Tuition Sticker Shock!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I need to vent but this is not pit-worthy

I have found an online univerity that I believe is a perfect match for me. Most of my existing credits will carry over to it so my prior classes are not “wasted time”

The institution I want to go to is South University

My problem is money or rather lack of.

Tuition there is 1048 per class and I would be taking 2 classes per 5.5 week semester for a total of $2096. For one year of classes I would have to pay $12,576.00 While I may qualify for tuition reimbursement from my employer It is too late to put in for the the firts two semesters because they need 13 weeks notice.

I earn $32,450 a year and after car, credit card payments, car insurance I don’t have much left over.

I know I’m the only person to blame for my credit card debt and poor savings habits so most of my problem is caused by myself.

So basicly to go to the school I feel is the best fit I need to spend abour 38% of my annual salary.

I’ve thought about trying to sell items on CafePress but my art skills are lacking. Any suggestions where I can earn additional funds to pay for my classes

Having said that I’m looking at

2

Holy crap. That’s a lotta money.

Thank goodness I’m going to go to a community college that offers online courses. Cheap edumacation.

Have you thought about financial aid, or maybe a loan? I signed up at fastweb.com and there’s a whole buttload of scholarships you can apply for, too.

~Tasha

3

[QUOTE=tashabot]
Holy crap. That’s a lotta money.

Thank goodness I’m going to go to a community college that offers online courses. Cheap edumacation.

Have you thought about financial aid, or maybe a loan? I signed up at fastweb.com and there’s a whole buttload of scholarships you can apply for, too.

~Tasha
[/QUOTE]

I will look into fastweb.com

4

That is really pretty inexpensive compared to most private schools and even many public ones although it may not seem like it to you. My university was near 30K a year back in the mid-90’s and there are many well past that now with some pushing 40k a year now. I know that doesnt make you feel much better except you can take comfort in the fact that families making 150K a year and have to pay those private school bills and they are hurting at least as much as you are.

A college degree from a private university is a pretty good deal and you shouldn’t have much problem pushing your salary in NJ to 50K or maybe much more with it so it will pay for itself fairly quickly. If your employer pays part of it, that is even more attractive. Remember that employers usually do a hard sort between people that have A DEGREE and those that don’t regardless of what it is in so it will definitely be worth your while personally and professionally. Whatever you do, don’t bail out mid-stream or you will get experience the worst of both worlds.

5

[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
That is really pretty inexpensive compared to most private schools and even many public ones although it may not seem like it to you. My university was near 30K a year back in the mid-90’s and there are many well past that now with some pushing 40k a year now. I know that doesnt make you feel much better except you can take comfort in the fact that families making 150K a year and have to pay those private school bills and they are hurting at least as much as you are.

A college degree from a private university is a pretty good deal and you shouldn’t have much problem pushing your salary in NJ to 50K or maybe much more with it so it will pay for itself fairly quickly. If your employer pays part of it, that is even more attractive. Remember that employers usually do a hard sort between people that have A DEGREE and those that don’t regardless of what it is in so it will definitely be worth your while personally and professionally. Whatever you do, don’t bail out mid-stream or you will get experience the worst of both worlds.
[/QUOTE]

One of the major reasons I am going to school is because I’ve found it very difficult to get work as an IT professional with only my Microsoft Certifications. There have been some IT positions with the state that I applied for only to be turned down for an interview because I did not have 60 credits or a degree.

While I enjoy helping people file for unemployment and answering their questions I don’t want to be a clerical worker forever.

I know the tuition I am looking at is reasonable compared to many places but my parents (who would have to cosign) are not convinced that I can’t find a less expensive route

6

I work as an IT consult/business systems analyst but my undergraduate and graduate work is in behavioral neuroscience. I have had only one potential employer out of over 100 through the years say that my degree wasn’t related enough to the position. The vast majority just want to see A DEGREE. On my team, we have a project manager with a degree in criminal justice, a report developer with a degree in political science, me, and another business systems analyst with a degree in fine arts.

I interview lots of people these days and we have only hired one temporary consultant without a degree and she was going to night classes at the Harvard extension school. It really is a gate-keeping measure at most businesses although IT people were among the only ones that could slip by at some points due to high demands for certain skills.

Don’t go to the cheapest school if you can help it although designer schools like the ones I went to may be overrated in the job market but people know the cheapy, crappy ones too and it could reflect badly on you if you did things by price shopping alone.

7

Shagnasty I appreciate your input on this. One of the reasons I chose South University besides the fact that their representatives adhered to my request to contact me over E-mail only and not to call call me at work or on my cell is that thye are a Level V school and had a Masters program.

I’m hoping in a year and a half when I have my Associates Degree there will be a help desk position open that I will qualify for. That will then let me get into a Network Administrator position.

8

[QUOTE=MannyL]
Shagnasty I appreciate your input on this. One of the reasons I chose South University besides the fact that their representatives adhered to my request to contact me over E-mail only and not to call call me at work or on my cell is that thye are a Level V school and had a Masters program.

I’m hoping in a year and a half when I have my Associates Degree there will be a help desk position open that I will qualify for. That will then let me get into a Network Administrator position.
[/QUOTE]

You may want to consider a different career choice. I’m working on a program right now that may lay off 98% of our network administrators - with identity management and provisioning, role defining and goverance, this is a job that doesn’t have a lot of long term potential - its all going to be self service.

We still need a few guys around to patch servers. We figure two. And those may be outsourced.

Don’t know if we will end up doing it now, but the writing is on the wall - this job is going the way of the typing pool.

9

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
You may want to consider a different career choice. I’m working on a program right now that may lay off 98% of our network administrators - with identity management and provisioning, role defining and goverance, this is a job that doesn’t have a lot of long term potential - its all going to be self service.

We still need a few guys around to patch servers. We figure two. And those may be outsourced.

Don’t know if we will end up doing it now, but the writing is on the wall - this job is going the way of the typing pool.
[/QUOTE]

Dangerosa I appreciate your insight but working with computers is one of by best skills. I believe with the amount of computing services my state is adding they will only be expanding the positions. And if I have to change fields down the lone having a degree in any field will help me get my resume looked at.

10

[QUOTE=MannyL]
Tuition there is 1048 per class and I would be taking 2 classes per 5.5 week semester for a total of $2096. For one year of classes I would have to pay $12,576.00 While I may qualify for tuition reimbursement from my employer It is too late to put in for the the firts two semesters because they need 13 weeks notice.
[/QUOTE]

Can you wait 13 weeks, until your employers tuition reimbursement kicks in? That’s a third of a school year missed, but it’s also a chunk of cash.

11

I could wait the 13 weeks but the problem is they may decide it does not fall under career advancement then it would be denied.

12

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
You may want to consider a different career choice. I’m working on a program right now that may lay off 98% of our network administrators - with identity management and provisioning, role defining and goverance, this is a job that doesn’t have a lot of long term potential - its all going to be self service.

We still need a few guys around to patch servers. We figure two. And those may be outsourced.

Don’t know if we will end up doing it now, but the writing is on the wall - this job is going the way of the typing pool.
[/QUOTE]

What do you mean by network administrator? How many do you have? I am just curious because I just got done with a network tech class, and I have no real world experience, but a couple of the places I have worked. A friend works as a computer tech at a pretty big company (Grainger), he works a shift by himself (evening), as does his counterpart on days. His boss above him is pretty much the network administrator. He is basically the focused responsibility of the network at that warehouse, and oversees all the physical systems as well as all network software and employees user rights and the like.

Three people in that building. Only one is actually dealing with administration. My friend and his counterpart all have other tasks not always related to the network. They are the general computer fixer guys. Clean the desktops, make sure nobody is hacking, blow out the computers, change bad components, etc. He keeps pretty busy but it is a pretty large warehouse and there is only one of him (on the shift). No way I can see that being outsourced. Somebody in the building has to be responsible for what goes on in the LAN, so cutting him out is not an option.

Where I am doing my work study this semester (and in between semesters) is the Human Resources for my College. This part has guy that is the webmaster/ network admin / user profile admin / basic hardware and misc for the whole building, a database administrator that oversees the network admin guy but for the most part just deals with the massive amounts of database stuff. Then there is a guy that pretty much codes all day. I have no idea what he does, other than writes all the code for the webpages, but he doesn’t report to the webmaster, oddly enough.

Anyway, it seems in my paltry experience that there is only usually one guy in charge per site. Are you suggesting your software gets rid of the need for somebody onsite to be the one responsible for any problems or changes?

I’m not sure, had I a business, that I would trust software to be my focused responsibility. I would want an experienced, professional and educated person that knows what he is doing to take care of my network, and be responsible should it fail.

13

Oh brother I feel your pain. I’m getting the education I really want, and it comes with a $40k price tag. And that’s per year, not total.

Uh, on the upside, it makes it look like my couple hundred in credit card debt (sigh) is absolutely nothing.

Best of luck to you. Education’s a great thing, shame it’s so pricey.

14

[QUOTE=Epimetheus]
What do you mean by network administrator? How many do you have? I am just curious because I just got done with a network tech class, and I have no real world experience, but a couple of the places I have worked. A friend works as a computer tech at a pretty big company (Grainger), he works a shift by himself (evening), as does his counterpart on days. His boss above him is pretty much the network administrator. He is basically the focused responsibility of the network at that warehouse, and oversees all the physical systems as well as all network software and employees user rights and the like.

Three people in that building. Only one is actually dealing with administration. My friend and his counterpart all have other tasks not always related to the network. They are the general computer fixer guys. Clean the desktops, make sure nobody is hacking, blow out the computers, change bad components, etc. He keeps pretty busy but it is a pretty large warehouse and there is only one of him (on the shift). No way I can see that being outsourced. Somebody in the building has to be responsible for what goes on in the LAN, so cutting him out is not an option.

Where I am doing my work study this semester (and in between semesters) is the Human Resources for my College. This part has guy that is the webmaster/ network admin / user profile admin / basic hardware and misc for the whole building, a database administrator that oversees the network admin guy but for the most part just deals with the massive amounts of database stuff. Then there is a guy that pretty much codes all day. I have no idea what he does, other than writes all the code for the webpages, but he doesn’t report to the webmaster, oddly enough.

Anyway, it seems in my paltry experience that there is only usually one guy in charge per site. Are you suggesting your software gets rid of the need for somebody onsite to be the one responsible for any problems or changes?

I’m not sure, had I a business, that I would trust software to be my focused responsibility. I would want an experienced, professional and educated person that knows what he is doing to take care of my network, and be responsible should it fail.
[/QUOTE]

I work for a Fortune 500 with a global presence. We have about 200 people who support File/Print, Applications or Email servers worldwide. We’ve already moved a lot of our Unix/Oracle apps to centralized data centers. We are talking about centralizing most of the rest of it. We’d likely do it with WAFS appliances - so there is Network hardware (routers and switches) at the site, but no server infrastructure. I’m not sure if we will end up doing it or not. Some sites, where it is essential not to have the WAN as a point of failure, may continue to have some systems on site.

Simultanously, we are planning on putting in Identity Management systems which automates most of the “Active Directory Users and Computers” type tasks. Want acess to a share - its self service, with the business owner approving access. Need an account - you get one automatically from the HR feed. Leave the company - your account is disabled and evenutally deleted through the same feed.

We will still need desktop techs at the site, and at larger sites will probably want our own in house phone/LAN/WAN guy (small and medium sites we’d contract that) - one of the two of them will need to plug the printers in. But the email guy and the server guy, they are potentially in for a career change. At this point this is all “vision” but the vision has become much clearer over the past year - really the question is “do we do it next year, or will it be five before we pull it off?” Five years from now, though, we will almost certainly have all that infrastructure sitting in Asia, where we can pay someone about a 10th of what we pay them here.

15

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
I work for a Fortune 500 with a global presence. We have about 200 people who support File/Print, Applications or Email servers worldwide. We’ve already moved a lot of our Unix/Oracle apps to centralized data centers. We are talking about centralizing most of the rest of it. We’d likely do it with WAFS appliances - so there is Network hardware (routers and switches) at the site, but no server infrastructure. I’m not sure if we will end up doing it or not. Some sites, where it is essential not to have the WAN as a point of failure, may continue to have some systems on site.

Simultanously, we are planning on putting in Identity Management systems which automates most of the “Active Directory Users and Computers” type tasks. Want acess to a share - its self service, with the business owner approving access. Need an account - you get one automatically from the HR feed. Leave the company - your account is disabled and evenutally deleted through the same feed.

We will still need desktop techs at the site, and at larger sites will probably want our own in house phone/LAN/WAN guy (small and medium sites we’d contract that) - one of the two of them will need to plug the printers in. But the email guy and the server guy, they are potentially in for a career change. At this point this is all “vision” but the vision has become much clearer over the past year - really the question is “do we do it next year, or will it be five before we pull it off?” Five years from now, though, we will almost certainly have all that infrastructure sitting in Asia, where we can pay someone about a 10th of what we pay them here.
[/QUOTE]

Similarly to Dangerosa, I work for a top 3 oil company with hundreds of sites worldwide. 8 years ago, we probably had 80 server admins who supported backoffice systems in the US alone. That shrank to 40 people who managed the same number of sites and also Canada and Latin America, with some offshore help (15 engineers) from Mexico. Then they all got laid off, and their roles were transitioned to a South African team that works around the clock to support both the Americas and Europe.

In addition to those changes, we are migrating all our remote servers into so-called Mega Data Centers, where we can consolidate our operations. We’ll also explore the use of WAFS/WAAS to reduce infrastructure at the remote sites, and push the implementation of Virtualization technologies to reduce our server footprint. Identity and Access Management (IDAM) is on the horizon, though we haven’t implemented it yet.

If your infrastructure can be managed remotely, your job is not safe, especially at a big company. Offshoring is big, and smaller teams that monitor regionally diverse sites are becoming more common. Even at sites that need technicians, they are getting siloed into specific roles, with no cross training. Desktop techs stay desktop, and rarely advance. Once in a while a LAN technician will become a WAN technician or architect, but only when someone leaves for greener pastures.

Finding a small company that would let you grow into your role used to be the best way for an entry level tech to get some experience, but it’s getting harder and harder to find those jobs. The smaller companies tend to want a know-it-all to replace the one who left, but at a cheaper price. Try finding someone with Cisco, Microsoft Windows and Exchange, Citrix and UNIX/Linux experience, who will work for $50k. Don’t laugh, you see these kinds of job postings all the time.

But enough about that, what about your Associate’s? I’m not sure what county you live in, but just looking at Middlesex County College for example, you can get your AAS in Telecommunication Networking Technology for 63-66 credits. That should be less than $2000 a semester, and financial aid may be available.
http://www.middlesexcc.edu/future/academics/programspdf/46.pdf
http://www.middlesexcc.edu/admit/control.cfm/ID/2340
Make sure you can transfer your credits to a 4-year college, and save yourself a ton of money.

Your degree is going to be very important. Right now I’m seeing longtime colleagues get laid off, and they aren’t able to find new jobs because they don’t have their degrees. And these are guys with their CCIEs. Keep your current job if you can, because if they might offer tuition reimbursement, that will be free money to you. If you want to try to make it on your own without the degree, I’m going to suggest that you take up consulting with one of the bigger IT staffing firms, like Tek Systems or ISSG. Get on a big project, get some good experience (it’s hard to start in IT without it) and be a shining star! If you can work your ass off and distinguish yourself, you may attract someone’s attention for your next project. But getting someone to hire you outright will be hard without your Bachelor’s.