then; as for overpriced textbooks, that's all supply and demand. Someone had to compile a bunch of information into a text book and is selling it off to people who are starting to specialize in a field of research, it makes sense that there is going to be less demand and the knowledge itself was already worth a good deal of money. Is it a good idea to make it so that you have to pay a bunch for the books just to learn? No of course not but that is the reality right now. Sorry to hear you couldn't get the refund :/

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21 minutes ago, Astus said:

It is kind of dumb how the college doesn't refund you by at least the third week, you don't really know your workload until then; as for overpriced textbooks, that's all supply and demand. Someone had to compile a bunch of information into a text book and is selling it off to people who are starting to specialize in a field of research, it makes sense that there is going to be less demand and the knowledge itself was already worth a good deal of money. Is it a good idea to make it so that you have to pay a bunch for the books just to learn? No of course not but that is the reality right now. Sorry to hear you couldn't get the refund :/

especially when you only need a chapter of the whole book, or you barely open it in the first place

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Just now, PheagleAdler said:

especially when you only need a chapter of the whole book, or you barely open it in the first place

Oh my gosh, don't even get me started on one of my classes, for chemistry we literally bought this $300 book as a required book and only used it for the figures. I'm not joking it was the biggest waste of money ever, I'm just glad I kept it in good condition and was able to sell it back >~<

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9 hours ago, Toboe said:

£50 for a Haskell book?

No good free alternative offered by the prof? O.o

Oh he gave us all free copies on A4, it gave a nice summary of each chapter's points to go alongside his lectures.  Perhaps a bad example but it was the first book that sprung to mind

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I can see them not refunding. After all, they already budgeted that amount for the professor's salary. But making you pay a second time is definitely bullshit. As for books, yeah, it's a scam. They keep coming out with new editions every year, where they fix a coma here, or reword something there, and that's it. I'd look into buying older editions on Amazon.

 

By the way, who told you that college is the only sure way to get a better job? I quit my job after finishing college instead of getting a better one.

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1 hour ago, Rassah said:

By the way, who told you that college is the only sure way to get a better job? I quit my job after finishing college instead of getting a better one.

I feel like, not the only sure way to get a better job. but it can help in finding one.

Idk Rassah, you're the moneymaking person here hell

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@Crazy Lee The same thing happened to me. I was in the exact same issue as you. When the semester ended, they mailed me the Bill again and demanded payment. I panicked, did lots of trying, that stuff, and then I called them. I asked about a payment plan (cause the bill was 1.5k) and was told I could only get a payment plan after paying half upfront. I literally broke down into tears on the phone with the person and she just said she was sorry and would resend me the bill. Click, call over. Since they offered no payment plans, I couldn't pay and it went to collections. Another hit to my credit score along with having those damn student loans. So now I'm paying around 2k total what with interest and collection fees, and my credit is even shittier. Oh. And still no degree. Yep, all this for nothing.

Hence why I've decided college is a load of shit and not worth the buckets of money poured into it. I'll serve my whole life before going back and digging an infinite whole of debt.

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38 minutes ago, GamingGal said:

@Rassah Considered that and I might, but a lot of the news agencies around here only accept college students as interns.

Therein lies the problem about college.

For many people it's not worth the money, but a lot of businesses will only hire you if you're studying or have a degree.

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Don't bother with those then. There are a lot of online ones too. You can also just write articles and offer them to the news sites for free or small compensation, and build up your reputation that way. News, sites are always looking for more content. Then when you have a bunch of articles up and have an established reputation and work record, no one will care about whether you have a degree.

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34 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Don't bother with those then. There are a lot of online ones too. You can also just write articles and offer them to the news sites for free or small compensation, and build up your reputation that way. News, sites are always looking for more content. Then when you have a bunch of articles up and have an established reputation and work record, no one will care about whether you have a degree.

That's something I've been wondering myself. I've been considering Freelance writing and to be quite frank, I have NO idea where to begin, and most ads I look at want people with degrees or portfolios or experience.

I should also mention I'm trying to avoid places like oDesk (or whatever they're called now). I heard they were...not too good to work with. 

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I think I hot into the right field.  My company wants to double its staffing so I contact and old Prof who had contact with alumni.  Now, cause all the alumni are employed.  Animation, modeling, composting, and that stuff, all in demand.  Mean while other people from my program, who took other streams like set design, directing, and stuff like that are underemployed. :x

 

Anyone I know who needs a job is basically untrained for what would otherwise be a slam dunk referral.

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Used copies are great.  International editions often contain the exact same text for FAR less money and you can import those from all over the place.  and yeah, all kinds of piracy.  You can run into trouble if a course requires rather obscure texts but more broadly used texts can be a piece of cake.  Most schools won't tell you this of course, probably because they each have a store on campus to sell you shiny new books for their own profit.

Those stupid digital, DRMed up the wazoo, no print copies exist text books present a bigger obstacle however.

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Yeah, a few years back the text for a course on symbolic logic was something like $90-$110, I got the previous edition online for $5. If you can, find a way around paying for the ridiculous texts. They're such a money pit and you won't touch most of them after your undergrad.

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On 11/2/2016 at 4:45 PM, GamingGal said:

I literally broke down into tears on the phone with the person and she just said she was sorry and would resend me the bill. Click, call over.

OMG :C You poor person

Quote

Oh. And still no degree.

>~< I hate that I'm in the same boat (for now)...it just sounds like being a college dropout is synonymous to being a failure. Hope that isn't the case

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8 hours ago, WolfNightV4X1 said:

it just sounds like being a college dropout is synonymous to being a failure. Hope that isn't the case

That depends entirely on what you do after you drop out. If you dropped out cause you failed, and stick to fail type of jobs all your life, like fast food and retail, then maybe. If you continue to learn, read books and stuff online, and try to build up some skills (get involved in a network of people who work in what you want to work), to try to expand into the field your actually want to work in, because "college is a waste of my time and money," then no.

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9 hours ago, WolfNightV4X1 said:

>~< I hate that I'm in the same boat (for now)...it just sounds like being a college dropout is synonymous to being a failure. Hope that isn't the case

The problem is that college DOES cost a lot of money but people often get in over their heads but think 'I can't give up now!' and stick to it in such a way that it just costs them money. If you can't cope with college at the time, if turns out that you actually don't like the field at ALL even though  you thought  you would, or anything like that, yeah, get out before it's too late and stop sinking money into it, there's no shame that.  A lot of people however can only see to scenarios, 'Stick to it and succeed' or 'Give and fail' when 'Get out, take your money with you, and go do the thing your money and time are better spent on' is totally a valid option and  screw anybody who says otherwise.  If you stuck to a program, squeaked by with C's, didn't like it, and now have a lot of debt while you work at Starbucks but your ace classmates who lived, ate, and breathed that program are getting what jobs are in that field, that's not any kind of 'success'.

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Btw, my personal experience has been that I got interested in finance after joining a personal financial analyst MLM company, wanted to learn professionally about finance and join a real company, so took university classes to get my Bachelors. I did really well in my classes, then got a somewhat crappy  accounting job, and then a better but still crappy financial manager job. I went for a Masters, with an intent to get a much better job, and did well in those classes too, but after graduating ended up with a community manager job instead.

During my free time, at work and at home, I spent A LOT of time on forums and Reddit reading and learning about, and discussing crypto finance (bitcoin and other stuff). After a few years of not just bitching about random stuff, but actually reading news articles, white papers, and other innovations in the field, and making lots of well thought out posts, I had built a recognized and respected reputation online (which, fortunately or unfortunately, was tied to my furry name instead of my real one). People basically saw me as trustworthy and an expert in the field, and then one company offered me a job to be their community manager, basically asking to buy my reputation and tie it to their brand. It was what I enjoyed doing already, just shooting the shit on online forums, and it paid better than my professional job, so I of course took it and quit my other one. I continued to stay in the field, building my reputation and network of friends and colleagues, and as my reputation, knowledge, and experience grew, I was able to get ever more increasing roles.

So, basically, I spent $30k on my Bachelors (I transferred in community college credits and got some classes for free through Disney College Program), and another $60k for my masters, but I'm working where I'm at, being an "expert" in my field, primarily because I spent a lot of time on forums and Reddit. I didn't even need any of my education to get where I'm at. It did give me a lot of economic and historical understanding that helped me build up my rep as someone who knows stuff, but all of that I could have easily learned on my own, since I kept coming across it all the time in my readings anyway.

So, key is, practice your craft, learn as much as you can about it any way you can, build your reputation, especially as someone trustworthy (never lie or exaggerate, since everything on the internet is eventually found out), and build a network of people in your field you can ask questions of, get help from, and work together with. Try to help anyone you can in your network, because the more you give, the more you'll be welcomed and will eventually get back. FYI, my university classmates network was completely worthless too, since everyone was starting out where I was.

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On February 11, 2016 at 4:40 PM, jcstinks said:

If you're a quality person with potential, college is a great place to waste your time being babysat. Have fun doing bullshit busywork assignments and learning extremely specific ways to regurgitate information.

Maybe when you're done, you'll be qualified to be a professional word regurgitator. I hear the market for writing papers about the symbolism in Proust is really hot right now.

You know there's more to college than bullshit liberal arts? There's also engineers that make a lot of money once they get their degree, and PhDs/MBAs that wind up running the companies that most of us will work for.

Edited by Calemeyr
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my school lets you rent books if you're an undergrad and the only times you have to pay are if you don't return them or you have to buy a book that's not available in textbook services. and it's usually things like workbooks and guides you'll need to write in or use for multiple classes. I think the most I've ever had to pay for a book was $20

it's also nice because if you don't need the book for a class you can just return it for no charge

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8 minutes ago, Calemeyr said:

You know there's more to college than bullshit liberal arts? There's also engineers that make a lot of money once they get their degree, and PhDs/MBAs that wind up running the companies that most of us will work for.

Though you have to admit that he has a point that people should be directed towards education that can lead to employment.  I mean, don't get me wrong, the best, most hard working, most passionate people in any field will most likely see success in fields where there's more applicants than positions.  But those 'so-so' people?  The ones who did 'Just okay'?  Yeah, they're screwed unless they trained for a field that actually has a lot of employment potential.

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34 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Though you have to admit that he has a point that people should be directed towards education that can lead to employment.  I mean, don't get me wrong, the best, most hard working, most passionate people in any field will most likely see success in fields where there's more applicants than positions.  But those 'so-so' people?  The ones who did 'Just okay'?  Yeah, they're screwed unless they trained for a field that actually has a lot of employment potential.

They were told by their parents and/or guidance counselor that college degree=job. Yeah, maybe at starbucks. Stuff has changed since the 60's, and people who, a) have no idea why they are in college except that parents said it was a good idea, b) party hard and fail hard, and c) naively think their Madagascan literature studies degree, will not get a good job, if one at all. What they will get is debt that not even death can eliminate. You cannot declare bankruptcy on student loans. Only those who are exceptional can find exceptional jobs in the fields with few employment opportunities.

 

Oh, and this may hit close to home for some furries: Art school is a waste of money. And don't think you can pay off your college debt by drawing someone's fursona.

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45 minutes ago, Calemeyr said:

You know there's more to college than bullshit liberal arts? There's also engineers that make a lot of money once they get their degree, and PhDs/MBAs that wind up running the companies that most of us will work for.

Almost all people I know who own or run companies don't have PhD's/MBAs. They hire PhD's/MBAs. Engineering and other STEM fields, yeah, you need professional training/education in, at least to learn the basics. Other fields, not so much. I think the only thing that separates so-so people from professionals is obsession and enthusiasm, vs lack thereof. Like, maybe you've been told all your lifeb that you need to study hard and get a good job to be successful, but studies were too structured and boring for you, so you feel like you failed, and you couldn't find a good job, thinking that's the only way to make a living, so you felt that you failed too, and so you struggle all your life, thinking you're a failure, continuing to try and failing to do the only things you know: trying to get an education, and trying to get a good job.

Then there are people who don't care about those, and either know there are other ways of doing things, or simply don't care about what others tell them about college and jobs, and just keep pursuing what they love (it helps if they don't fear money, lack thereof, or even homelessness, as long as they get to pursue their dreams). Those people who have this obsessive drive about something are the ones who succeed and build the huge businesses we know of. For some it's easier than others, of course, but the first step is probably to stop listening to society telling you you're a failure just because you didn't get a degree or a good paying job.

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24 minutes ago, PheagleAdler said:

Why is liberal arts a degree in the first place?

depending on who you talk to or what school you go to, liberal arts is a pretty broad spectrum of studies. it's not only arts but math and sciences too. it's usually any degree that's not business, nursing, education, or engineering oriented

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Really, all US bachelor's degrees are liberal arts degrees due to the general education requirements. Standalone liberal arts degrees tend to either be associate's degrees, which are intended for transfer to bachelor's, or special interdisciplinary degree programs.

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Community Colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs (not in any particular order). Specialized schooling that is all directly related to the field you want to work in. I sucked at math in high school because A) it wasn't interesting and B) because random numbers and letters just didn't mean anything to me. Yet in college I was doing calculus and trigonometry in engine design studies because everything was directly relating to the field I was interested in. No class was a generic English, math or science class.

I still will point at trade schools being a great place. I got my bachelors degree in 15 months and went straight into the workforce. Unfortunately I got out of college just as the economy collapsed, so that sucked.

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3 minutes ago, Rukh Whitefang said:

Community Colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs (not in any particular order). Specialized schooling that is all directly related to the field you want to work in. I sucked at math in high school because A) it wasn't interesting and B) because random numbers and letters just didn't mean anything to me. Yet in college I was doing calculus and trigonometry in engine design studies because everything was directly relating to the field I was interested in. No class was a generic English, math or science class.

I still will point at trade schools being a great place. I got my bachelors degree in 15 months and went straight into the workforce. Unfortunately I got out of college just as the economy collapsed, so that sucked.

Society really needs to let graduating high schoolers know that they are other options besides spending a fuckload of money at college when you don't know what you want to do with your life.

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2 minutes ago, Conker said:

Society really needs to let graduating high schoolers know that they are other options besides spending a fuckload of money at college when you don't know what you want to do with your life.

This is where CC is a much better choice if you want to go to college but don't know what you want to do. Most classes at a CC are transferable. I would also point of that society needs to stop telling this generation that a job that requires manual labor doesn't pay well. To me it almost looks like an entire generation is growing up thinking a desk job is all thats out there to make a good wage.

Find a field of work that is in demand.

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