UoM General Chat

[Paulrus]

Loool I've lost my phone (with my Myki in the case) so I had to skip uni on Thursday cos I couldn't actually get there. Second year is off to a great start

[asianguy22]

mini rant here.

Anyone else find it mind blowing how, "Student and admin fees" are $290? Add that on top of the cost of text books ($200-$400) and that's over $500. What a joke.

Secondly. Does anyone else get irritated about the fact that for some subjects the text book is required only because the tutorial questions come from the book ? I have a tutorial next Monday but i have not yet purchased the book. Looks like i'm going to have to sit in class looking dumb founded as i won't be able to do any pre tutorial work.

I strongly believe that Lecturer's must get a commission for the sales of Text books. It is obvious in the way they speak about the importance of purchasing the "latest edition" (even though past editions are usually extremely similar).
Greedy people are greedy.

[Orson]

mini rant here.

Anyone else find it mind blowing how, "Student and admin fees" are $290? Add that on top of the cost of text books ($200-$400) and that's over $500. What a joke.

Secondly. Does anyone else get irritated about the fact that for some subjects the text book is required only because the tutorial questions come from the book ? I have a tutorial next Monday but i have not yet purchased the book. Looks like i'm going to have to sit in class looking dumb founded as i won't be able to do any pre tutorial work.

I strongly believe that Lecturer's must get a commission for the sales of Text books. It is obvious in the way they speak about the importance of purchasing the "latest edition" (even though past editions are usually extremely similar).
Greedy people are greedy.

If you think about it...universities make SO much money.

Let's take my foundation math class for instance. There are about 400 people enrolled in my stream. The cost of a subject is around $4000 (I'm not sure about how much subjects cost, please correct me) (We pay around $1000 in HECS, and the remainder is paid by the government for CSP students, FFP students pay the whole $4000). The university gets the whole $4000. $4000 x 400 students = $1.6 million. So for one semester, we all have (for my class) 60 hours.

Lets be generous and say $500k cover hiring the lecturers, TAs, demonstrators, cleaning the lecture halls, the opportunity cost of using the lecture hall and rooms for classes, and not some paid function (I learned that in Micro) for the semester, the uni still have $1.1 million left over as revenue for a class.

Times this revenue by how many classes they run (I know they are not all the same size)...

We don't pay for the class, we pay for the piece of paper in the end that tells people we are qualified, and I'd say we also pay for the experience of going to university.

Similarly to what you're saying, us having to buy textbooks, pay for the pool and gym, and all that sucks because it wouldn't eat that much into their revenue to provide us with it.

My Microecon lecturer wrote the book, and gets $2.50 per book sold from the publisher. He said he understood that its unethical, so he is donating all his profits to charity.

[( ͡⊙ ͜ʖ ͡⊙)]

If you think about it...universities make SO much money.

Let's take my foundation math class for instance. There are about 400 people enrolled in my stream. The cost of a subject is around $4000 (I'm not sure about how much subjects cost, please correct me) (We pay around $1000 in HECS, and the remainder is paid by the government for CSP students, FFP students pay the whole $4000). The university gets the whole $4000. $4000 x 400 students = $1.6 million. So for one semester, we all have (for my class) 60 hours.

Lets be generous and say $500k cover hiring the lecturers, TAs, demonstrators, cleaning the lecture halls, the opportunity cost of using the lecture hall and rooms for classes, and not some paid function (I learned that in Micro) for the semester, the uni still have $1.1 million left over as revenue for a class.

Times this revenue by how many classes they run (I know they are not all the same size)...

We don't pay for the class, we pay for the piece of paper in the end that tells people we are qualified, and I'd say we also pay for the experience of going to university.

Similarly to what you're saying, us having to buy textbooks, pay for the pool and gym, and all that sucks because it wouldn't eat that much into their revenue to provide us with it.

My Microecon lecturer wrote the book, and gets $2.50 per book sold from the publisher. He said he understood that its unethical, so he is donating all his profits to charity.

We are taking uni costs for granted. Lets be grateful because its sometimes $60,000 of your own money (or loans with interest) per year in usa.

[tashhhaaa]

We are taking uni costs for granted. Lets be grateful because its sometimes $60,000 of your own money (or loans with interest) per year in usa.

this. Pretty much everyone can get some form of tertiary education if they choose in Australia since we have HECS, but people in the USA might not go to uni because they can't afford it

[Orson]

We are taking uni costs for granted. Lets be grateful because its sometimes $60,000 of your own money (or loans with interest) per year in usa.

this. Pretty much everyone can get some form of tertiary education if they choose in Australia since we have HECS, but people in the USA might not go to uni because they can't afford it

Keep in mind that Australia and the US are completely different places. Policies here and there are created to cater to different people. Most of what happens in the US are to benefit the rich, just look at the state of their healthcare.

Yeah. I was asking people on a JD forum about pursuing a JD after my undergrad, and EVERYONE there regretted going to Law school. America is full of lawyers, so I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with that, but they said that once they graduated, they were working non stop in order to pay their student loans. They had to slave away at big firms, when they really wanted to do pro bono work. I'm not talking about one guys story on there, I'm talking nearly everybody.

Australia is a top bloke.

FUN FACT: 1 in 10 people in Washington DC are lawyers.

[spectroscopy]

We don't pay for the class, we pay for the piece of paper in the end that tells people we are qualified, and I'd say we also pay for the experience of going to university.

we also pay for the millions of dollars of construction to build state of the art buildings, labs, simulators, hire professional staff, and to buy the best and newest technology so our researchers can continue to make breakthroughs etc.
from our perspective it seems like university is mostly about students and increasingly thats true but people (especially in undergrad) really under estimate the importance and cost of the research output that is required to maintain a high ranking university's position

[Stick]

University education is free or of negligible cost in some countries, particularly in Europe. It is seen as an investment in the people, who, through strong manufacturing exports and trade, have become their country's most valuable economic asset. From what I gather this wouldn't work too well in Australia because we don't manufacture much. That being said, the costs may be made up elsewhere (e.g. tax).

[Orson]

we also pay for the millions of dollars of construction to build state of the art buildings, labs, simulators, hire professional staff, and to buy the best and newest technology so our researchers can continue to make breakthroughs etc.
from our perspective it seems like university is mostly about students and increasingly thats true but people (especially in undergrad) really under estimate the importance and cost of the research output that is required to maintain a high ranking university's position

Yes, I understand that. But are they really hard up with money that they really can't make the pool/gym free? They charge $1 per hour for the tennis courts, which I understand is very cheap, but why do they need to charge us at all? Same with textbooks...

I know universities are there for profit, but still its kinda unfair. My whole argument was in response to this:

mini rant here.

Anyone else find it mind blowing how, "Student and admin fees" are $290? Add that on top of the cost of text books ($200-$400) and that's over $500. What a joke.

Secondly. Does anyone else get irritated about the fact that for some subjects the text book is required only because the tutorial questions come from the book ? I have a tutorial next Monday but i have not yet purchased the book. Looks like i'm going to have to sit in class looking dumb founded as i won't be able to do any pre tutorial work.

I strongly believe that Lecturer's must get a commission for the sales of Text books. It is obvious in the way they speak about the importance of purchasing the "latest edition" (even though past editions are usually extremely similar).
Greedy people are greedy.

[Stevensmay]

Yes, I understand that. But are they really hard up with money that they really can't make the pool/gym free? They charge $1 per hour for the tennis courts, which I understand is very cheap, but why do they need to charge us at all? Same with textbooks...

I know universities are there for profit, but still its kinda unfair. My whole argument was in response to this:

The $290 goes towards UMSU which many people utilize. Even if you don't personally utilize any union related things such as clubs etc you can't then go and say the gym should be free, as it only benefits a subset of the uni population. It's the same problem all general taxation systems will have, and as of now there isn't an equitable system. It would be better to reduce university fees rather than subsidize textbooks and gyms in my opinion.

Content wise (not question wise) I've never had a textbook that was absolutely required, although this is coming from a commerce/science perspective and I admit it may be different for the Arts.

The university itself doesn't actually set subject fees either, that is undertaken by the federal government I believe. Sure they probably lobby them for a certain level but its still outside the universities control. Interesting to note that university subject fees have actually decreased since 1997, when the three tier HECS system was introduced by Howard.

[spectroscopy]

Yes, I understand that. But are they really hard up with money that they really can't make the pool/gym free? They charge $1 per hour for the tennis courts, which I understand is very cheap, but why do they need to charge us at all? Same with textbooks...

I know universities are there for profit, but still its kinda unfair. My whole argument was in response to this:

i personally agree with pretty much all of the things you guys are saying, textbooks are a waste of money (in my experience) and lecturers that author books do get a commission (royalties), and abolishing the ssaf would literally be a 0.8% revenue hit to the university (using 2014 income figures) (although there is SA-Help which makes it a bit easier). even having free use of the sporting facilities for all students would BARELY (<0.8%) hit the bottom line for the university overall, and these are all ways to to massively improve quality of life for us. https://www.unimelb.edu.au/publications/docs/2014-annual-report.pdf

the thing is though, the uni has structured most of these payments we make to be hypothecated for the entities that make the monies ie; gym membership directly pays for gym maintenance, ssaf pays for umsu stuff (this is how clubs can have so many free events and free barbecues for members who only paid $2 to sign up and run events for very low costs (umsu has a reimbursement cap of $500 for most events)) http://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/UMSU-Clubs-and-Societies-Regulations-30-Jan-20121.pdf
another argument most staff at the uni have made when i say "why should i have to pay for this?" is "to set a price signal so people dont abuse it and over use it, even a $1 cost will stop alot of people from using it (diminishing servicing costs)"

but yeah, textbooks are a waste of money usually, especially when lecturers who get royalties from them push them on to us (very unethical especially since they dont disclose it) and if the uni could organise its finances better, we really shouldn't have to pay an ssaf let alone gym membership/to use tennis courts etc. etc.

these things would be a massive quality of life increase for us (you and i) and attract many more good students and staff to the university, but i doubt they will do it any time soon because their most recently published annual report shows an overall underlying operating margin of 0.3% and a) making these things free would most likely cause a >0.3% decrease in **revenues (and potentially increase servicing costs because of the elastic nature of demand) and therefor b) the uni would be in the red for the year which is a bad headline lol
also if you are wondering how they spend circa 1,886,100,000 in a year the answer is capital intensive research/property development/property acquisition etc. when you look at the annual report the university doesnt really keep that much profit tbh and they spend most of the money they earn on good uses (staff, research, scholarships, etc.) * staff costs alone are just over half a billion dollars a year assuming national average wage for all 8075 staff (8075 full time equivalent staff as of 2014, not 8075 separate staff members)

theoretically they could just choose to not build a building or get rid of a few million of scholarships or something to make all the shit that we want to be free, free, but the divided nature of the university makes that not a thing ie; why would someone who manages the money allocated to the faculty of science (for example) say "you know what we should get rid of this scholarship so the gym is free". it doesnt make sense to the person in that particular role and hence it doesnt really happen

i had a phase where i was really mad about all of this but then someone said all the information is online and in the annual reports and stuff and i said "fair enough" and had a look and thats what ive found lol feel free to do it yourself and prove me wrong, maybe ive missed something

EDIT: added a sentence where the * is, made a sentence clearer where ** is

[appleandbee]

Would anyone doing Chemistry 1 that has done or is doing the titration prac (E1) mind to send me a photos of the experimental procedure and outline? For some reason the Lab manual got removed from the LMS and I'm panicking because I have my prac early Monday morning.

[yeahm8]

Whats the process for changing subjects at this point in the semester? Say if i decided to take a biology subject would i have to make up missed pracs etc?

[Sinner]

Whats the process for changing subjects at this point in the semester? Say if i decided to take a biology subject would i have to make up missed pracs etc?

I think you have to, try contacting the subject coordinator

[Mieow]

Would anyone doing Chemistry 1 that has done or is doing the titration prac (E1) mind to send me a photos of the experimental procedure and outline? For some reason the Lab manual got removed from the LMS and I'm panicking because I have my prac early Monday morning.

Is the experiment called 'Analytical Techniques and Methods'?