[than3]

US-based community college is mostly just a bait and switch fraud. There inevitably are weed-out classes where you can be weeded out of programs or college entirely simply by having the unfortunate luck to attend them. Usually positioned in critical preparatory or transfer coursework needed for a degree program, its mostly not about knowing the material, but dealing with the disadvantaged structure, and having limited resources to attend college in the first place.

I've personal experience in an engineering program, where this was common practice in the 3-class core physics courses. 3 question-20step/q test where each subsequent question is dependent on the answer to the previous question. This is the causality spiral of doom, where you either get it perfect, or you don't pass, but you have to get it perfect 6 times in a row to pass the class. By the time you take the first test, you can't get a refund, and if the answer doesn't match perfectly with Pearson or Canvas's material, good luck you just wasted $10-15,000 in living expenses during the time you tried. Try again. and again. and maybe by time 8 or 10 you decide its just not a program for you anymore, and you run into the same issue with the supposedly easier classes in the business program, or drop out completely.

Some professors take it a step further by adjusting the rounding strategy between those questions instead of following the same significant digits. Its deceitful lying meant to sell you a pipe-dream which you'll never be able to complete unless you get lucky, and that's just one example. I've almost 15 years worth of examples, in a broad geographic area.

Its one of the most egregious deceitful lies we are told as people entering college. Education is only an investment when you can get something back from that investment. If you just need that paper because anyone without it is not qualified, then it doesn't matter what you know (as many professionals I've met have demonstrated they lacked crucial skills and had no inclination to fix their shortfalls).

Not even close to meritocracy, I've passed and completed up through DiffEQ and Linear Algebra math wise which require Calculus 3 as a pre-requisite. No issues with math, but I have yet to pass a Mechanics of Solid course because of structure. Its structured to fail people. Eventually people give up trying to be engineers and try business only to find the same thing in the economic's courses. Its such corrupt deceitful bad behavior, and impacts those who have to pay their own way through more than others.

I had an online econ class this past semester which had all the same hallmarks, worse, the professor was collecting a paycheck, and instead of lecturing simply referred us to Khan Academy movie links and Pearson's Autograder (which routinely failed on correct answers, and no exceptions were being made regardless, i.e. its the student not the professor or pearson were in the wrong).

Any other industry doing these same business practices would be sued or shut down for outright fraud and unfair and deceptive business practices. Because its state funded its somehow exempt from all those same rules. Also the only path to correct is escalating to the chair/dean/trustees rarely ever has any action taken. The people responsible for advocating are the same people that have let this continue for decades.

They don't track metrics that would quickly show problems so they can fix them. My local colleges say they don't track how many students in each class have taken the same class or professor before and failed, and the graduation rates as we all know are abyssal.

[culopatin]

I’ve also dropped out of college the first time I tried it, and I don’t agree with the way we teach and I surely think there are better ways. But it seems like you’re externalizing a personal problem to the whole system. 15 years in school, in the US, including community colleges maybe shows that you either had the wrong mindset or you tend to blame others for things that may be you. It’s very common btw.

The schools in the US are much easier than many. Try going to a public school in Argentina. 4h long lectures, theory of limit in the third class of calc. Proving theorems. Here? Sign in to Pearson and do some exercises.

[than3]

Unfortunately, this is the tendency, to always blame the student because its their fault not the systems fault. You must be doing something wrong, I've heard it all. It took me two decades to find out these were lies.

Sure there are some classes where I had to withdraw because I'm paying for it myself, working a full time job alongside all my classes, with no family support, largely because my parent decided to rob my college fund. Scholarships and grants not an option because my parent makes too much and that's calculated even though they aren't providing any support.

Is it my fault that the units for the classes were misrepresented so a 3 unit course requires 22 hours a week to complete instead of the 9 its supposed to? (Can you do 16 weeks straight of 62 hour work weeks perfectly?)

Or the fact that questions on tests may have 3/5 correct answers, but only 1 real answer and they don't communicate the necessary context to find the real answer. (i.e. they don't teach what you are tested on).

Or the autograder attached to the class marking correct answers wrong, and because each student has randomized questions for the same assignment the teacher doesn't do their job.

Or the test material not being covered at all in preparation, and repeat students selling exams inside the class with the tacit approval of the instructor because she doesn't change it year to year, and the chair and dean do nothing about the academic dishonesty because the dean or chair is new in the job and the professor has seniority?

Or the class has a general 12% pass rate, and those 12% are people who have made many attempts, with one on those on their 6th attempt?

Surely these are all issues with the student having personal issues? /s Mind you, each one of these happened at a different local community college so its not even just one college.

Its not the whole coursework ecosystem, its critical coursework that's needed to transfer and complete that degree. Specific bottlenecks that everyone has to go through because its required. In engineering it was physics, the Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, and Light trifecta coursework. In business it was economics.

There is nothing personal about structure.

What's galling is I can derive Maxwells equations, and yet can't pass the physics courses, and Pearson sucks, they also intentionally embed dark patterns, and 30-40% of their testing material doesn't track with their practice, and they introduce new tools in the tests which are also broken. Worse, Pearson shifts their auditing to the student. I had questions where the test question changed after submission where I recorded it. Not enough evidence for the teacher to do anything. Yeah video evidence isn't enough, what will be?.

Its a systemic problem, and it has nothing to do with the student. They have optimized to snowball fail you. It was not just me either, there were hundreds maybe thousands, and there was a group trying to change this but the trustees never listened.

Classwork for degrees are supposed to be determinable so long as you know the material and are taught that material. In each of these cases, either it wasn't determinable (which btw is a system's property thing, it has a very specific definition), or they didn't teach the material. Either way you cut it, its fraud. They receive money for something (instruction and testing), and don't provide what they said, and due process doesn't exist because the people you report issues to are not obligated to act on them. They also happen to often be teachers who will receive social retribution if they do act (a common bureacratic issue).

I had no problems with Calculus, differentiation, double integration, series, multivariate, ordinary differential equations, no problem. I can prove theorems, systems of equations. I just can't pass the physics they have structured because of how its structured.

The point is the vast majority for the failures have nothing to do with me personally. Its simply the person who set up a course structure so once a single unexpected misstep occurs, you fail the class. They are optimizing for repeat customers and least work, and its fraud when a reasonable person knowing the material can't pass the course, and instruction and testing lack crucial integrity. If you cannot provide perfection, you don't pass; and I hope I don't have to tell you how asinine that is.

There has never been any accountability in the education system and the student is left with no effective means of controlling basic academic outcomes. That's what it comes down to.

Mind you many professional certifications have the exact same issues. Incidentally who do you think handles that? (Pearson).

So you are told, you will have no work opportunities if you don't hold a degree, or you don't have a professional certification, and they make it nigh impossible to get either. What's the problem here?

This shouldn't be happening, and yet its been allowed to continue for a generation (20 years). I know a few American's who travelled overseas (EU) to get their degrees because its less corrupt and dishonest than what's available locally.

When tallying my expenses so far (without a degree), I've spent roughly $280,000* on trying to get a degree and while I'm 2/3 there to a business degree, I still don't have it. If you factor in the value of money if I had invested that over the same time period, that's easily over a million dollars. An investment in a nonexistent future sold as a lie because it took decades instead of the 4 that were advertised. All that additional income that's needed for critical life things like buying your first home, getting married, having kids, all not possible if you don't have the income to support it.

Most people just drop out and cut their losses, I just wanted to build things... and I never had the chance because it was stolen through fraud with no accountability. There are many people out there just like me, but there's no visibility on the problem because they don't collect metrics that would show there is a problem. Instead they blame the student and claim they don't have enough resources at the taxpayers expense. Its the same shill argument that we fail because we don't have enough, when they'll never have enough, because its a systemic issue.

* Includes living expenses during that time.