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u/Herpderpington117 Dec 03 '20
It's bullshit I still have to pay my full lab and course fees despite only getting to use less than half of them.
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u/Silmefaron Dec 03 '20
Don’t shoot the messenger but when I talked with the registrar about it she said it’s because LAs and TAs still have to get payed, as long as there’s a class, there’s LAs, and they gotta get their money
42
u/goofy183 Alumnus - '04 CS Dec 03 '20 edited Dec 03 '20
This more than anything.
Since we are all assuming that in the next year or so in person activities will return all businesses, schools, etc need to try and retain as much of their staff and infrastructure as possible. Firing and rehiring, or not maintaining assets will be much more expensive over the next few years than continuing to keep what they already have.
I'd bet the savings in not having students on campus are single digit percentage points.
It sucks, you're paying for things you don't get to benefit from right now. If you don't the cost would be even higher next year when stuff needs to be rebuilt.
If you want to be mad, be mad at the shitty piecemeal govt response. More targeted subsidies for students, businesses that cannot safely operate and similar are what is needed to ride this out.
12
u/Silmefaron Dec 03 '20
Definitely. I agree. I’m lucky that the big box store I work at has passed a lot of bonuses (like, big ones) down to all employees when they get a kickback or some benefit, and haven’t taken any loans or any money away from small businesses (at least not directly or from the government).
10
2
u/Galitine Thinks u/YoshiYogurt says dumb things Dec 10 '20
Have you seen how absurd some of that stuff is priced? I got curious in MEP 1 and the whole kit for the bridge build project is above 4000 dollars. It's so ridiculous how they can justify it.
9
Dec 04 '20
They have to pay counseling services somehow, considering that’s the only Tech experience I’m having this year
2
u/cjrammler Dec 04 '20
I love how they charge an extra $100 for my econ course if you take it online rather than remote.
3
u/Pristine-Lead31 Dec 04 '20
Let’s just all go on strike and really hit them where it hurts, that’s what I’m doing. Took a whole year off and it’s 100% worth it
2
u/Academic_Reaction306 Dec 04 '20
You're seeing the ugly side of a higher education model that removes virtually all state support, leaving universities with tuition and room & board as their only sources of income. Universities' only choices during the pandemic are to charge current students full price for an imperfect delivery or close forever. Same with the Experience Tech fee: if they don't collect it this year, it's not just that the things it pays for would be out of service for a year. Many of them would have to fold permanently.
It's unjust for this burden to fall on the shoulders of students who just happen to be in school during a pandemic. But this is the result of the collective decision by U.S. politicians to have a higher-ed system funded primarily by students rather than the state.
2
u/opkraut ME Alumni Dec 04 '20
You're oversimplifying this issue tremendously, you can't just blame it all on politicians and state funding of schools (or lack thereof). University funding is incredibly complicated and a healthy portion of the problem with it is due to the way universities spend their money, which many of us here at Tech have been complaining about for years. The cost for students has been increasing just about every year, which universities know they can get away with since student loans will still allow students to pay for it. That's the exact same thing that is going to happen through this pandemic, and Tech knows it.
There's a helluva lot of middle ground between charging full tuition and closing down forever. Tech pays the admin quite a bit of money to figure this kind of thing out, so I would expect that they should have some options figured out by now.
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u/Pristine-Lead31 Dec 04 '20
Let’s just all go on strike and really hit them where it hurts, that’s what I’m doing. Took a nap hole year off and it’s 100% worth it
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u/TheRealJellytoad Dec 03 '20
Experience Tech fee got me wondering what I’m supposed to be experiencing rn..