Actually there is a chance that the professor really couldn't do anything about the class itself (I also teach in a college, and I have little control over the actual existence of a class). A class can be canceled at will if the enrollment is too small.

Now, I do think that this professor should've been able to grant you an independent study if it's a class he teaches. There are some caveats:

If the professor is an adjunct, then he is paid by the class and therefore would not be compensated for an independent study with you.

If salaried (that is, an actual tenure-track professor) it really should be part of his job and he should be able to do that little bit extra for you.

I wish you the best!

The prospect of independent study has already been put forth to the professor and she turned it down.

That's where you have to talk to the dean. But if this professor is an adjunct, then they probably won't pay her to conduct the class. I agree that online classes should be, in theory, easy to do. But the bean counters' calculus may be that they don't want to pay an adjunct professor the normal going rate for a class with one student. (Or that they just won't disburse the money period).

I'm going to take this to the Dean of Student Life, and if they don't do anything, I'm going to take it to the Dean of the college.

capitalism, woooo

?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJeQuWF9Nc4

*facepalms* I don't think you're getting the point of this.

This is about an outdated school policy that has essentially fucked me over and a professor who doesn't seem to care.

I heard that high education are preety much capitalized in the USA. You have to be a very special bee to get a government founded study.
So no one in the university has the slightest motive to make your life easier.
Best system on the world, no one dare to think of anything else!

*facepalms* Government funded study is easy, they're called Federal Student Loans or the Montgomery GI Bill. The difference is that MOST people don't go to school year around and work in the summer. They tend to go home and live with their parents. I don't. I go to school year around. I work year around, but I don't make enough to afford an apartment or school housing year around without getting Basic Allowance for Housing.

The registrar has been fighting for me, but the issue isn't with the registrar, it's with the professor, and a rule that has become outdated since the invention of the internet.

Universities in the US are broken into two categories; State funded and Privately Funded. State Funded colleges tend to have enrollment over 4,000, the exceptions being either smaller universities like Prarie View A&M in Prarie View, Texas, and state colleges in states with low populations. Privately Funded colleges tend to have enrollment of 4,000 or less, again, the exception being Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which has campuses all over the world. Tuition is higher at Privately Funded universities because they're inherently smaller, exceptions being schools like the University of Washington, where tuition is high for anyone from out of state, but Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and anyone else from the Asian Tiger Nations get in state tuition. Anyone can go to college in the United States. Especially if they go to Community College. The price inherently declines exponentially because of Community Colleges, where people go to get the Freshman and Sophomore years of college done at a lower cost because the Community Colleges are funded by taxpayer money from the city.

Which policy is that?

I'm surprised that's all he said.

Surely someone can grant you an exception or something.

A long time ago, the school made a rule that a class must have at least 5 students for it to be offered. This was created when the school had to set aside money to pay the teacher and for classroom use since normally in the summer, they don't have to clean the buildings as much. What I'm fighting now is that this is an online class; you don't need a building, you just need a computer and a text book. A dead rabbit could run an online class. It's something that almost all schools now do because it generates revenue at very little expense. They don't need a building, a custodian, and they just have to pay a teacher.

The main fight I'm having now is that she won't even do an independent study.

I see. I wonder what her reasons are for declining.