I agree... the tuition cost of modern colleges is insane.
I went to Cal St. back in the 90's... total cost was under 10k USD including books. I paid for a lot of it working construction and summer internships.
I had some work friends who went to Caltch and MIT for undergrad for same degree as I have...we compared books for courses, etc. 80% of our courses used the same exact book. I'm sure they "learned it better" than I did... but not "10x the tuition cost" better.
I went to Carnegie Mellon for grad school... no tuition plus a livable stipend. Pittsburgh was an inexpensive and fun city to live in as a student. It was a great experience. Nobody cared where I got my BS after I finished grad school.
Thing is... now even Cal State in-state tuition is so much more expensive than it used to be. The situation really sucks.
> I had some work friends who went to Caltch and MIT for undergrad for same degree as I have...we compared books for courses, etc. 80% of our courses used the same exact book. I'm sure they "learned it better" than I did... but not "10x the tuition cost" better.
I went to Caltech in the 70's. I compared course catalogs with Arizona State U. Required undergrad class at CIT were grad level classes at ASU. When I worked at Boeing I found my BS math abilities were at the same level as those with a Masters.
As for books, at CIT many of the textbooks required for a class were not actually used. The prof would present his own curriculum, with the class textbook there just for background.
To be fair, I didn't take the actual courses at ASU, I just compared the course catalog for topics covered.
Yeah... no dig intended against Caltech or MIT. They definitely push their student a lot harder and more consistently than I was pushed in many of my classes in undergrad. I wanted to go to Caltech or Harvey Mudd College out of HS but didn't have the means.
I had the privilege to work at JPL for about 3 years and worked with a lot of folks from Caltech and MIT in that time... all brilliant and wonderful people.
I went to Cal St. back in the 90's... total cost was under 10k USD including books. I paid for a lot of it working construction and summer internships.
I had some work friends who went to Caltch and MIT for undergrad for same degree as I have...we compared books for courses, etc. 80% of our courses used the same exact book. I'm sure they "learned it better" than I did... but not "10x the tuition cost" better.
I went to Carnegie Mellon for grad school... no tuition plus a livable stipend. Pittsburgh was an inexpensive and fun city to live in as a student. It was a great experience. Nobody cared where I got my BS after I finished grad school.
Thing is... now even Cal State in-state tuition is so much more expensive than it used to be. The situation really sucks.