Gates? Don’t make me laugh! This is the same idiot that said that some day computers would cost less than $1,000.
How can you take anything a guy like that says about future trends seriously?
Given the cost, irrelevance of many college degrees, and level of knee-jerk indoctrination going on at colleges, I also see the higher education bubble bursting soon as well.
I think it will be worst for middling, private (and expensive) smaller schools in the Northeast.
It is amazing what you can learn with the ability to read, quickly access information and have the opportunity to gain experience. I’m no fan of Bill Gates with his greed and misuse of government, but I agree with him here.
No need for engineers, doctors, biologists, chemists?
The man is a tool, a fool, and a moron.
I make ample use of Office Commuincator in telephone conferences. I share a Visio document as my screen. Sometimes it is BETTER than a white board.
The new trend is to go to 50” computer monitors. It changes the whole experience - especially with HD webCams. People not only have no idea how computers will change education, but how we perceive online based communication of all sorts.
Wait’ll OLED goes mainline. It will change the world in this area.
And Bill is absolutely right about self motivated learners. Universities are already a dying paradigm. And with the economy the way it is, more and more people will be shocked how well many people will do without the shingle, and how poorly many WITH a shingle are doing.
College tuition has gone up 500% since 1980. The only reason for that is that the whited kids are expected to take out loans for their educations, the proceeds of which are used to grant "scholarships" to black kids.
The average graduate is saddled with $50,000 of student loans upon graduation, the ONLY class of debt that cannot be escaped by personal bankruptcy.
This will enable the federal government to turn people with outstanding student loans into indentured slaves.
And most of them will be white.
given that most education these days is commie dribble, I learned most everything from online, source books (instead of just interpretation thereof prescribed by commie faculty), life and work experience, and generally gifts from God. School? Sure I learned a few things here and there, but it can all really add up (even though I do have my Master’s degree) to one year of hard core learning. That’s it. If we had REAL teachers doing REAL teaching maybe it would be worth while. As is trade schools are far better that incorporate on the job learning and transition.
a good place to start: http://ocw.mit.edu
I earned more obtaining my class A CDL then I’ll ever earn from that POS BA degree I was conned into getting by parents and teachers claiming that a college degree is the pathway to success.
College is total BS.....it’s not what you know but who you blow that determines success, whether in sales or any other industry.
Self motivated learner? Gates has obviously not talked to many “real” college students.
Good Will Hunting had the same thought 13 years ago, except he used the library:
Will: “See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you’re gonna start doin some thinkin on your own and you’re gonna come up with the fact that there are two certaintees in life. One, don’t do that. And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f***n education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”
I have to agree with Gates to some degree here. The very nature of how and where we learn is changing. H.S. and college kids are going to a physical location, but then being given work to do that’s on the web. At some point I can see cutting out the middle man.
My professional designations have all been studied and tested over the web. Something entirely unheard of nearly 10 years ago, you were required to go to a designated testing center. You can still go to a testing center, but then you taake the test on the web.
A college degree helped me get an interview for my first job - an ad agency position for minimum wage. After that, I had to learn the business and show drive and smarts to advance.
Other than a “college graduate club” membership card, what else is a degree good for? I’m very seldom impressed with run-of-mill graduates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQezXbiroiE
Gates is correct, even if he does not speak as an academic insider.
The truth is that colleges need to be much smaller institutions, reserved for essential face-to-face communication from specialized experts to specialized experts-in-training. College degrees should be rare.
The idea that they should provide white collar vocational training, or even worse, liberal arts training, as other than a recreation, is far more expansive that we can afford to have.
Though irrationally, a federal court decision has said that employers must rely on college degrees instead of conducting their own examinations, theoretically to prevent race based hiring. The truth is that examination is the only sane way to hire employees.
For his part, Microsoft is allowed to hire based on competency, because their examinations are both so specialized, and so incredibly difficult, that just to pass one almost guarantees employment from a whole list of corporations. There are relatively few liberals arts grads working for Microsoft.
So what do employers lose because of college degrees?
They lose perhaps the four of the most productive and least expensive years of their employees lives.
Their employees become heavily indebted, so must always look out for work elsewhere that pays more—damaging their loyalty. And they have to delay the employment stabilizing factors of marrying and having children, as well as buying a house.
And frustratingly, just because they have a diploma does not mean that they have the essential core competencies they need. In fact, they likely need to be retrained in basic skills like math and English, just so they can function. At the expense of their employer.
he’s right on. If the state monopoly and in bred Ivy leaguers would get out of the way, we’d have a lot more kids with home based education that actually knew history and mathematics. The sciences where you need labs and some of the arts may need the facilities that a “school” can offer, but most of the time it’s just grab ass, group projects, who is dating who and BS.
This is the scariest part of the article. Wonder if he'll name the reactor "Bob" or "ME?"
Well, a quality education is getting harder to get, but an expensive indoctrination into the ways of communism/socialism is easy to acquire. Pay your fees, get your B’s.
I’d love to see more online competitive training that bypasses the traditional schools and provides useful knowledge for those eager to learn. We’ve got way too many people running around with useless degrees like “women’s studies” and such that can’t understand why they can’t get a job.
The Teaching Company has some great courses.