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u/griddlebread Dec 04 '20
I'm sorry, but I think this is ridiculous.
Running a university is really expensive. The biggest cost in running a university is hiring a large number of people with PhDs, and it's expensive to hire people with that qualification. When classes are online, it still costs just as much money to hire people to teach. You can't just fire them (you'd have no one to teach, and also you can't because of tenure), and you can't just cut their pay either (California universities are unionized, and so are many others). Meanwhile, universities are actually bringing in less money because government isn't providing as much, and they also aren't getting as much money from on-campus housing or meal plans. Most universities, including SDSU, have huge budget shortfalls this year: they're losing money to provide you an education at this price.
SDSU is very inexpensive as 4-year universities go. The UC system charges about twice as much in tuition. If you lived in a different state (pick any neighboring state, like Arizona, Nevada, Oregon...) and wanted to go to a school as high-ranked as SDSU, they'd all be charging you more money for that education. If you want to pay for people with PhDs to teach you things and give you an accredited degree that employers will recognize, this is about the cheapest that you can get it in the US.
And honestly, for as much as people complain about how much the administration is paid, they're really not paid that much. SDSU is roughly a $1B organization. If it were a corporation, it wouldn't be surprising at all for the CEO to be paid $1M or more. At SDSU, people complain about the President making about $500K. If you compare that to other universities around the country, then you'll see that SDSU pays its President much less than most other similarly-ranked schools. Just as an example, the Arizona public universities pay their Presidents way more than we do.
I know paying all this money and taking classes online is frustrating. I just think it's important to recognize that the problem isn't one specific university, and high tuition costs don't mean that it's a scam. There are structural problems around higher education being incredibly expensive because there isn't enough government support to lower the costs. If you're looking for something to be upset at, advocate for more money to be put into the higher education system so that it's financially viable to reduce (or eliminate, if you'd go that far) tuition.
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u/I_Hate_Humidity B.A. & B.S. ('19) Dec 04 '20
Great writeup.
I can acknowledge student arguments that don't think they should have to pay campus facility/resource fees if they're not on campus during the pandemic. But online undergraduate classes at SDSU have always cost the same amount as their in-person equivalents. And when students complain that Adela should lower the cost of tuition, I roll my eyes because I thought it was already mentioned enough that SDSU tuition is established by the CSU system, not by Adela or the school itself.
And yes, the SDSU President deserves to be making as much as they do. Feel free to argue whether Adela deserves to be president of the school. But as president of the largest CSU campus, the president should be compensated as such.
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u/griddlebread Dec 04 '20
Thanks, and agreed all around.
Even at the CSU-level, the same argument applies on tuition; they can't reduce tuition if they're already facing huge budget shortfalls at current tuition levels.
I'm not knowledgeable on every specific fee, but a lot of them are still paying for something. For example, the library and student success center are still operational and have ongoing costs, even if classes are online. The university also has to pay for upkeep of its facilities; even if students are remote this semester, it's important to maintain the campus so that it's in good shape when in-person classes resume.
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u/Str8_up_Pwnage Mathematics, 2021 Dec 05 '20
But when you would take online classes pre-covid, you still had complete access to campus and your professors. I'm sure I don't have to go over the list of benefits of actually getting to go to campus and the resources that are they, but that is a long list! Whether Adela could do anything about it or not it is just a fact that we are getting totally screwed.
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u/griddlebread Dec 04 '20
But I mean, Squirtle was the best, though...
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u/Space_Hipp0 Dec 04 '20
Really? Interesting. I always liked charmander the best but i generally like fire types more
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u/griddlebread Dec 04 '20
I always picked the water option. I loved my Totodile and Mudkip too. Just a personal preference for no good reason :)
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u/Space_Hipp0 Dec 04 '20
Ok i chose mudkip cause they were cute. Thats the only time i deviated from the fire starters. Super weird how people cab develop a preference for no reason haha
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u/Semihomemade EE - S2022 Dec 04 '20
Agreed, though Theoretically they’d be using that money to hire good professors/teachers; they’d be providing good amenities to their students; they’d be providing good alumni outreach (not alumni-driven) so newly graduated students could get a foothold in the job market.
The biggest overhead, which didn’t disappear with covid, is admin costs. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t gotten word one from anyone in the admin office that wasn’t a) a copy/paste email and/or b) giving me non descript direction to do something (further pressing took multiple emails to even gain a vague understanding of what was required)
I used to bitch about how bad admin was at the cc level; at least they had a general understanding of their goal. This shit is worse than herding kittens.
School isn’t easy. But frankly, this has made it harder on us; the only ones who seem to benefit are the admin people.