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Full Sail University...

ProjectManager101

ProjectManager101

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Original poster
Jul 12, 2015
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Ok, my boyfriend made a phone call to Full Sail University to see if he can upgrade his associate in science degree to a bachelors.

He got the degree back in 1998. So what they are offering him for the "on-line" program is a Mac Book Pro with Final Cut X, Logic Pro, Adobe Suite and the one year degree will cost $42,000!!!!

We told them... he has all that already software and hardware. They were explaining the details about the courses like "learning to understand analytics in Youtube". Well..... everything they are telling, including the computer they would send and the learning, does not add up $7,000 in the real world. All those certifications are like $400 by themselves, no to mention learning FCPX that is the least used editing software, but any way.

That degree does not pay itself any way, the industry is not paying you that sort of money unless you want to carry a debt for the next 30 years.

I am so sorry for the people who are falling into that scam. I know about the education and how important is but that degree and I mean THE ENTIRE DEGREE shouldn't cost more than $30K. The actual degree cost the double.
 
People with that degree would make about $4K a month in the industry tops. So... how would you pay back that loan? by living with your parents during that time?
 
Aren't all universities for profit?

Few degrees today are worth what you pay to get them unless it's something highly specialized. My M.Ed. added a $5,000/month increase to my salary, which paid for the degree within 2 years. But undergrad degrees don't work that way, and few graduate degrees do. You're going to incur debt if you go to school. Period.
 
AlliFlowers said:
Aren't all universities for profit?

Few degrees today are worth what you pay to get them unless it's something highly specialized. My M.Ed. added a $5,000/month increase to my salary, which paid for the degree within 2 years. But undergrad degrees don't work that way, and few graduate degrees do. You're going to incur debt if you go to school. Period.
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This is the first time I've ever heard of someone getting a $60,000 raise overnight for completing a masters degree.
 
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AlliFlowers said:
Aren't all universities for profit?
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No, they are not. And, especially not in Europe, where the tradition has been somewhat different.

Indeed, 'free' university education - or reasonably unimpeded access to higher education - was a marked feature of some European societies.

Moreover, I think you'll see that the cost of access to education in the US has soared - when contrasted with the average wage - over the past thirty years. Comparatively speaking, it is now more expensive to obtain a higher education in the US than it used to be, with all of the consequences for reduced social mobility that this offers.

Having said, this, the very idea of 'for profit' universities is something that I view with growing horror. Indeed, as @mobilehaathi remarks - and advises - a few posts earlier, 'avoid for-profit universities.'
 
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I sometimes work with Full Sail graduates, most are fairly worthless. In my line of work they'd be better off by working as a grunt and buying books from Amazon. In the same amount of time they could learn the same stuff, get real world experience, make connections in the industry and stay debt free.
 
mobilehaathi said:
No, most aren't. That doesn't mean they're automatically benevolent actors, but the for-profit ones are particularly egregious.
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Scepticalscribe said:
No, they are not. And, especially not in Europe, where the tradition has been somewhat different.
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While in the US, state run universities have a non-profit tax status, they are all about the profit. They do nothing that isn't all about the bottom line, from athletics to tuition cost. If it were otherwise, all state universities in the US would charge the same thing.
 
AlliFlowers said:
While in the US, state run universities have a non-profit tax status, they are all about the profit. They do nothing that isn't all about the bottom line, from athletics to tuition cost. If it were otherwise, all state universities in the US would charge the same thing.
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Well, while I write as someone who has taught at a few universities in the British Isles (including one of those ancient venerable places), I am not an expert on universities in the US, although I loathe the principle that some areas of public policy - such as education, and indeed health - which are seen as basic rights elsewhere, are viewed as a privilege, or as an optional luxury in the US.

Moreover, once you introduce business principles as being the key, or main, or sole, criteria, or yardstick, for measuring the provision of public goods and services, the quality of the good or service will suffer, and the principle which serves to buttress it - the provision of a good or service - is subordinated to other principles, such as profit.

Furthermore, while the best of the US universities are rightly recognised as being among the best in the world, it is also known that the US has some fairly uninspirational schools.

While I personally would argue that education is a right, not a privilege, I would also decline to pay those sort of fees to an educational establishment that was not exceptionally good, and known, objectively to be such.
 
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Scepticalscribe said:
While I personally would argue that education is a right, not a privilege, I would also decline to pay those sort of fees to an educational establishment that was not exceptionally good, and known, objectively to be such.
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Part of the problem is that with most schools, it changes. There are schools that most people have never heard of that have outstanding programs, while schools that once had outstanding programs are no longer offering the best.

I love following the lists of "top ten party schools."
 
AlliFlowers said:
Part of the problem is that with most schools, it changes. There are schools that most people have never heard of that have outstanding programs, while schools that once had outstanding programs are no longer offering the best.

I love following the lists of "top ten party schools."
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As a former academic, 'top ten party schools' hold limited - to no interest - for me (and that applied even when I was an undergraduate).

However, while doubtless - what is regarded as an outstanding programme can change over time, - and, in some universities, some departments excel while others don't - for that money, I wouldn't look outside the schools that are ranked highly.
 
Wow,

That's a pretty terrible deal right there.

I have a PharmD, which in terms of a cost benefit analysis is probably one of the best degrees in the US in terms of making an expected salary.

Some places of higher education, mostly community colleges and technical schools, have created Pharmacy Technician certification programs that allow one to become an certified pharmacy technician

One does not need to go college or get certified by a national board to be a pharmacy technician. You simply need to register with the state board of pharmacy, which most employers pay for.

You can become "PTCB certified", which means you take a $100 test. Traditionally, most employers pay for their techs to take this test if they want to. You buy the $50 book, study, take a practice exam or two, and then take the real test. The certification may add a $1-2 or so raise, enables a higher pharmacist to tech ratio, and may make a tech slightly more competitive. The factor that makes the biggest experience for career pharmacy techs is EXPERIENCE.

Now, you have colleges offering these $3000-5000 programs, some with internship programs, that essentially are unnecessary. A pharmacy tech job really draws from the same group of people that would be working any other minimum wage job and does not require any higher level education.

Most the the skill comes around operating the computer systems and processing insurance, which is on the job training and varies from location to location.

I won't discount any education as being bad or worthless, but in my opinion this tech programs are a waste of thousands of dollars and hours of classroom time for something that would have been free on the job. It's a higher opportunity cost of you factor in the money lost due to classroom time.

If I had two applicants on my desk, a certified tech with no experience versus someone with 1 year of tech experience, the primary deciding factor would likely not be certification.

While a pharmacist makes 6 figures, a tech in retail makes anywhere from $9.50-16/hr around here (min wage is $9.00). Hospital techs on average make a little more, $11-20. Board certified or not.
 
AlliFlowers said:
While in the US, state run universities have a non-profit tax status, they are all about the profit. They do nothing that isn't all about the bottom line, from athletics to tuition cost. If it were otherwise, all state universities in the US would charge the same thing.
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I wouldn't expect any business to do anything that isn't at least somewhat about the bottom line. However, public universities are funded by the states in which they live, so they don't necessarily run "at a profit".

Complain about athletics all you want, but good athletics are generally good for their school.
 
AustinIllini said:
I wouldn't expect any business to do anything that isn't at least somewhat about the bottom line. However, public universities are funded by the states in which they live, so they don't necessarily run "at a profit".

Complain about athletics all you want, but good athletics are generally good for their school.
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They get some funding from the state. Not enough to pay the staff. Without enormous tuition, universities would close.
 
AlliFlowers said:
They get some funding from the state. Not enough to pay the staff. Without enormous tuition, universities would close.
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In Europe, you don't have 'enormous tuition' costs. Attending University costs money, but it is not stratospherically out of reach for most people.

Instead, in much of Europe, you have a system where public policy priorities - and thus, taxation policies - and income differentials between the richest and the poorest percentiles in society are different to what they are in the US. A lot of it is to do with what a society chooses to place a value on.
 
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Tomorrow said:
I was not aware you could "upgrade" a degree. You learn something new every day, I suppose.
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When people start to think of education as just another product you buy at the store, when they think of it only in terms of how much more money per month it will add to their pay check, when education becomes commodified, branded, and advertised as The Next Great Product You Need To Succeed, I suppose it isn't surprising to find people conceptualizing a Bachelor's degree as an 'upgrade' from an Associate's degree.
 
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mobilehaathi said:
When people start to think of education as just another product you buy at the store, when they think of it only in terms of how much more money per month it will add to their pay check, when education becomes commodified, branded, and advertised as The Next Great Product You Need To Succeed, I suppose it isn't surprising to find people conceptualizing a Bachelor's degree as an 'upgrade' from an Associate's degree.
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Agreed.

The upshot of this mindset is that teaching staff are regarded as 'servants' - and teaching itself has become a profession which is increasingly derided (rather than respected, and admired, and viewed as fulfilling in itself, as well as a traditional means of social mobility).

Moreover, such a commodification of education means that the award of a degree is viewed as something that is entitled, something that has been earned by right rather than earned through hard work or the mastering of certain skills of analysis and research, or, that it is a 'right' - as it has been paid for (though the actual academic work required for the awarding of a degree might not have been done, or completed to a sufficient and necessary standard).
 
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