One of the six "official" transcripts I requested was through Credential Solutions for $14, three through Parchment for $7.25, $5, and $10. And two through National Student Clearinghouse for $10.25, and $13. Then double most of those fees to get my unofficial copies of the transcripts. The most ridiculous fee was the $13 - it was for a pass/fail grade from a high school summer program at a University for college credit for one course.
I don't even understand why monopoly is important in this regard. It's Hobson's choice for the students - take the service your school partners with or have no transcript. The student is not the purchaser here, the school is, and they probably don't care much how much this costs the student. The schools are more than capable of fulfilling their own transcript requests without a service. So where is the leverage from a monopoly?
Ever wonder where people get nicotine replacement before the conglomerates and drug company started charging a dollar per piece of gum to poor addicted people who need to quit?
Your local pharmacist made nicotine lollipops for a nickel. If your grandmother had cancer And needed to quit smoking the treatment was free.
Yes, to all this! National Student Clearinghouse is so buggy! Also, my bank tells me which companies have saved my CC information on file, and National Student Clearinghouse is one of them! When I contacted them to release this, they could / would not do it.
In a related area (record keeping about people), I think there is a emerging set of monopolistic rollups in payroll solutions for medium to large enterprises, outsourced payroll management/bureaux services. In a few years time I think there will only be 4-5 options remaining, and even some of those will wind up buying services from others in that small insiders club (i.e. certain geographies may only have 1-2 large scale suppliers remaining for payroll support, where the demand is limited).
Some of the bigger suppliers in those areas are acquiring smaller specialists in non-US geographies (who often can offer UK, US solutions alongside their local niche geographies). Worth some research.
Also, some of the mega-consultancies/system integrators are also rolling up specialist HR/Payroll implementation partners (and some of these also do business process outsourcing in the HR/Payroll domain).
In answer to your letter-writer's question at the end, it's because the end user is not the customer. It's always the case that that market arrangement yields abysmal UX.
Ellucian is the Cadillac of Student Information Systems. I used their product Colleague for many years, and compared to the competition it's outstanding. The system I use now is cheaper but...not as functional.
is the illustration an elaborate joke? I mean Thornton Melon is ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_School (I just found it so unlikely that the same name appears in two unrelated articles...)
One of the six "official" transcripts I requested was through Credential Solutions for $14, three through Parchment for $7.25, $5, and $10. And two through National Student Clearinghouse for $10.25, and $13. Then double most of those fees to get my unofficial copies of the transcripts. The most ridiculous fee was the $13 - it was for a pass/fail grade from a high school summer program at a University for college credit for one course.
I don't even understand why monopoly is important in this regard. It's Hobson's choice for the students - take the service your school partners with or have no transcript. The student is not the purchaser here, the school is, and they probably don't care much how much this costs the student. The schools are more than capable of fulfilling their own transcript requests without a service. So where is the leverage from a monopoly?
Ever wonder where people get nicotine replacement before the conglomerates and drug company started charging a dollar per piece of gum to poor addicted people who need to quit?
Your local pharmacist made nicotine lollipops for a nickel. If your grandmother had cancer And needed to quit smoking the treatment was free.
Yes, to all this! National Student Clearinghouse is so buggy! Also, my bank tells me which companies have saved my CC information on file, and National Student Clearinghouse is one of them! When I contacted them to release this, they could / would not do it.
In a related area (record keeping about people), I think there is a emerging set of monopolistic rollups in payroll solutions for medium to large enterprises, outsourced payroll management/bureaux services. In a few years time I think there will only be 4-5 options remaining, and even some of those will wind up buying services from others in that small insiders club (i.e. certain geographies may only have 1-2 large scale suppliers remaining for payroll support, where the demand is limited).
Some of the bigger suppliers in those areas are acquiring smaller specialists in non-US geographies (who often can offer UK, US solutions alongside their local niche geographies). Worth some research.
Also, some of the mega-consultancies/system integrators are also rolling up specialist HR/Payroll implementation partners (and some of these also do business process outsourcing in the HR/Payroll domain).
In answer to your letter-writer's question at the end, it's because the end user is not the customer. It's always the case that that market arrangement yields abysmal UX.
Ellucian is the Cadillac of Student Information Systems. I used their product Colleague for many years, and compared to the competition it's outstanding. The system I use now is cheaper but...not as functional.
is the illustration an elaborate joke? I mean Thornton Melon is ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_School (I just found it so unlikely that the same name appears in two unrelated articles...)