A disproportionate amount of the Ivory Tower is socialistically inclined; subconsciously they may fear that the market value of their research, teaching, and professional existence subsists among relatively strange bedfellows, those whose productivity fluctuates along the poverty line. Will distance education and online courses replace all this? Someday. FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/4599/will-the-university-survive/
Will the University Survive?
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I asked myself why if I have libraries do I need a college or university. Oh yea, to spend a lot of money getting a sheepskin that certifies a tiny fraction of my knowlege has been verified in some way.
I would note that Women are now over 60% of college students, though I wonder if that does or does not have to do with their obsolecense. I suspect it does as it is part of the feminist agenda and they do tend to convince women to do silly things (thinking of a scene from “Beauty and the Geek II” where one of the Beauties is saying she prefers books with pictures – and is going to graduate soon).
The only other habit I can think of that lasts years and is normally an expensive waste of time is smoking, but there are some good effects of smoking. The other difference is that the degree process is socially acceptable and often required (think union membership), where there is now a stigma to smoking.
tz,
What does gender have to do with taking classes online?
And I also like books with pictures…
I spend more time looking at books with pictures (i.e. magazines of women) then studying for my undergrad classes.
I hope this online-education movement goes down all the way to pre-school, so my neice doesn’t have suffer pointless for 12-16 year like I did.
Alas her parents and my parents are too entranced by school hegemony, despite the fact i told them she can learn reading writing and math at home by the time she’s four through common sense methods. I use them successfully as a math tutor (also, if any of you have homeschooling kids that want to learn higher math, then you need to contact me immediately!) but, they just do not get the message, and plan on enrolling her in, ugh!, pre-school this year (abandoning her already at 2 years old!)
Sigh what’s a libertarian to do?
David Friedman proposed (don’t remember where; might be on his website, or might be in one of his books) that universities are naturally more than one kind of business, somewhat in conflict with each other. Ideally, therefore, there would be examination organizations, certification organizations, and teachers would teach for a fee without needing to be employed directly by either of those (though of course firms of teachers would probably exist).
This would remove the conflict of interest that stifles competition to some extent in examination and certification, by unbundling those, and teachers would be free to make as much or as little as they were really worth.
I may be mangling some part of his argument, but can’t be bothered to look it up right now.
Som, http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ is just one example. $200, complete course, K-12.
Something I told my 2-year old yesterday as we were practicing letters, “Once you can read, you can learn _anything_.”
I can imagine following up his course with the Mises.org $300 course on Economics, or even the study-at-home Electrical Engineering course that was used as textbooks in the tech school I attended. Of course this may not be what she’s interested in by the time we reach that point. Never the less, it is an example of what can be done right now.
There’s an article somewhere on Mises.org talking about the commoditization of the Bachelors Degree after WW2 and the GI Bill, effectively reducing the “cost” of the degree and thereby making it so common as to be worthless. It’s clear that what a BS degree is today is less education than what was a Highschool diploma prior to WW2, even including all the new tech that isn’t being taught.
So long as K-12 continues to be of the government, by the government and for the government, what the universities do is irrelevant anyway. The professors of Mises.org are a glorious exception to the “dumb-down” rule, as are some few of the teachers who care enough to try to do well.
So I’m glad that the university is losing its materials into the more general pool of availability. Now, the issue becomes actually learning to READ and think critically and logically. A task that is not being performed by government, and is absolutely against the governments interest to perform in the first place. ARGH! GNASH GNASH!
My own opinion is that the modern university as it is now run, will end after the collapse of the primary and secondary education systems (the grade schools and high schools). These systems are already failing to educate a majority of the student population, and I see no future for them. Parents will eventually figure out ways to educate their children outside of public schools, and as those methods rise, the political support for the public schools will undergo a corresponding decline. In addition, these methods (virtual schools) can be used just as easily to provide a real college level education (as opposed to what is actually performed today, which is just killing time before having to work for a living.
It is ironic that the one thing the universities do well, providing students with real hands on research experience (especially important for the sciences) could actually be provided by private employers in an apprenticeship model. I have always wondered why this model ended in the US.
It is very rare that you have teachers who actually teach something and don’t dumb it down. By teach something, I mean they do something in addition to what you get in a textbook. In many classes, the time you spend in class is pretty much a waste — only beneficial for some because of the complacency of human nature, and the unwillingness to do anything if forced — as that time would be better spent reading.
In my business school, the class on marketing comes to mind. Extremely obvious stuff, that isn’t worth paying $3,000 something for. One could learn more from the textbook.
Then, there are teachers who will simply follow the textbook like a drone, or are so ineffective at teaching that student-time would better be spent reading the textbook itself.
There are a few professors you will run into who explain things clearly — that is, don’t ramble in techno-talk — and who actually teach the material rigorously, and are demanding. These are the professors that, if your in college and you find them, you should take every class with them you can, because even if the topic isn’t exactly what you want, you’ll learn much more in these classes. From my business school, Safdar comes to mind.
Of course, the other professors who come to mind in terms of explaining things clearly, yet not dumbing them down, and being rigorous, includes everyone I’ve heard lecture at the LvMI. The audio file lectures available for download can be Exhibit A for this assertion.
Indeed, LvMI’s “Left Technocratic Liberal to Anarcho-Capitalist in Six Months or Less” lectures are wonderful.
I think more women take classes in physical space (the feminists still try to say girls in secondary school suffer low self-esteem although they are the majority in college).
I know nothing of online courses, one way or another. As to B&tG2, the Geeks were all in college as far as I can tell, usually in some advanced field of study. But in engineering, you don’t see many women, nor do you see them at computer faire-sales, and I especially don’t understand the latter as there is no physical problem to building a computer nor is it very difficult just to put a set of pieces together. And it isn’t very dirty, nasty, or anything else.
The Teaching Company sells video and audio of the best teachers – they specifically find the people who do the best job as conveying the subject, tape the lectures, and sell them, but you can’t get a degree.
The Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz wanted a brain, but instead he only got a degree.
Tim
You’re article is …stupendous, if only for the fabulous wealth of footnotes : a treasure trove !!
Very informative.
Congrats for a great feat !
Prior to WW1 most of the people who went to college didn’t neeed a job. The GI bill sent people to college for job training. These days the kids need college to get a high school education.
The present system keeps kids off the job market and creates job security for teachers. Ignorant people who think they are educated are easily herded. 50 years ago the working class knew they needed to organize against the big companies. Ignorant people with a college degree think they are to smart to need a union. Only the teachers have sufficient smarts.
Yes, teachers are really the cream of the crop in intelligence. Heh.
I think the biggest problems and challenges of online education, or simply do-it-yourself education that has a group dedicated to a specific study, is that of people setting specific goals and keeping those goals as badges of integrity.
Most people do not know how to set effective goals for themselves. If they don’t have a teacher using some kind of theoretical whip against them, they don’t do the needed work.
Most folks have not learned how to flexibly read different books and articles, so that they retain needed information and make needed integration with a minimum of effort and time. For them, reading 10 books in, say, a humanities course is just an impossible dream.
When I went to UCLA and USC, I noticed that folks, as soon as they got out of their classes, talked about the food, getting dates, getting a part-time job, about anything and everything except the substance of the ideas just presented in a lecture. When I initiated conversations based upon *ideas*, I found myself quickly ostrasized.
I suggest that students need training in all of these areas. All of them apply in traditional colleges, but acquire superimportance when it comes to online education.
best wishes all,
Mike
Ideally, therefore, there would be examination organizations, certification organizations, and teachers would teach for a fee without needing to be employed directly by either of those (though of course firms of teachers would probably exist).
This would remove the conflict of interest that stifles competition to some extent in examination and certification, by unbundling those, and teachers would be free to make as much or as little as they were really worth.
I’ve not seen that argument, but I’ve thought the same myself. What we need is not an online accredited institution like the Univeristy of Phoenix, becuase it replicates some of the most unfortunate aspects of a bricks-and-mortar universities. The courses are not inexpensive and may be little more than excercises in seat-warming (in this case the seat is at home, but the problem is the same). The people I know who’ve taken Phoenix courses have gone in knowing as much or more than the instructor about the subject at hand. They weren’t signing up to learn, they were signing up to get the piece of paper.
What we need are for profit *certification* companies, parallel to the SATs or to, say, the post-degree certification taken by computer professionals.
How do we get from status being conferred by a brand-name degree to one where status is conferred by scores on certification exams? Here’s my free business plan to any taker:
1. Hire eminent experts to create the exams.
2. Hire recent graduates of brand-name institutions to sit for exams in order to ‘norm’ them.
3. Graduates of ‘generic’ institutions with no cache can then demonstrate excellence by scoring on par with recent Ivy League grads.
4. Have a marketing campaign based on the phenomenon of grade inflation. Point out to employers that they can’t trust grades to tell them much of anything about performance, but certification exams prove students learned the material.
5. Ultimately, even graduates of brand-name institutions will feel compelled to take the certification exams.
6. Profits.
Slocum,
Also be prepared to have the idea, that outside testing means anything, to be thoroughly trashed by professors and the universities; I see no reason for them to behave differently than the public schools’ teachers and administrators.
I am an alumni of Rochester Institute of Technology, one of the schools mentioned in the article, as a member of class of 2005. I graduated from there with B.S. in Business Management.
I read the article carefully and gave it a good thought. I sent the link to the article to my alumni mater with a pride that RIT was mentioned as one of graduate schools by the author that provide ‘profit-based’ education.
I must say I learnt a great deal about business from my 4 years at College of Business (COB) at RIT. The professors–most of them–taught me many things that I still held to this day. COB’s policy is that all professors must have experiences in businesses before teaching. COB disapproves professors who are from “ivory tower.” I must say there are some professors made me to fall asleep or distracted, however, in overall, COB professors are great. Some professors made a strong impact on my life and busienss thinking. The professor who teaches enterpriseship really understands the subject. He has many experiences in starting businesses and helping others to form businesses. He does not like exam so he gave us a project to do: write a real business plan for any business you want. I wrote a plan for online casnino and got 87% on the paper. Another professor taught me business ethics that I can feel in my mind, checking my business activities to make sure I am acting ethically. Business Ethics taught many things that some Austrians will smile when hearing what are the teachings.
COB encourage people to take online courses if they need to. COB does not disapprove or fear online. RIT loves online. RIT loves to incorporate the latest technology into education except for liberal arts education where we people of science degree mocked them for being behind in progress and obsolete. RIT has a department that focuses exclusively on online education. You can go to RIT, live in the dorm, and take all online courses for the quarter if there are classes on the list. RIT does not mind that. However, you cannot use that technology for applied arts such as photography, metal works, and art. Those subjects require classes because knowledge in art is often learned from hand-on learning. RIT still requires physical classes for labs and science classes where tests will be conducted. However, for MBA and EMBA, there are online classes that students can take anywhere in the world.
I am proud to have my alumni mater to be mentioned by the author of the article. GO RIT!!!
Slocum, Yancy Ward,
While this may be true initially, I disagree with this in some respects. A prominent example of a organization that maintains certification program that is widely acclaimed, and pretty much the industry standard, is the CFA Institute. If you want to be a professional investor, being a CFA Charterholder is a big plus, almost required for anyone who is serious. Even saying that your a CFA Candidate is considered important.
I’m not aware of other such things, but there’s at least one example.
Also be prepared to have the idea, that outside testing means anything, to be thoroughly trashed by professors and the universities; I see no reason for them to behave differently than the public schools’ teachers and administrators.
Maybe, but there are many ‘bottom of the food chain’ universities who actually might benefit from such a system. There is almost no status attached to their degrees now, so certification exams that would independently offer their students a way of demonstrating mastery might make them more attractive to employers. And the ‘top of the food chain’ universities are arrogant enough that they’d never see this as a threat to their brands and status until very late in the game.
Yancey,
Re: “…I have always wondered why this model ended in the US.”
This one is simple. Government funding of education allows businesses to externalize the apprenticeship costs they would otherwise incur.
SteamshipTime,
You are likely correct, yet it is ironic how much money companies spend today on remedial education of the newly hired, even those with degrees.
Hmm, apprenticehips…. Medical training is predicated upon this idea. In medical school (at least the one I attended), the first two years are intense basic study with a heavy emphasis on hands on work. The last two years you are an apprentice paying for the privilege of working with practicing physicians and with peers ahead of you assisting with your training and with the licensing exams being administered between the major steps in your training. After graduation, you continue your apprenticeship, but now you are paid less than the nurses to further your training and to help train those behind you. You obtain your initial license while training. Further testing of competency is done by outside agencies after 2 to 10 years of further apprenticeship training, depending upon your chosen field of study. This is the only good thing about the medical guild system, in my opinion.
Formal apprenticeships have otherwise gone by the wayside, sadly. On the job, apprentice training has many benefits, some of which can be leveraged by the formal education system. Schooling is not the equivalent of education. Schooling is only one facet of education, which is something you get by living; and education is limited only by your own pursuit of it.
Shallow, naive Americans believe that everything should be for-profit and able to be run as a business. The “Inefficiencies” that Mr. Tim Swanson talks about in his piece on the future of universities is what university life is all about, and really what life is all about. Life isn’t about WalMart & the pursuit for cheaper toilet paper; it’s about love, magic, dreams, poetry, adventure, intrigue, etc. The courses are for show – it’s the time you drank too much and had your eyebrows shaved off that evoke the memories.
Ho Ho. Good one Windsor.
But intelligent and deep Americans also believe this. What do shallow Europeans think? Apart from acknowledging that the rest of us ought not give a damn what dumb-leftists anywhere think what is your own position? That we should put up with the deterioration and lack of productivity that socialising an industry brings?
Good for you William! And I suppose you think it is right and proper that other people are forced to pay good money so you could enjoy drunkeness and idiotic carousing?
You should not expect to swindle your way through life at anyone elses expense. Don’t expect other people to pay for your fornication, mysticism, wishful thinking, dirges, misbehaviour, gossip etc. They should not have to. And if you can’t afford these pursuits and can’t undertake them in the absence of other people’s money, that’s just tough. It’s probably better that you don’t get drunk. Go get a job.
William, you’ve well summed up the university education mess with your comment, “The courses are for show.” That’s good. That’s why we don’t need to go to the bother of:
a) wasting the time to do such courses
b) employing the people who waste the time to do them
c) paying anyone to attend them
d) donating money to the institutions that run them
e) expropriating proprty from taxpayers in order for the courses to be subsidised.
Thanks for confirming that there’s not much of educational value going on in those universities. In most cases you are absolutely right (which is why, other than a few engineers etc., we have not employed graduates here for some years).
Sione
I can’t wait for this to happen! I’m so tired of not being taken seriously (by people who don’t know me, anyway) simply because I don’t have “a degree”. The universities have some crazy, undeserved monopoly on perceived intelligence. The sooner that changes, the better.
I have a friend who got an “economics” degree. It’s funny to argue with him, because he really thinks the degree means something – where as in reality just by reading as much as I can from mises.org for the last 6 months (while having a full time job), I believe I have by far surpassed him as an economist.
The last thing we argued about was agricultural subsidies. My argument was that it was unneccesary (self-interest serving + bad for consumers), his argument was that it existed for a reason. If it didn’t exist – there would be overproduction in some places, underproduction in others, it’s good for the small farmers, plus it’s “inefficient” otherwise. I stopped arguing economics with him – mostly so that I don’t look like a jerk when I start laughing out loud (mostly at the fact that he was robbed of time & money for 4 years!)
Shallow, naive Americans believe that everything should be for-profit and able to be run as a business.
I don’t think shallow, naive Americans think much at all about such things. But even with that as a given, it’s still not true. We just believe that for-profit businesses are the most efficient way to get *most* things done, and if somebody wants to spend time in non-profit stuff, that’s okay, as long as nobody else is forced to subsidize or pay for it against their will. You have to be productive enough to have the time and resources to engage in the non-profit stuff, or persuade enough other people to willingly pay for it.
I meant to add: Higher education used to be largely dependent on philanthropy and alumni. But there’s no reason businesses or non-profits couldn’t take up the slack, instead of using government funding and subsidies.
4. Have a marketing campaign based on the phenomenon of grade inflation. Point out to employers that they can’t trust grades to tell them much of anything about performance, but certification exams prove students learned the material.
This addresses what IMHO is the main obstacle facing a market-based highly distributed and decentralized system of education. That being, the employers’ perceived legitamacy of the prosepective employee’s education.
If employers become open to the idea that a piece of paper from an establishment accredited institution of ‘higher learning’ is not necessarily indicative of a prospective employee’s intelligence, skill set, etc, then I would venture to say that the modern university would indeed be on the ‘outs’.
The decentralized certification testing model is already used extensively in a variety of industries (IT certifcation, insurance exams, etc.) I think that this business model could be built upon to provide testing in almost any course of study including traditional liberal arts courses such as literature, philosophy, etc.
Even more exciting would be expanding into areas that seem to require a formal university setting. Such areas include the typical lab courses taught to undergraduates at a university (freshman physics labs, chemistry labs, etc.)
Take the typical first courses in organic chemistry for example. Typically these courses include several lecture sessions p/week, recitation sessions and a lot of lab work. Both the formal lecture and recitation sessions coulde easily be adapted to an online distribution format. The problem is the lab. I think that this could be solved by firms specializing in providing instructional lab facilities.
Say you wanted to take first year organic chemistry online. Your course provider would provide you with lectures, course materials, etc. As part of the course you would also need to sign up with your local ACME Instructional Labs franchise. You could then go to the lab on your own schedule, take as much time as you needed to figure out the labs and maybe even experiment with the techinques you are supposed to be learning.
The lab facility would probably provide on site staff fully trained in organic chemistry that would be available to answer questions on proper lab procedures as well as to make sure its neophyte clients didn’t blow up the lab.
Lab exams could also be facilitated by the 3rd party lab provider. Let’s say for your exam you are required to perform some lengthy analysis and demonstrate a variety of standard lab protocols and procedures. The lab facility could simply record video of your work in the lab and ensure the environment met examination standards. This video record of your lab work could then be graded by your course provider or maybe by the lab facility itself. As a side effect you also have video documentation of your abilities which may be interesting to any prospective employers.
This is just one example of how I think a pretty much commoditized lab course such as first year organic chemistry or freshman phsyics could be provided in a distributed education system.
This article was very apropos for me, as I just dropped out of college last week for many of the reasons mentioned. I am attempting to start a viable business instead of getting my degree, but on the side I am starting a website called DropoutNet, “The college dropout network.” It aims to be a resource for those looking for help pursuing alternatives toward credentialism. Drop me an email if you are interested in helping out.
oops, that is supposed to read “alternatives TO credentialism.” Big difference.
I wish I dropped out of University – any one want to buy a degree I have 3 I’m not using :0)
Yeah, you all bunch of ignorants! What are your plans for future education? Private schools? Communautarism? Children taught at home, cut from reality? Say it all. For universities, like most public schools, are one of the most crucial place where universal and egalitarian values can still be taught, exchanged, experienced and discussed. University will win you all, neo-conservative dreamers…
Yves, don’t forget the most important thing that they can teach students at universities: “You want fries with that?” Doesn’t get much more universal and egalitarian than that.
What are your plans for future education?
That’s one of the beauties of letting people choose their actions for themselves and face the consequences — no coercive planning is necessary.
Children taught at home, cut from reality?
Is the classroom reality now? Do you live in a classroom, Yves? I don’t know about you, but most people live in a home and go to a job of some kind, neither of which bears the slightest resemblance to a classroom.
For universities, like most public schools, are one of the most crucial place where universal and egalitarian values can still be taught, exchanged, experienced and discussed.
True. Such “values” don’t fit in the rest of reality, where people choose to be prosperous and happy.
University will win you all, neo-conservative dreamers…
Yes, we love G. W. Bush here. (That was sarcasm, by the way.)
Larry: What do you exactly mean?
Roy: What you’re saying is that ‘no coercive planning is necessary’ for reaching the better education system ever? So, the current public school system should be shut down or reformed? By the way, Ivan Illich’s criticism about the education system makes sense to me. There’s still some room for evolution. Schools/universities should help students become independant and thoughtful citizens, not only mere blind consumers. Schools/universities should help students de-code the world, and make sense out of it. Economics doesn’t make it all. Plus, there’s no economics, without stable culture first. Build a peacful culture, and economics will naturally florish. ‘Most people live in a home and go to a job of some kind’. Yes, and thanks for the information. So, what kind of classroom are you dreaming of? E-learning? But e-learning is dead, just like knowledge management. We need content and human communication, not plain software anymore. Blended learning might be an interesting compromise though…
Universities/public schools, as ONE OF THE MOST crucial places where to learn universal values! Who said THE ONLY ONE?
‘We love G. W. Bush here. (That was sarcasm, by the way).’ Yeah, on the surface, it’s true that Mises.org gives insightful criticism of Bush administration. But when we dig out, it seems that you all share some kind of liberal anti-State all-economics dream… You’re just progressive libertarian Bush-like mutants, praying for the Mont Pelerin Society’s spirit to come true. Do you have any facts that sustain your claims?
HUH?
GREAT article, Tim.
As evidence that in certain fields this process is already well-advanced, I offer two examples – Computer Technician Certification (Microsoft and other certs), and independent board certification, such as my own in Industrial Hygiene. True, to sit for the CIH exam you still need a degree in it or 10 years field experience, but in almost every case the CIH is more in demand than the corresponding Master’s degree, as evidenced by the salary surveys and my personal experience. Sure, I’d LIKE to go back and get a Master’s, but why? It will cost me more in time and money than I will ever get back.
Formal education is highly overrated. I’m guessing that it’s wasted on well over half of the students at my university, either because the classes don’t give a real education, because the students don’t have the aptitude or interest for the subjects, but still stay in college, or because they’re too well educated for it.
My own best education has been outside of school, where I’ve learned almost everything I know about economics and movies, my two favorite subjects.
Returning to the CFA Instiute and the CFA exams, I’ve found that the 4-series textbook for the CFA exam is actually more informative, and often more comprehensive regarding the really important issues, than what’s taught in the corresponding business classes.
Walter Williams is convincing me not to go to George Mason University’s Economics program.
This former department chairman held any economics professor *under suspicion* for not supporting his simplistic free market views. (See *A dynamite economics department* article) Now he hates Jay Bennish for discussing US policies’ international problems.
I argue with left and right teachers because I want to think.
Question…who is the David Freidman referenced here? Anyone?
Previous post….
“David Friedman proposed (don’t remember where; might be on his website, or might be in one of his books) that universities are naturally more than one kind of business, somewhat in conflict with each other. Ideally, therefore, there would be examination organizations, certification organizations, and teachers would teach for a fee without needing to be employed directly by either of those (though of course firms of teachers would probably exist).”
Thanks!
Kees,
I assume that would be David Friedman, son of Milton Friedman, law professor, holder of PhD in physics, and anarcho-capitalist theorist.
Dear William Windsor The Fifth,
I don’t beleive you are correct about Americans and universities in general, Americans think a university is about planning your bright future. I am an American and I personally think that no one beleives me about anything I say hahaha. This is my opinion here. Take Care, Erin Rachel Young p.S. find me with rainbows if you remember my neat lifetime with you
Dear William Windsor The Fifth,
I don’t beleive you are correct about Americans and universities in general, Americans think a university is about planning their bright future and about you they think of you in a graceful way about you William. I am an American and I personally think that no one beleives me about anything I say hahaha. This is my opinion here. Take Care, Erin Rachel Young p.S. find me with rainbows if you remember my neat lifetime with you
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