http://www.wkyt.com/content/ne...onday-481150211.html


$200m University of Kentucky student center opens Monday

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - The University of Kentucky is set to open a massive, $200 million student center with rooftop gardens, fire pits and high-tech meeting rooms.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, the 378,000 square-foot facility that will open Monday features a three-story atrium that resembles Raven Run Nature Sanctuary in Lexington. Its new cafeteria even serves waffles featuring UK logos and wildcat paw prints.

Student center director John Herbst says the facility is about building community and attracting prospective students.

The previous student center was built in 1938, and expanded in 1963 and 1982.

Construction on the new project began in 2015, a year after trustee Bill Gatton pledged $20 million. The center was also funded by bonds that the university, a portion of student fees and private fundraising will help repay.

This is BEYOND ridiculous!!!!!!!!!
Insane. I can’t even wrap my head around this. And folks want to whine and complain because they have crazy amounts of student loans when they are done.

It blows my mind. I used to occassionally eat at a burger place near campus that was delicious and it cost $13 for burger fry and drink. I said occasionally because that is expensive for a person with a full time job. The place was always crowded at lunch with tons of college kids.

When I was in college my dorm had no Air Conditioning. You had one cafeteria and a little late night snack place.
I took milk jugs to the cafeteria to fill up and keep in the room.

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When I was in college my dorm had no Air Conditioning. You had one cafeteria and a little late night snack place.
I took milk jugs to the cafeteria to fill up and keep in the room.

Yeah I feel your pain. It is only going to get worse. My broker told me to plan for college expenses and when I came up with a figure to double it and add fifty percent. I paid for my two children and do not regret the money I spent. It took time getting used to all the amenities they were offered.

Colleges started to become resorts about 25 years ago-- at an accelerating pace. That has been one part of skyrocketing costs.

The other big piece is that administrators have multiplied like bacteria: Vice Presidents and Deans, each with their own Assistant Vice President and Assistant Dean, each of them with a complete staff. The buzzwords are "diversity" 'multiculturalism" "inclusion" "LGBTQ" "African American Studies" "Minority Studies" and so on.

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Originally posted by Black92LX:
m/content/ne...onday-481150211.html[/url]



When I was in college my dorm had no Air Conditioning. You had one cafeteria

You must have been incarcerated in French or Dabney. Its where they put freshmen to punish them for assumed sins. After that first year of pain, you had the option of moving up to Sawyer. Plus you had a kitchenette to burn your own food, and share the smell with everyone else on the floor. What luck!

No comment on what UK is doing. Sure, its glitzy, but the vast majority of UK students need to be exposed to that kind of luxury. Some from down in the hills feel indoor plumbing is a passing fad. Include electric lights. Lincoln even is rumored to have read and studied by fire light or candle light.

Down in the flatlands, like Louisville, they spend that kind of money to hire hookers and high priced coaches, then lose anyway.

It's a strange business A LOT like healthcare.

1. The big one first -- The payer is often not the provider, nor the consumer.
2. The staff are generally very well educated and thus premium cost employees.
3. The product is all service and thus it is difficult to use automation to suppress cost.
4. Payment is at least delayed if not obscured by third party, so the appetite for high amenities is unquenched. (think, I want an MRI because I sprained my angle), or my back hurts because all I ever do is sit, so I want treatment, or my diabetes is uncontrolled because it's hard and I like sweets.

It's a hot mess. Everyone knows a library can provide much of the same info. Its an experiential thing.

They suck the student dry of all the student loan money they can get out of them and then they have the fucking AUDACITY to ask them for money as alumni!

My alma mater did the same thing. A couple of years after I left they built a huge multi-million dollar sports complex. I'm a bit pissed off over it because I'm always getting emails or mailers asking for a donation.

I consider myself lucky. I got out with only $18,000 in student loan debt. Had it paid off in about 4 years. Others aren't so lucky.

I went to college in the 1950s at a campus downtown and lived at home. My tuition and books ran around $300/semester and I had a scholarship that paid a lot of it. I assisted my parents with expenses by part-time and summer employment. I had no debt when I graduated. I received a fine Engineering degree from a well-regarded University.

It just boggles my mind how that situation has degenerated.

flashguy

Finally opening that thing? Don’t miss the mess that they turned Euclid into. I’m sure it will be worth every penny

Interesting note, those new dorms that are going up on every square inch aren’t even owned by UK. They are owned by a company that leases the land from UK. That company provides staffing, maintenance and what not. The students foot the expenses via their room and board fees. If I recall correctly they are doing the same thing in about a dozen other states/colleges.

I understand this completely. When I started at Auburn in 1987, in-state tuition for a full time student was $441 per quarter. Now, it's $5484 per semester ($14,820 for out-of-state). Don't get me started on how much money the university has spent on building new buildings while the student attendance is still hovering around 24,000 for the past several years. Auburn is not the only university doing this. My other alma mater, Kennesaw State University, started building like crazy 7 years ago. New student apartments, new student athletics facilities, and new sports stadiums. Tuition went through the roof. I'm taking graduate courses that I couldn't afford if it wasn't for my employer. (Edit: BTW, KSU's undergraduate tuition is $3716 in-state, $10,579 out-of-state.)

Eventually, it will get to a point where people will have enough of this crap. Especially when their degrees can't even get them a job that pays enough to pay for their student loans.

Federal student loans are a big reason for this; partial solution: make colleges co-sign Federal student loans.

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Originally posted by lkdr1989:
Federal student loans are a big reason for this; partial solution: make colleges co-sign Federal student loans.

The more money you make available for for student loans, the more lavish college administrators are with spending other peoples money.

The real cost are the high five and six figure salaries of administrators.

Assistant Directors
Vice Presidents
Assistant to the Vice President
Director of So and So
Associate Vice President
Associate Director
Assistant to the President
Chancellor
Vice-Chancellor
Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor

the real money to be made in college isn't in being faculty (they've been neutered and displaced by associate professors and instructors), it's in Administration. You want your kid to do well? Forget STEM or medicine, it's higher education administration.

Colleges have become not much more than extremely expensive day care centers.

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My other alma mater, Kennesaw State University, started building like crazy 7 years ago.

I went to "Southern Tech" before they merged. IIRC, the quarterly tuition when I started was $177 for the full course load. Can't imagine what it is now.

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The more money you make available for for student loans, the more lavish college administrators are with spending other peoples money.

Worked summers, nights & GI Bill for my BS in Accounting & my MBA. Full professors complained they were paid less than Corporations (of course they worked 20 hrs a week instead of 50 or 60). Now UT Knoxville professors make over $200,000 a year (still working 20 hrs a week).

Hey, it's only taxpayer's and tuition money, not like it will really cost anybody anything......

Seriously it doesn't surprise me a bit. Early 2000's our public school system had an open house for a new middle school. I questioned one of the school board on why all classrooms and hallways (never did see the cafeteria or commons area) were carpeted.

I received the usual "Two Step" dance for reasons behind it, all seemed to be "new age" answers especially when I brought up the issues of maintenance, replacement cycles, etc. One answer was "homelike" atmosphere and student comfort while walking.

Guess what was replaced the next year due to maintenance concerns??????

Interestingly, the University of Kentucky's new medical center was built with private donations. They built a number of floors, completing each as they got enough donations. UK is an odd college, the campus is pretty much integrated into the city. There is no real separate "campus." The streets really can't support the traffic. I moved to a nearby small town in an adjacent county recently because of the traffic.

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Originally posted by justjoe:
Colleges started to become resorts about 25 years ago-- at an accelerating pace. That has been one part of skyrocketing costs.

The other big piece is that administrators have multiplied like bacteria: Vice Presidents and Deans, each with their own Assistant Vice President and Assistant Dean, each of them with a complete staff. The buzzwords are "diversity" 'multiculturalism" "inclusion" "LGBTQ" "African American Studies" "Minority Studies" and so on.

This was getting started (at least at university of MD) in 1977 when I graduated. In my final semester I had 3 out of 4 "professors" who I never saw. They were far too busy, and important, to actually waste their time TEACHING!. They were too busy being world travelers doing research for their next book. I think the active phrase was, Publish or perish!)

Had to buy a stack of books for the classes, and some of those "books" were run off a mimeograph machine as they had not even been to a publisher!

One very highly recommended course (because it was an "easy A") was called the psychology of death.

I consider that era to be the beginning of the end of actual college education.

I have two in college at the moment, both are working part-time & paying for college with grants and scholarship.

The college bubble is going to burst someday, the greed is too entrenched.

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Now UT Knoxville professors make over $200,000 a year (still working 20 hrs a week).

Hell, when I was in college 3 out of 4 professors were busy working full time on their next fucking book! Never saw them in the classrooms. In fact, much of the time they were not even in the USA! Offshore "doing research".

When I graduated I had BS degrees in Production Management, Human resource management, minor in Economics. Plus AA in accounting. All while working 50-60 hours a week as an IBM Customer Engineer. Carrying 4 classes at the same time.

I remember not all that long ago when Univ. MD built a new basketball facility. AIR, it cost some (according to Wiki) 125 million bucks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...llege_Park,_Maryland)