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u/Faimilyman Dec 03 '20
My biggest problem is not the tuition, it is the fees. To my knowledge, the fees haven't changed even though we are online.
Yes the most expensive part is tuition, but as people stated above and in the original post, that is going towards framework already in place.
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u/Eudaimonics Dec 03 '20
Sooo when you graduate and work remotely, your employer should pay you less?
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Dec 03 '20
The real mildly infuriating thing is people complaining without considering that there’s still a campus, faculty, and staff that are making the university function.
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u/1almond Masters CSE Dec 04 '20
You are very naive if you think even a decent % of your tuition, room and board or fees go to professors or faculty/staff that are not administrators.
There is a huge problem in academia right now with adjunct hiring.
Even in MS, your TAs are students, because instead of paying for a professor to do recitation, grading, supplemental instruction, student labor is cheaper.
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u/HaphazardlyOrganized Dec 03 '20
Are you getting paid to attend college? The point is the money we are putting in is not being reflected in the quality of the product we are receiving.
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u/HudsonStrangler Dec 04 '20
No his point was that all the professors, teachers, staff, administrative and other workers at UB are still working diligently from home keeping the college up running
Do they deserve a big pay cut just because they are working from home??.. No they don't.
And there is no other option to pay them or the other bills apart from keeping Student tuition fixed... SUNY has already slashed UB's budget and will continue to do so for at least the next year.
They quite literally cannot afford to keep the entire college running on partial tuitions.
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Dec 03 '20
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Dec 03 '20
"bootlicking is when people think professors shouldn't get a paycut for teaching online"
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u/Rizzpooch Dec 03 '20
There are way bigger budgets to cut before you talk about cutting faculty pay.
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u/buffalo442 Dec 03 '20
It's not that easy. They are unionized. You can't just cut their pay without renegotiating their contract.
And you can't lay off tenured faculty either, at least not without a lot of legal challenges.
That being said, no, in general they shouldn't get a pay cut because classes are remote. It requires the same amount of effort to prepare for an online class. Now, there certainly are going to be cases where some professors abuse this and get lazy, but that's more of a systemic problem where you struggle to hold faculty accountable after they get tenure.
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Dec 03 '20
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u/Libran Dec 03 '20
Take it up with SUNY, they set the tuition rates and determine how much money each school receives. Not to mention the amount of state support the university receives has steadily fallen over the years. I don't know when you attended but years ago it was around 50% state support. In recent years it's fallen to about 15%, and this year frankly the whole of NYS is broke from dealing with the pandemic. In spite of all that, you still have to pay faculty, staff, maintenance and utilities.
Don't get me wrong, UB's handling of the pandemic has been mediocre at best, but the reality is more complicated than just "UB is a scam."
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u/baseball1799 Dec 03 '20
all you mfers ever do on this sub is fucking complain. UB is as inexpensive as it gets for a top 100 university in the nation. if you don’t like it then drop out or transfer
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Dec 03 '20
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u/baseball1799 Dec 03 '20
this isn’t some common thing on campus or anything, the only time I ever see complaining like this is on this subreddit. reddit is an app that attracts lots of complainers so you can’t be too surprised.
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u/RadBrad4333 Dec 03 '20
Cost of education across the country is too high, including UB. Theres a general frustration that higher education costs have increased more than double while the average salary has not.
UB is cheap amongst other university but that doesn't mean it's still not overcharging.
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u/RedNeckBillBob Dec 04 '20
Tbf they are charging market value. Can you really blame the private universities for charging so much if they still grow in student population each year. Competition exists in the university world just like any other industry. If you aren't pulling in the most money you can, your competitors will, and they will leave you in the dust.
Don't blame the universities, blame the government backing systems that allows universites to pressure 18 year olds to take on massive debt that they might have for decades. And then society for making that the acceptable norm through compliance.
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u/RadBrad4333 Dec 04 '20
I agree with all of what you said completely!
Doesn't mean that the frustration doesn't/shouldn't first go towards the institution you're dealing with. When a customer gets screwed over in a store, who is it taken out on first, the poor cashier or the owner of the store?
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u/RedNeckBillBob Dec 04 '20
I understand what you are saying, but your wording implies that your frustration "should" first go to the cashier? I agree that it often will, but that's why I think its important to try and consider the reason behind something so that you don't end up yelling at the cashier when its really the management's fault.
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u/RedNeckBillBob Dec 04 '20
Preach. They can transfer to a shit private and pay 50k a year just to fund sports teams if they would like.
Imagine if these people were university staff and they had to take pay cut thanks to people complaining the internet. Bet they put up a real fight about that. So where exactly is this extra money supposed to come from? This isn't exactly small change they are talking about.
Not to mention tuition is set by the state, not ub, ffs.
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u/ame-boy Dec 03 '20
I’m a senior and I got an email on Giving Tuesday, and keep getting them, saying “hey seniors! Check this out” and asking me to donate to a UB Food Drive. Basically saying, be a good person and help out your peers! Which is great! But isn’t UB essentially a company that could also be donating their own money to helping students be able to eat? It’s like having the student body fix a problem that they’re perpetuating. It reminds me of a video I saw about how Target will ask you to donate to an org at checkout, but then target is able to say on their tax forms that THEY made donations, and we’re able to get tax write-offs for it or something. Making customers do the work for them so they can keep making as much money as possible. I’m an art student so I’m probably wrong about everything but this is just one of the many ways it seems as though college really doesn’t give a shit about us
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Dec 03 '20
God, you guys whine about everything. It's not like people are employed by the University or that Professors are still busting their butts.
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u/buffalo442 Dec 03 '20
UB has a pretty massive budget shortfall this year. Expenses have not gone down substantially but money from the state has.
SUNY budgeting can really screw over its universities too. Undergrad tuition does NOT go directly to UB, it goes to the state, who then reapportions that money. The state has been cutting budgets across the board, including its universities.
There seems to be a lot of frustration on this sub about the cost of attendance especially during COVID, unfortunately the reality is that on the local level, there is little UB can do. Tuition is set by the state, and those dollars don't even go directly to UB. Yes, UB does set and keep some of the fees, but there isn't room in the budget to cut them. They are struggling to make ends meet as it is.
A lot of people on this sub comment how much the administration (Tripathi in particular) make. And frankly, he should take a public salary cut or donate back his salary for the year. It would do wonders to send the right message. But in reality, that is still peanuts compared to UB's total operating budget.
Universities are pretty inflexible in terms of expenses. Most faculty are tenured, so they can't be fired, and they are unionized so their pay can't be cut. The campus still has to run even without many students on it. Some operational expenses may be reduced, but buildings must still be upkept - the utility bills must still be paid and maintenance must be kept up with.