Important Education Tip

[AshTym 31]

One set of extra schoolrooms is enough in the grade school to be able to unlock the tier 2 education facility. Once you gain the high school, you can close down and demolish the grade school; same with the high school once you've placed a community college or university. The game doesn't discriminate the age of sims, just wealth class, so by this time your sims will have progressed to the higher wealth tiers. You should only need one wing of dormitories for your university. Once maximum education and tech buildings have been reached, you should power this building down for later use.

[Major_Heartfire 1]

Wait... wouldn't the population have to be stagnant for this? Otherwise all my new citizens would be dump as a rock, wouldn't they? Are you trying to say that my citizens can go from knowing nothing, to attending community college or even the University without going to a High School or Grade School first?

[dan008 2]

Wait... wouldn't the population have to be stagnant for this? Otherwise all my new citizens would be dump as a rock, wouldn't they? Are you trying to say that my citizens can go from knowing nothing, to attending community college or even the University without going to a High School or Grade School first?

One of my friend is doing this and his city progression is way faster. Because the overheads are lower compared to mine having grade school, high school...etc

[czNemesis 8]

I've made a test yesterday and I have to confirm that high school replaces elementary school in every aspect. But what I have tested is that by having only university, your sims only get tech level, but not education. Only after having high school with university my education level started to rise. But I am not so sure about that, cause I had only university for the first day, dont know if having it for longer time would increase education level too. Will test this today.

[bokrif 18]

So in case of stagnant population I can basicly educate everybody than shut down the education system?

Another question is do students go to high school from other cities or only elementary school educated sims enroll in a high school?

[strang 1]

It'd be nice to get clarification on this game mechanic. My education budget is the highest out of all city services by a large margin. 

[Major_Heartfire 1]

It'd be nice to get clarification on this game mechanic. My education budget is the highest out of all city services by a large margin. 

 

Especially after using a University.

 

Although, if this is how it works, I have a feeling they messed up the code and will fix it. IMO, a city that wants to focus on education should need a grade school for kids, high school for students, and a University for students. Or a way to track kids that go to grade school for (let's just throw a random number out here) 7 days then go to high school/Community College if there are no high schools. Or, maybe have it so kids always go to Grade Schools and the "student" population has to go to High School first to go to a University (again, let's just say they have to go for 7 days). And students without a high school or University in their town either are made equivalent to a "worker" OR they an go to Community College if one is set up.

[Shiphted 4]

I have max tech and education with just a university. Demolished grade and high.

[Sunfighter 186]

It'd be nice to get clarification on this game mechanic. My education budget is the highest out of all city services by a large margin. 

 

Especially after using a University.

 

Although, if this is how it works, I have a feeling they messed up the code and will fix it. IMO, a city that wants to focus on education should need a grade school for kids, high school for students, and a University for students. Or a way to track kids that go to grade school for (let's just throw a random number out here) 7 days then go to high school/Community College if there are no high schools. Or, maybe have it so kids always go to Grade Schools and the "student" population has to go to High School first to go to a University (again, let's just say they have to go for 7 days). And students without a high school or University in their town either are made equivalent to a "worker" OR they an go to Community College if one is set up.

 

A lot of things that are required in the real world...theyve cut corners with....for space reasons im assuming. A high school, grade school, college and university would take up a ton of space.

 

PS. I assumed this once I noticed the high school and grade school buses were sharing the same bus stops, and cluttering up my traffic. My city was making enough money that it didnt matter...SPACE on the other hand...is worth is weight in Mer...

[Zades 7]

Although it is true that the simulation does not discriminate by age, there are two types of people that go to school: kids and students, and two types of schools: lower education and higher education.  You can see this in the data views.  

 

Kids will only go to grade school and high school and will not go to college or university.  

Students can go to any school.

 

Lower education schools refer to grade and high school.  They educate Sims but they do not add to tech level.

Higher education refers to college and university and they do add to tech level.

 

As for the library, I have no idea how that works as I've never built one.  I think it's somewhere in between.  I would guess only students can go to it but it doesn't give tech level.  The advantage is that it's open all day.

 

Anyways for all my cities I always get a grade school and once that hits 750 with the extra classroom I build a high school over it.  Later on I'll add a university.

[czNemesis 8]

Updating my previous post. University indeed increases education level on its own. So what I think is that each new level of education building completely replaces the previous one in every aspect. I didn't notice that there are two types of sims going to schools as Zades said. Yes schools are divided into lower and higher education, because they each give different levels of education. But I think that residential buildings only generate students and students which are not enrolled to schools are being marked as kids. So there's is really no reason to keep lower level education buildings once you get higher one.

[iceanimator 6]

Both my grade school and High school still has people attending it. I have a University too which is at lvl 2 now almost reaching lvl 3. So should I remove my grade school and high school all together?

[czNemesis 8]

Both my grade school and High school still has people attending it. I have a University too which is at lvl 2 now almost reaching lvl 3. So should I remove my grade school and high school all together?

Yup I would do that, because now, your grade and high schools are only "stealing" students from your university to be able to upgrade.

[strang 1]

I'll power down my grade and high schools for a day or two and see what happens, thanks for the tip!

[Bobington 4]

I can also confirm that a university replaces all previous education buildings. HOWEVER, students will drive or take public transportation to get to university 4 times a day, seriously increasing your traffic flow if you don't manage it properly.

[Sunfighter 186]

How does the library fit into this? It seems to have a mechanic different from education. Seems more based on Shopper demand.

[Epic-Nemesis 4]

Thanks for the thread. I noticed some of the same stuff going on. I also noticed that in all my cities I have ever tried I would open up the tech school before I opened up the high school. The requirements for the tech school were easier to fulfill than the high school especially since I wouldn't use a department of education (single city only). By the time I gained the department of education I could about just skip to the university.

[morriswalters 16]

Schools also increase property values and satisfaction.  Library's may do something similar.

[SirChick 184]

One set of extra schoolrooms is enough in the grade school to be able to unlock the tier 2 education facility. Once you gain the high school, you can close down and demolish the grade school; same with the high school once you've placed a community college or university. The game doesn't discriminate the age of sims, just wealth class, so by this time your sims will have progressed to the higher wealth tiers. You should only need one wing of dormitories for your university. Once maximum education and tech buildings have been reached, you should power this building down for later use.

 

 

I'm sure the tutorial explained this ? I've always done it that way  I'm glad though the price otherwise is ridiculous per hour.

[bixel 1,223]

wow - this is a terrible bug...

 

or... a terrible game mechanic

[SirChick 184]

wow - this is a terrible bug...

 

or... a terrible game mechanic

 

 

If you need them all you would never make money and would have no room xD either one is bad !

[Board_Marshal 104]

So instead of the educational system (the building tiers) being driven by the constant process of serial age cohorts advancing into the next grade following one another (young students entering at the front end older students leaving on the back end) the game's modeling of the system instead designed because of city size restrictions.  Ok, I get it and I could work with it once I figured it out.  However, it isn't easy to discard what I (and most people) know about real world societies and its institutions.  Mechanics like this seem to be a reason why some players seem so confused as to what the heck is going on.  There's no need for a comprehensive and exhaustive manual when the game's mechanics are approximations of real world phenomenon.  People take what they know from their own experience or infer from observing how most of our societies institutions are formed and function and approach the game accordingly.  Bulldozing each school building tier for the next tier isn't what any society has ever done so no one would intuitively arrive at that conclusion for the SC2103 educational system. 

 

My point is that if the mechanics are going to be so drastically different than what we know of our own civilizations it would be of tremendous help for Maxis to have prepared a meaningful and exhaustive explanation of all of SC2013's mechanics.  You know, easy to learn (read a manual and not slog through trial and error without the benefit of local save and reload), hard to master kind of thing.  Its not helpful to make a game "for the masses" that's both hard to learn and hard to master since the longstanding complaint was always the learning curve of previous SimCity titles was considered too high.  I'm not judging the system.  I'm just saying if its going to be somewhat strange then it would be nice to be able to have it clearly explained.  Thank goodness for the forums.

[Districtopia 23]

Wasn't SC4 kind of like this at first? Except maybe the reverse? I remember only placing elementary schools and a university in my cities and my education level was always at or near 100%. When I got Rush Hour that changed and I had to get highschools.

 

 

Anyone else remember this or am I just crazy?

 

 

Regardless, if it's true that you can bulldoze your schools as you progress to the next highest level that's really disappointing.

[Izzywizz 0]

It could be that I am super tired but now I am really confused. I understand that their are 2 separate kinds of people; children and students.

 

The children are able to go to Grade School or the High School (the High School will use the school bus system as well)

 

The students will use either the Community College or the University and will not use the school bus system.

 

But if you get rid of the high school, dont you loose the benefits of that building? Then surely the children become less educated and thus lowering the level of education throughout the city. As traditionally you need some sort of intermediate step before you are able to go University.

 

I apologise if its being posted up recently and explained thoroughly, I can't quite wrap my head around what your saying.

[Sunfighter 186]

It could be that I am super tired but now I am really confused. I understand that their are 2 separate kinds of people; children and students.

 

The children are able to go to Grade School or the High School (the High School will use the school bus system as well)

 

The students will use either the Community College or the University and will not use the school bus system.

 

But if you get rid of the high school, dont you loose the benefits of that building? Then surely the children become less educated and thus lowering the level of education throughout the city. As traditionally you need some sort of intermediate step before you are able to go University.

 

I apologise if its being posted up recently and explained thoroughly, I can't quite wrap my head around what your saying.

 

 

As far as I know, kids serve no function in the SIM other than giving you another chance to educate a residence. Neglecting them just removes you from that opportunity. (maybe it increases crime too)

[Rhadamant5186 19]

It could be that I am super tired but now I am really confused. I understand that their are 2 separate kinds of people; children and students.

 

The children are able to go to Grade School or the High School (the High School will use the school bus system as well)

 

The students will use either the Community College or the University and will not use the school bus system.

 

But if you get rid of the high school, dont you loose the benefits of that building? Then surely the children become less educated and thus lowering the level of education throughout the city. As traditionally you need some sort of intermediate step before you are able to go University.

 

I apologise if its being posted up recently and explained thoroughly, I can't quite wrap my head around what your saying.

No that isn't how students and children work. Kids are unenrolled in education. Students are enrolled. A kid can enroll ANYWHERE at ANY Education Building. A student is just an educated kid.

[NyekonX 0]

I'm not sure if anyone else had this happen after demolishing grade/high school.  After several in game years Mid-Wealth started complaining about how their kids couldn't go to school.  High Wealth were saying "Give us schools or we leave...".  I had tech level 3 along with 4.5 hats of education and no traffic what so ever in my city and yet things started to fail.  Industry complained there wasn't any skilled workers and soon commercials were closed to do not enough workers even though my population was around 130k.  Anyhow education dropped as soon as I had to start demo'ing abandoned buildings ... pretty much my city got screwed!

 

Dunno what happened... i grew the city slow and steady and had a constant 85%+ approval rating.  Then it just started to all go down hill

[elektrichead22 10]

this is one of thoose things I hope they fix and don't hot fix because education is expensive.... but it is weird only one generation seems to live in our cities even if the city grows.... our poor sims are on birth control

[NyekonX 0]

this is one of thoose things I hope they fix and don't hot fix because education is expensive.... but it is weird only one generation seems to live in our cities even if the city grows.... our poor sims are on birth control

Education is super expensive! Which is why i was all gungho reading that you can close the lesser down after you get university up.  Ive also noticed that some buildings had no kids / students in them and yet they were all mad about not being able to send them to school, its so wonky sometimes when you stare at the various layers and things dont make sense :\

[Mdrizzle3 6]

So "kid" Sims don't actually age? That's what I am getting from this. It sounds like kids are pointless and the whole lower education system is to raise land value and make Sims happy, and not to...you know, educate the next generation of your city