Posted on 11/06/2010 2:43:24 PM PDT by ransomnote
FReerepublic rejects excerpting and linking of this article with a message saying it must be excerpted and linked. It's an article saying students are going to change how colleges do business if colleges don't change for themselves. Some in the college administration feel that they must find ways to credential information that students are finding outside the college system. Some see the day approaching that a student will read a negative review of a professor online, elect to take an online course outside the college system instead and then ask the school to give him 'credit' for having acquired the class info. More about further 'paradigm' shifts at the link in comment #1 below:
Why we even have colleges and universities in the internet age is a mystery. I’ve learned much more on the internet than I did in five years of university studies. We don’t use outhouses any more because indoor toilets are more functional and convenient. Someday universities will be regarded as just as outmoded.
IN the first year that MIT had OPenCourseWare online, I followed a online and meatspace group of English speaking Indians who went through every economics course available. Learned quite a bit through following their conversations.
Was an interesting experience.
For economics... I suggest mises.org for freepers.
http://mises.org/store/For-Beginners-C9.aspx
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/
Looking back though, the vast majority of 18 to 24 year old Uni students are not focused enough to maintain an academic regimen without the structure of a University or college, or trade school, or military continuing ed system, etc.
Looking forward, the United States is going to need much larger facilities providing education for real economy jobs, manufacturing, engineering, trade schools, medical training schools for baby boomer retirement care, etc. Much of that requires physical infrastructure. The financial economy jobs in the FIRE industry are not coming back, many of those educational institutes will shrivel in the coming decade.
As a retired professional educator, I can answer that. We need podunk residential colleges and universities so that small-town and back-country boys and girls can meet and mate with people who are further away in the gene pool than their second cousins. The future of the species depends on it.
College and unversity as we know it is so over with. The future is a mix of distance learning (internet) and periodic seminars, capped off with a comprehensive exam that, if you pass, it won’t matter how you learned your stuff.
That sounds good - the flexibility will allow workers to advance their skill level when needed. I hope what you describe flows down to the high schools and lower grades.
Hey thanks for the links. I was wanting to check some of them out.
Must have been fascinating.
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