18 year old needing to show proof of no income

[kcjenkins]

[Eric]

I work for a public university as my day job.  I can't speak for anyone else's competence, but I know my   

 

Idunno what's up with these other places, but here we've seen enrollment drop consistently for quite a few years.

 

I have no idea what portion of our funding comes from the state, but I've been told that as a percentage of total income, it's become less of the pie. I have no idea if that's true or not.  This particular institution has had relatively modest tuition increases as a result of the dropping enrollment, but much more drastic changes are being made elsewhere.

 

Maine has a system of public universities that includes 7 mostly autonomous campuses.  Every campus used to have it's own IT department, now there's a single system-wide IT department that serves all 7 campuses.  Every campus used to have its own HR department, now we're moving toward regional HR employees that travel between campuses.  Next is Administration and Finance.  After that, they're talking about removing academic programs from some campuses to reduce overlap between campuses.  I don't know if any of these things sound like a big deal, but when you consider the rural location and geographical isolation of the top half of Maine, there are significant hurdles to making these changes work.

 

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not.  I just wanted to explain that not every university is bloating up their administrative workforce and increasing tuition to cover it.  In fact, we were named one of the top 5 universities in the north (a region that spans 11 states) for graduating students with the lowest debt load.

[Jack from Ohio]

I work for a public university as my day job.  I can't speak for anyone else's competence, but I know my   

 

Idunno what's up with these other places, but here we've seen enrollment drop consistently for quite a few years.

 

I have no idea what portion of our funding comes from the state, but I've been told that as a percentage of total income, it's become less of the pie. I have no idea if that's true or not.  This particular institution has had relatively modest tuition increases as a result of the dropping enrollment, but much more drastic changes are being made elsewhere.

 

Maine has a system of public universities that includes 7 mostly autonomous campuses.  Every campus used to have it's own IT department, now there's a single system-wide IT department that serves all 7 campuses.  Every campus used to have its own HR department, now we're moving toward regional HR employees that travel between campuses.  Next is Administration and Finance.  After that, they're talking about removing academic programs from some campuses to reduce overlap between campuses.  I don't know if any of these things sound like a big deal, but when you consider the rural location and geographical isolation of the top half of Maine, there are significant hurdles to making these changes work.

 

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not.  I just wanted to explain that not every university is bloating up their administrative workforce and increasing tuition to cover it.  In fact, we were named one of the top 5 universities in the north (a region that spans 11 states) for graduating students with the lowest debt load.

Your organization(s) are by far the minority of all universities around the country.  I wish  you had been working at the university my daughters attended!!

[Catherine]

Ditto and likewise!

 

My daughter got sent an official (but generic) "information on graduation logistics" email from her school -- replete with grammatical mistakes a 7th grade student should not have made.  Neither of us was impressed.  No, I take that back -- we *were* impressed -- just not the way they would have wanted us to be.

[BulldogTom]

My issues with San Jose State started with the transfer process. 

 

My son followed every instruction given at the orientation he attended.  One of the instructions was to send an official transcript from his Community College.  He received the transcript on June 1st and immediately sent it on to SJSU.  3 weeks later, he still could not enroll.  Numerous phone calls and emails later, with no response from the admissions department, the professor in charge of his scholarship calls him and asks why he has not enrolled?  Classes that he needs are filling up, and he cannot get approval to sign up.  I finally called and was told that only the student can make inquiries.  So I left a blistering message on the voice mail of the head of admissions phone.  I got a very nasty response from her on my vm telling me that my son failed to follow directions.  They also called my son at work and left a vm for him that his father had gone off the rails and that he needed to call them.  By that time, I had called back and had a long conversation with the head of admissions, who finally admitted that they did have everything, and that it simply had not been processed by staff.  She chewed me out for my manners, and never apologized for her staff not doing their job.  It was 3 more days before my son could sign up for classes, and what was left was early morning and late evening classes, which left 3-6 hour gaps in his schedule 5 days a week.

 

Problem #2 with SJSU

 

My son goes into his advising session with his counselor and is promptly told that he will never be able to complete his degree in 4 years, because as a transfer student, he will not be able to withstand the rigors of a real university education.  He is given a list of the classes that are allowed to transfer in from his community college and told what he needs to take to complete his degree.  There is a class on the transfer list that is a pre-requesit for other classes he needs to take.  In semester two, he tries to sign up for one of his classes, but is told he does not have the pre-requisit class and so is not allowed to enroll.  He goes back to the department and shows them the transcript from his community college and the counselor list of transferred classes to show them that he meets the requirements.  They tell him that yes, the class transferred for credit, but not for content and that his advisor should have told him that.  Without that class, my son had to push all his classes back 2 semesters.  Now he has a 5th year with 2 classes, 9 total units over a 1 year period (one 3 unit one semester class and his senior project which is a one year, 6 unit class).  Had he been properly advised on the transfer classes, he would be graduating in 4 weeks.

 

BTW, my son has a 4.0 GPA at SJSU, was hand selected by a professor for a research project, and tutors Calculus and Thermodynamics at the school.

 

Did that dirty bastard with a cushy counseling job and benefits the rest of us could only wish for have any repercussions for the crappy job he did?  Does he have to pay for costing my son a year of his career?  Did he even get reprimanded or have to go through training so this would not happen to the next transfer student?  Hell no, there is no accountability for the admin staff at SJSU.  They are protected by their union and are hired for their diversity rather than the quality of their work.

 

Rant over. 

 

NO it is NOT....I HATE SJSU.  AND YES I AM SHOUTING.

 

Rant over.

 

Tom

Newark, CA

Edited April 24, 2015 by BulldogTom

[RitaB]

NO it is NOT....I HATE SJSU.  AND YES I AM SHOUTING.

 

Rant over.

 

Tom

Newark, CA

I KNEW IT! All those times you said you were scared of me you were just being sweet. I knew it. I love you, Tom.

Edited April 24, 2015 by RitaB

[Catherine]

Tom, you are absolutely right and there is absolutely NO consequence to f*@%ing over people's lives, finances, and life plans.  They DO hire for "diversity" and *are* protected by unions and it seems the only criterion NOT utilized is competence.  And that problem extends far beyond universities but there does seem to be quite a high concentration in that environment.  And it cascades; the competent people leave in disgust because of all the remediation and extra work that falls on them.  The best can always leave, so those left behind exhibit a lower and lower overall level of ability.

[BulldogTom]

I should say my son loves his professors.  They are not part of my rant.

 

Tom

Newark, CA