WVU Appears to be in Trouble

[isufbcurt]

I could trade the dorm experience away, It was fine, but there was definitely no lasting benefit for me.

I wanted to live in the dorms forever. We all left our doors wide open and floated from room to room to hang out. When we moved to Frederickson Ct. we started leaving our door open like it was the dorms and eventually others on our floor did too.

 

[KnappShack]

I could trade the dorm experience away, It was fine, but there was definitely no lasting benefit for me.

A lot of male nudity is my main takeaway

Gang showers are a quick way to meet your fellow floor mates.

 

[JK4ISU]

We have a high schooler and I’m struggling with this right now. Do we encourage him to stay at home and get the gen Ed’s done locally, or do we send him away and experience the full college experience? I know the friends and experiences I had in the dorms those first two years are something that I wouldn’t trade for anything. So is the money saved worth missing out on those opportunities?

Explore any dual enrollment available to him, they are the cheapest credits you can buy. Schools seem to push AP, but you roll the dice on a high test score. My daughter went to college with 29 credit hours that counted for gen Ed’s in English, Math, Spanish, History, etc. She also took a couple CC courses in the summer at home. She used these for flexibility and still went four years but it could also be used to graduate a semester or year early.

 

[CycloneErik]

I wanted to live in the dorms forever. We all left our doors wide open and floated from room to room to hang out. When we moved to Frederickson Ct. we started leaving our door open like it was the dorms and eventually others on our floor did too.

See, that's the opposite for.me. After class, I eanted to go home, do quiet stuff, read, study and whatever. People running all over or whatever was way too much for me. That junk is exhausting.

 

[cyfan92]

It's like you didn't read half the posts in here that point out some of the challenges with your proposals (ie CC to replace a 4 yr degree). Most of this post is just......really, really uninformed. I have nothing against trades but to pitch them as a replacement for university education is ......a bad pitch. And you keep pushing this false choice of hungry kids vs educated young adults. Again, state governments can choose to fund both. States like WV and IA (in their current form) choose to prioritize neither.

Admittedly, I have not read every post in the thread. If I missed your earlier points, I apologize.

Can you admit that we should push CC and trades as hard or harder than 4-year college to every Iowa school aged kid?

Let's also take nursing for an example. I have a really close contact in hospital admin who told me a short while ago that his hospital would pay for most or all of nursing school if a nurse would sign a multi-year contract with them. That seems like a pretty awesome route to use higher education and should be preached to every Iowa high school student.

 

[cyfan92]

We have a high schooler and I’m struggling with this right now. Do we encourage him to stay at home and get the gen Ed’s done locally, or do we send him away and experience the full college experience? I know the friends and experiences I had in the dorms those first two years are something that I wouldn’t trade for anything. So is the money saved worth missing out on those opportunities?

My kids are too young for this conversation, but I would say that if they are highly committed to and have the academic acumen to study STEM or a high paying end job field of study. Send them to a 4-year school and apply like heck for scholarships. If they don't know what to do yet, I would want my kids to stay home, work/learn a trade and save money. You can still have a full college experiance at 19 or 20 and take 1-2 years of break to mature, learn, or experiment.

My freshman year roommate did not have the academic chops to study at ISU, but was pressured into 2 years at ISU and then suffered with bad grades. He got a job for a couple months doing landscaping and ended up enrolling in turf school at DMACC before landing a really good job, with benefits, paid time off, and much more. I wish society wouldn't pressure us into 4-year college just to have "experiences" and to be "normal" that end up burdening you with tens of thousands in student loans that take you years and years to pay off.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

Admittedly, I have not read every post in the thread. If I missed your earlier points, I apologize.

Can you admit that we should push CC and trades as hard or harder than 4-year college to every Iowa school aged kid?

Let's also take nursing for an example. I have a really close contact in hospital admin who told me a short while ago that his hospital would pay for most or all of nursing school if a nurse would sign a multi-year contract with them. That seems like a pretty awesome route to use higher education and should be preached to every Iowa high school student.

Promote them? Sure. Push them as hard or harder, probably not.

Btw the nursing situation is solely due to the massive nursing shortage so that they can underpay them due to the massive market changes for that position. Nursing school is just undergrad essentially. You would make more not taking the deal and hoping around than the forgiveness in most areas.

 

[cyfan92]

Promote them? Sure. Push them as hard or harder, probably not.

Btw the nursing situation is solely due to the massive nursing shortage so that they can underpay them due to the massive market changes for that position. Nursing school is just undergrad essentially. You would make more not taking the deal and hoping around than the forgiveness in most areas.

Interesting, I did not know that. Thanks for the kind insights here.

 

[CascadeClone]

I couldn't disagree more. Dorm life is built for more outgoing personalities. For folks who are more focused on studies and aren't really into the social life, it's quite an anchor for that pursuit.

I was super introverted (engineering major lol) and living by myself I would never have met hardly anyone or made any friends. Lame-ass dorm activities forced me to get out and meet people and do things. In the end, 2 of my 3 groomsmen I met in the dorms...

My son is much more outgoing (tho also engr major lol again) but several of his floor friends are still quite close with him 10 years on.

That said, it CAN be a bad experience if you get the wrong people on your floor.

 

[CascadeClone]

A lot of male nudity is my main takeaway

Gang showers are a quick way to meet your fellow floor mates.

I lived on a co-ed floor... maybe my promotion of dorm life is somewhat influenced by that!

 

[FriendlySpartan]

See, that's the opposite for.me. After class, I eanted to go home, do quiet stuff, read, study and whatever. People running all over or whatever was way too much for me. That junk is exhausting.

If you don’t mind me asking did you make other long term friends/contacts outside of the dorms? As in from classes/clubs/etc or was it something you weren’t particularly interested in?

 

[Entropy]

Interesting. I'm in Arizona. All of the community colleges in the state meet regularly with the three state Universities. We have a numbering system for equivalent courses. For example an Organic Chemistry course at our community college has a number assigned to it that indicates it will automatically transfer to any of the other colleges or universities as Organic Chemistry under that same number. I assumed other states had similar systems, but apparently not. Of course if a student transfers out of state, there's no guarantee. My son transferred from a community college here in Arizona to Davidson College in North Carolina and didn't have any trouble getting his courses to transfer.

Iowa has the same system (common course numbering) and I regularly teach chem courses that transfer to all 3 regent institutions.

 

[ZuriCyclone]

Lot of these universities have admin that have nothing to do with education or athletics, they are there for other reasons. Universities can save millions every year if these admin departments are removed.

 

[Entropy]

How do you determine what a good ROI is and who makes that decision? There are many employers who do want people educated in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Those employers wants skills like problem solving, communication, people-to-people, cultural competency, etc (there is data and research that backs all this up), and not just engineering or computer skills.

Though taking classes at a Community College may, and I stress may, save some money it is nothing more than a glorified 13th and 14th grades. I say may because as someone who works with Community College students transferring into ISU I can say many are here more than two years. I have this conversation with students and parents all the time. They think they can get an AA and transfer to ISU and be done in two years. That isn't necessarily true. It all depends if a student is taking the correct classes at the CC. If a student wants a STEM major, well, forget it. There is no way a STEM majors transferring in from a CC will be out of ISU in two years. ISU has a heavy presence at DMACC and we tell their students and their advisors this all the time and most do not listen. I have this conversation with friends who have college aged kids and they simply don't believe me until it hits them in the face. The automatic assumption is two years at a Community College, then two years at ISU then done. For most that isn't true and the tuition savings isn't that much.

And thank you for the car loan statement. This is absolutely true. Families won't think twice about a large car loan, or boat loan, or mortgage, but an education? God no! My first year in higher education I worked with a student who was crying about tuition costs. Said parents had so much debt because little brother was really sick, he almost died, and they had so many medical bills. All of that was true, and the College gave them a bunch of gift money as a result. Well, a few months after enrolling the student let it slip that parents were building a new house, had a cabin on the river with a boat, and there was no way they were going to give those things up for college. Priorities are way out of wack.

End rant.

Yikes.
I've definitely run into those students who were thinking 2+2 would work in STEM until they found out that starting at college algebra isn't going to cut it, and they had to spend 2 years in math before they could take an engineering course.
It is hard to beat the small size of lectures at a CC (my biggest courses are ~30 at the moment), and I know all my students on a first name basis within about 6 weeks.
There may be more gifted students at the big schools, but I'll put odds on how hard my students work, and it's not uncommon to see those that transfer successfully to a big institution have a higher rate of completion than those who start at the bigger/more prestigious school.

Community College Transfer Students More Likely to Graduate Than Traditional Students at Selective Colleges - Jack Kent Cooke Foundation

New analysis from Jack Kent Cooke Foundation highlights community college students as promising admissions pool for selective four-year institutions Lansdowne, VA – A new report, “Persistence: The Success of Students Who Transfer from Community Colleges to Selective Four-Year Institutions,”...

www.jkcf.org

 

[CyCrazy]

A guy I used to work with told me about people in FP&M stealing money from ISU and they cleaned house up their, but the investigation is still going on. The guy that I knew was in charge up there was supposed to retire this fall but mysteriously retired last spring. That guy was an ahole anyway. Kind of off topic I know. FP&M has been a **** show for years, lots of wasted money and way to many upper management people that are a waste of space. I don't miss working for ISU.

 

[CycloneErik]

If you don’t mind me asking did you make other long term friends/contacts outside of the dorms? As in from classes/clubs/etc or was it something you weren’t particularly interested in?

A couple. It's a long story after that. I won't derail for that one.

 

[kirk89gt]

The Daily coming through

"This statistic took the percentage of college graduates produced in Iowa against the percentage of college graduates living in Iowa, meaning that Iowa is losing over 34% of the college graduates produced in the state."

The “exodus” of college graduates out of Iowa

Brock Elbert is a graduate of Iowa State University with a bachelor’s degree in genetics. He is Iowa-born and grew up in the small town of Indianola, a town that owns 11 miles of land. Indianola is home to Simpson College, museums and around 15,000 residents. However, Indianola and neighboring...

iowastatedaily.com

FWIW, this is nothing new….these articles have been in the Daily and the Rag on and off for at least the last 25 years.

What I would be interested in knowing are the average demographics / home states of the student body at the state’s big 3 and how many that do leave find their way back once they get a spouse / significant other and/or have a kid.

I don’t think it is any secret that a good portion of the U of I student body is from the greater Chicago area. ISU has good sized alumni bases in Chicago, MSP, and KC.

So while we have 1/3 leave , some are simply returning “home” and some will boomerang back +\- 10 years post graduation.

 

[Cyched]

It's like you didn't read half the posts in here that point out some of the challenges with your proposals (ie CC to replace a 4 yr degree). Most of this post is just......really, really uninformed. I have nothing against trades but to pitch them as a replacement for university education is ......a bad pitch. And you keep pushing this false choice of hungry kids vs educated young adults. Again, state governments can choose to fund both. States like WV and IA (in their current form) choose to prioritize neither.

I don't mind encouraging kids to explore trades if their aptitude fits that path better. You can find a stable field and make a good living.

Caveat is that people forget (or don't realize) that there's another side to the "not all kids are cut out for college" coin. Not all kids are cut out for manual labor/trade type jobs either. Some kids are more cut out to be accountants, engineers, IT, etc.; replacing university education with trade school doesn't make sense for all kids.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

I don't mind encouraging kids to explore trades if their aptitude fits that path better. You can find a stable field and make a good living.

Caveat is that people forget (or don't realize) that there's another side to the "not all kids are cut out for college" coin. Not all kids are cut out for manual labor/trade type jobs either. Some kids are more cut out to be accountants, engineers, IT, etc.; replacing university education with trade school doesn't make sense for all kids.

Third side to the coin: not all kids are cut of for college, or the trades…

 

[GoldCy]

Some prof making $365k isn't on the side of a campus that they're cutting. Those are med school profs and administrators.

Social sciences at ISU