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Does anyone here think this is right? - Printable Version

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Does anyone here think this is right? - doug - 03-17-2020

Stanford has announced that all classes for the Spring Quarter will be online only at least to start. The administration hasn’t taken a formal position as to whether there will be any in-person classes at all during the Spring Quarter. Stanford has further announced that financial aid for the Spring will be reduced to reflect the lower cost to students of not living on campus. Yet the administration has also said there will be no reduction in tuition for Spring Quarter due to the online classes. 

So students will at a minimum be partly deprived of the on campus experience during the Spring, and may be completely deprived for the entire quarter, but will receive no reduction in tuition. I might feel differently about such a decision for a less wealthy school, but that doesn’t seem to me to be the right thing for Stanford to do.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - WBB fan - 03-17-2020

(03-17-2020, 04:54 PM)doug Wrote:  Stanford has announced that all classes for the Spring Quarter will be online only at least to start. The administration hasn’t taken a formal position as to whether there will be any in-person classes at all during the Spring Quarter. Stanford has further announced that financial aid for the Spring will be reduced to reflect the lower cost to students of not living on campus. Yet the administration has also said there will be no reduction in tuition for Spring Quarter due to the online classes. 

So students will at a minimum be partly deprived of the on campus experience during the Spring, and may be completely deprived for the entire quarter, but will receive no reduction in tuition. I might feel differently about such a decision for a less wealthy school, but that doesn’t seem to me to be the right thing for Stanford to do.

A fair question. I think there should be some reduction. And what about refunds for not receiving room and board since they have to move out of the dorms? Anyone know what's being done about that. Although one can argue they are receiving some instruction re on-line, they certainly aren't receiving housing and food.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - Farm93 - 03-17-2020

(03-17-2020, 04:54 PM)doug Wrote:  Stanford has announced that all classes for the Spring Quarter will be online only at least to start. The administration hasn’t taken a formal position as to whether there will be any in-person classes at all during the Spring Quarter. Stanford has further announced that financial aid for the Spring will be reduced to reflect the lower cost to students of not living on campus. Yet the administration has also said there will be no reduction in tuition for Spring Quarter due to the online classes. 

So students will at a minimum be partly deprived of the on campus experience during the Spring, and may be completely deprived for the entire quarter, but will receive no reduction in tuition. I might feel differently about such a decision for a less wealthy school, but that doesn’t seem to me to be the right thing for Stanford to do.

Sounds right to me.

Let's remember those families not making 6 figures annually are not paying anything anyway.
Those making big money likely would not NEED the money.

I get that Stanford might not NEED the money from those top 1% families, but Stanford is in the community of colleges and universities.   If Stanford offers a discount then other schools would be under pressure to do a similar thing.   Many would not survive the enrollment decline all schools are likely to see plus giving big discounts to those that attend.    In the end Stanford might offer a reduction but I don't think Stanford should lead especially before the Federal government has announced any programs regarding forgiving student loans for the 2019-2020 year, or pegging interest rates to zero percent, or whatever.

The room and board thing is a bit quirky, but that particular part of financial aid is in the FAFSA playbook.   At other schools students move off campus and get aid package adjustments all of the time.    I am not super familiar with the formulas, but it wouldn't shock me to see that a school must update the package if students move from on-campus to living at home.

In the end, the financial aid gets very complicated and with so many Bay Area employees stuck at home it would be very hard to craft a new policy on this very complicated topic on teleconference BEFORE the Federal government has given guidance on any aspect of student loans, FAFSA, stimulus, etc.

FWIW - There won't be any in person classes.   The University knows it.  The students know it.  The faculty knows it too.   Best to have to announce the school will offer classes and declare they will make adjustments as we go.   Remember that seniors, in particular, need some assurances that courses will be held so they can graduate on time.   That's more critical to know than the cost of the classes.

Graduate into what will be the worst economic environment in two generations, but still graduate.

Most businesses just don't have a global pandemic scenario in their playbook.   Everyone is making this up as they go.   But at least now students know they don't need to try to find flights back to the SF Bay Area or off-campus housing.

I think most students left for Spring Break understanding their return to campus was HIGHLY unlikely.   And then got messages right at the start of that weekend noting returning to campus would not happen this year.   

Most of this has happened in less than 7 business days.   And it is not as if the employees at Stanford don't have other worries to deal with (like say...their survival given their workplace has had multiple cases identified already).

So given all of that...Yeah, I think it is fine.

Health first...financial issues must be secondary.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - cardcrimson - 03-17-2020

Part of it depends upon the quality of the online experience offered the students. If it is world class, interactive learning with both profs and fellow students, than it's okay to keep the tuition the same. If it's a "me too" approach to online learning, no better than the University of Phoenix or the University of New Hampshire, than no, it's not worth the cash. 

Stanford needs to step up and make sure the environment is indeed the best available anywhere.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - 82lsju - 03-17-2020

I would guess that if you're a senior and need the units/classes spring quarter to graduate you'd just pay and move on

of course the entire interviewing for a job would be changed, as well as if we go into a recession then there might not be many jobs for grads (well other than CS grads)

If you're a freshman or sophomore maybe you stop out for the quarter if you think the on-line experience is not going to be good

If you're a junior it probably depends on your major, back in my pre-historic times as a chemical engineer the core classes were offered once a year so if you stopped out spring quarter your junior year you'd have 4 chemical engineering classes spring quarter of your senior year, which would be a lot of work.  Other majors are probably different

Of course if the senior year chem eng classes are the same now as they were back then you had a two quarter lab class winter/spring that would not be feasible on-line so just paying and moving on might be interesting for some majors.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - Mick - 03-18-2020

(03-17-2020, 08:05 PM)82lsju Wrote:  I would guess that if you're a senior and need the units/classes spring quarter to graduate you'd just pay and move on

of course the entire interviewing for a job would be changed, as well as if we go into a recession then there might not be many jobs for grads (well other than CS grads)

If you're a freshman or sophomore maybe you stop out for the quarter if you think the on-line experience is not going to be good

If you're a junior it probably depends on your major, back in my pre-historic times as a chemical engineer the core classes were offered once a year so if you stopped out spring quarter your junior year you'd have 4 chemical engineering classes spring quarter of your senior year, which would be a lot of work.  Other majors are probably different

Of course if the senior year chem eng classes are the same now as they were back then you had a two quarter lab class winter/spring that would not be feasible on-line so just paying and moving on might be interesting for some majors.

If I were a frosh, soph or junior, I'd take a year off.  Senior, I'd suck it up and get it over with.  I can take Internet courses any time, anywhere.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - robin - 03-18-2020

The point of the original post does not seem particularly hard to grasp, yet none of the responses take on the central point doug is making...  Do you think that what Stanford is doing by reducing financial aid but not tuition is the right thing to do in these difficult times, particularly for a school as wealthy as Stanford?  FWIW, I don’t. In fact, I think if my alma mater cares about leading (remember the “Leading Matters” campaign?), it would be an example of bold leadership to consider closing the school and perhaps opening dormitories to COVID-19 quarantined persons because online classes in no way can compare to the give-and-take of in-person learning experiences.  A recent Stanford grad I know thinks maybe Stanford has told current students their tuition for an only-online spring quarter experience will be reduced and the school just hasn’t said this publicly.  Has anyone heard anything to that effect from any current students?

Leftcoast - Leftcoast - 03-18-2020

Financial aid is itemized by category including Room and Board, Tuition, etc.  I wouldn’t expect to get the room and board portion if I am living elsewhere.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - chrisk - 03-18-2020

Stanford is making new announcements daily. The current position may or may not be the same.

Some students may be allowed to take a leave of absence. There are a lot of students who may not be allowed to do so. I think that is a bigger issue.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - Papa John - 03-18-2020

Let's see what happens once spring quarter starts in a week and a half. The university may reconsider or at least modify its policy.

Related to some of the comments above: Online instruction is certainly different--I had my spring quarter course at UC Santa Barbara all planned and ready to go, and now I have to convert it to an online course. But I don't think that the quality of my instruction will be that much worse than in-person. There's plenty of possibilities for online interaction. The hardest part is setting up for asynchronous instruction, since I cannot assume that my students will be watching me teach as I livestream at 8 am on Mondays and Wednesdays. However, I acknowledge that the quality of *learning* may be worse, but that depends on each student's learning style and life situation.

The biggest drop in teaching quality will be in the science lab and arts studio instruction. That hands-on, personalized instruction is just not the same online, IMO.

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - robin - 03-18-2020

To Leftcoast, I am not questioning a reduction in financial aid payments for at-home room/board but rather the failure of my undergraduate university to recognize the profoundly-different experience online vs. in-person learning occasions and this same school’s apparent inability — as one of America’s wealthiest educational institutions — to do something bold vis a vis this human health calamity that appears to be affecting persons differently depending on their status as celebrity, non-celebrity etc.  See today’s LA Times articles — the front page of the paper vs. the first page of the same newspaper’s sports section — about the COVID-19 testing experience of “Roddy” vs. the Lakers players who played the Nets last week. And I would like to see the readers of this thread think on the fact that Jane Lathrop Stanford and Leland Stanford’s founding vision appears to have been a co-educational school of higher learning that required no student tuition payments/the profound departure from that original vision this latest conduct reveals.

To determine how much solace I should take from the post by “chrisk” about “new announcements daily” to the position Stanford took last week with Tessier-Lavigne‘s announcement about spring quarter classes being online only followed by “FAQ” announcements as reported by Erin Woo in the March 11 Stanford Daily (https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/03/10/spring-classes-online-until-further-notice-undergrads-asked-not-to-return-to-campus-after-break/), I will hope to read about the equitable application of the University’s leave of absence policy as I have no knowledge of the terms of this policy or its current (or for that matter its prior) administration.
...and having just now realized from a rereading of Erin Wo’s Daily article that LAST THURSDAY was the date by which students had to register for spring quarter 2020, I can only hope Stanford will view the prompt submission of a leave of absence request as superseding any contractual obligations occasioned by such registrations while university policies were evolving

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - Mick - 03-18-2020

(03-18-2020, 09:54 AM)chrisk Wrote:  Stanford is making new announcements daily.  The current position may or may not be the same.

Some students may be allowed to take a leave of absence.  There are a lot of students who may not be allowed to do so.  I think that is a bigger issue.

I went to college in the Stone Age, but I seem to recall that the University would allow anyone to take a year off, with or without reason.  Not sure if that's still the case.  It may be that the "gap year" students want to take comes between their sophomore and junior years at Stanford.

RE: Leftcoast - Farm93 - 03-18-2020

(03-18-2020, 09:40 AM)Leftcoast Wrote:  Financial aid is itemized by category including Room and Board, Tuition, etc.  I wouldn’t expect to get the room and board portion if I am living elsewhere.
Not only that but it is actually not Stanford's money to issue in many cases.   I believe the Federal guaranteed loans need to be aligned to actual costs.  Given the way financial aid works, how it is guaranteed, and who would actually pay, at least in some cases, for Stanford's generosity I do think Stanford should adjust the aid package to reflect living at home.   Stanford is not providing room or board, so issuing out aid to students as if that was still happening could cascade into a full of accounting problems and PR issues.  As some would note the Federal government was subsidizing Stanford students chillin' at home rather than giving more money to now unemployed workers that also lost their health care insurance.

Ignoring Stanford's current tuition, room and board pricing, if I was a parent of a Freshman, Sophomore or Junior I would want to understand why the Spring Quarter 2020 was essential.

However, as I think about it I would wonder what my child would do if they were not attending classes.   It is highly unlikely any company will be looking for college interns or college temporary workers for the next several months.  Given the lack of alternatives, and the difficulty associated with transferring classes into Stanford credits, I probably would pay unless I could quickly craft an amazing off the grid type family experience for 3-5 months.  The value is not great, but there are going to be very few credible alternatives, and even fewer that would not include a meaningful risk of COVID-19 exposure (Grocery store clerk, Amazon Prime delivery, census worker, etc.)

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - 82lsju - 03-18-2020

Stanford student LOA rules

https://registrar.stanford.edu/students/leave-absence

RE: Does anyone here think this is right? - winflop - 03-19-2020

(03-17-2020, 04:54 PM)doug Wrote:  Stanford has announced that all classes for the Spring Quarter will be online only at least to start. The administration hasn’t taken a formal position as to whether there will be any in-person classes at all during the Spring Quarter. Stanford has further announced that financial aid for the Spring will be reduced to reflect the lower cost to students of not living on campus. Yet the administration has also said there will be no reduction in tuition for Spring Quarter due to the online classes. 

So students will at a minimum be partly deprived of the on campus experience during the Spring, and may be completely deprived for the entire quarter, but will receive no reduction in tuition. I might feel differently about such a decision for a less wealthy school, but that doesn’t seem to me to be the right thing for Stanford to do.

As a point of reference, on Tuesday Santa Clara announced that the entire Spring Quarter will be remote and students on campus need to move out. We moved my son out of his dorm yesterday. I wrote to the President asking that they reduce tuition for the quarter. Remote instruction is not the same value as an on-campus education. Stanford needs to do the same.