Editing 2215: Faculty:Student Ratio

{{comic
| number    = 2215
| date      = October 15, 2019
| title     = Faculty:Student Ratio
| image     = faculty_student_ratio.png
| titletext = They managed to briefly hit the top of the rankings when they rejected everyone except one applicant, published 5 billion research papers that just said "Hi," and hired one of their graduates for $50 trillion/year (then fired them after 10 microseconds.)
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an XKCD UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PAPER - HI. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Schools are usually rated for parents/students to pick which one to attend. One of the metrics that schools use is a {{w|Student–teacher ratio|ratio between the number of faculty members to the number of students}}. Typically this is expressed as student-teacher ratio, but Randall reverses the metric here. Normally, this determines how much teachers get to spend individual time with students. The lower the ratio, i.e. fewer students per teacher, the smaller classes teachers have to teach, and thus notice individual students more.

Having several different teachers, each of whom excel at a particular area can be helpful to a student. However, having many more teachers than students is usually not economical. 

{{w|Proprietary colleges|For profit universities}} and {{w|diploma mills}} may use techniques like this to artificially boost their ratings, or use fabricated metrics and {{w|Accreditation mill}} to give an inflated appearance of value.  {{w|Predatory publishing|Predatory publishers}} and conferences are other techniques used to inflate the perceived value of an idea, or pad curriculum vitae.

In the title text, other metrics are skewed to be in the school's favor:

*Having a high standard for entry (which is usually associated with high prestige or better schools) is subverted by the fact that it is near impossible for one to get in, thus making the school undesirable to try and apply to. 

*A high amount of research papers would normally indicate a high number of scientific studies conducted at the school, however these research papers are devoid of any sort of useful information.

*A high hiring rate (percentage of students that have gotten a job after education) and a high average salary after graduation is favorable, as it is the endgame for many students attending these types of schools. However, the school in question artificially inflated it by having one out of their one students be hired by them (having a 100% hiring rate) and giving them a starting salary that is very high, but not giving them enough time to actually reasonably gain that amount. $50 trillion/year for 10 microseconds is approximately $1.58 (= 10 / 10^6 / 3600 / 24 / 365 * 50*10^12). Assuming fifty 40-hour work weeks this comes out to <abbr title="6.944=(50e12/2000)*10/(3600*1e6)">$6.65</abbr>).

This comic satirizes the very real culture of schools modifying their process to inflate artificial proxies. For instance, some schools will reject students whose test scores, résumé, etc. are much higher than average for the school, since it's likely that college is a "safety school" and the student won't actually go. This can increase the college's rejection rate, a common measure of a school's exclusivity and therefore prestige. However, if the above-average student does want to attend that school, they are unable to, even though it would be good for the college.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Cueball is sitting hunched over a desk writing while ten professors crowd around him.]

:Professor: How's the work going?
:Cueball: Can you all at least stand back a little?

[Caption below the panel]:
My school tried to game the ratings by having a 30:1 faculty:student ratio

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]