Posted on 10/15/2012 6:35:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Higher education is in transition and with a coming proliferation in online courses could be totally free for many within a decade. The status quo won't yield easily. But this is looking like a real answer to runaway student debt.
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NANTUCKET, Massachusetts — As few as 10 years from now, quality higher education will be largely free—unless, of course, nothing much has changed. It all depends on whom you believe. But one thing is clear: The debate about financing education grows louder by the day.
Experts with a wide range of views on the subject, including the always-interesting Harvard professor and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, weighed in last weekend at the Nantucket Project, a big-think conference in the spirit of TED and Aspen Ideas Festival. The most provocative, though, were hedge fund billionaire Peter Thiel and the author and entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa.
Thiel has gotten a lot of attention for his view that higher education is broken, and that many kids would be better off saving their money and going straight from high school into a trade or developing a business. His “20 under 20” fellowship grants high school graduates with a sound business idea $100,000 if they agree to skip college and go right to work on their idea.
Wadhwa’s views are less well known, even though he served as a counter-point interview last May on a 60 Minutes segment featuring Thiel. Wadhwa has unwavering faith in the power of technology to fix much of what is wrong with the world, and he believes that online courses will revolutionize higher education and cut the cost to near zero for most students over the next decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at moneyland.time.com ...
“Ive always said education should be free, as long as you can maintain a good grade point average and be taking classes that lead to a specific degree.”
Education IS free. Always has been. Getting a degree is not. And not necessarily better or more valuable.
The government is determined that its chosen classes will eventually read and cypher at the eigth grade level.
Even if they have to go through 4 years of free and watered down college.
It costs 60k a year for private college and 25k a year for public college, but those numbers include room and board.
I can see how tuition can be on line and free. But how do you do room and board for free. Plus there is the semester overseas that is traditional education, spring break, girls spending money to look good to boys, boys doing stuff to attract girls. And it is really hard to do chemistry, physics and biology labs online without hands on experience.
Plus doing a concert on line, a school play on line, etc. is also challenging.
“So many people think the only way to learn something is to sit in a classroom.”
I actually had a 40 year old engineer tell me once, “I wish I had studied compilers in college because I’ve always wanted to understand them.” I said, “SoftPro book store has at least a dozen books on the subject and they’re just a mile away. Go for it.” He replied, “That’s stupid! It’s not the same!”
His parents were “educators” in the People’s Republic of Boulder and he felt if a person didn’t sit in a classroom, get assigned labs, and take tests they couldn’t possibly know the subject matter.
“I expect Obama to pull the trigger on this any day now.”
I do, too. If he wants to pull millions of votes his way all he has to do is let a report come out that says student loan are a major burden on society and that if the rich banks can get bailouts so can all Americans. (The student loan debt is less than the bank bailouts) He would instantly secure at least 10 million votes of those people with high student loan debts and secure the election.
Not every school will follow this type of model, but it only takes a handful of BIG ones to drive the cost down down down.
None of the BIG ones will follow such a model. This is more academic navel gazing. You can get online courses today from many universities. But it will not take the place of college campuses and exclusive private universities.
The author allows "there will always be students able and willing to pay for a traditional college experience." Translation: We will have two kinds of students depending on their ability to pay and two different qualities of education, just as we do now with the community college system.
If Obamacare is implemented, we will have two classes of health care: one for the well to do and one for the masses. This has played out in countries like the UK and Germany. One system for those who can pay and one for those subsidized by the government.
Bottomline: The author is all wet.
MIT has put much of their catalog online - here's a link. I suppose it will require full-fare to receive the sheepskin.
I agree. Rather than force students to sit through 4 years of largely useless courses (eg diversity requirement), there should simply be a test they are required to pass. If somebody is capable of passing the bar exam at age 17 after studying law independently for a few years, why should that person be required to sit through 5-7 years of expensive classes?
Yes. He will couch it as “this move will free up large amounts of disposable income for consumers to get the economy moving again”. Likely a lot of Pubbies will not have the balls to stand in the way either.
I couldn't agree more. I am a college graduate, had a long corporate career...but I am also a journeyman electrician.
Besides enjoying doing electrical work...I probably would have made a whole lot more money over the years if I had gotten my electrical license.
Trade schools are great. And we need more craftsmen...plumbers, carpenters, electricians, masons.
Education is already free. It’s a degree one needs to pay for.
“He will couch it as “this move will free up large amounts of disposable income for consumers to get the economy moving again”. Likely a lot of Pubbies will not have the balls to stand in the way either.”
Dead on, without question.
And it will be worth every penny.
I suppose the probability of that prospect reflects the degree of insecurity the elite perceive; i.e....as they note traditional propaganda techniques failing ...why not launch full bore into indoctrination? Not a bad gamble at preserving their station and their necks.
Free and worthless might still be better than $100,000 and worthless.
“Free” education means that someone elses economic freedom is being threatened to pay for “free”. THERE.IS.NO.FREE.LUNCH!
Can you name at least one of the existing schools that will spring forth?
I have no problem with having multiple levels of education.
Nor do I. We already have multiple levels of education. Distance learning and online courses are also part of the mix, many of them coming from both public and private universities. My daughter took an online course from Harvard. We have multiple levels and multiple differences in the quality of education.
In a free country, you HAVE multiple levels of health care, as you should. Canada outlaws nearly all private health care in the name of equality. The Brits have two tiers. The U.S. has multiple tiers (Los Angeles free clinic on up to the Mayo Clinic and elite private practices). Same is true of food. Same is true of housing.
One size doesn't fit all. Canada can have its health system because people have the alternative to go to the US. 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border.
The centeral planners and socialists like Obama think they can impose their own models on an entire country, but they don't think it applies to them. I lived in a communist country for two years. The political elites had their own stores (hard currency), housing, etc. The masses are the ones who must endure what the system has to offer.
I see this article as being somewhat condescending and definitely unrealistic. Distance learning and online courses will not replace our university system. The best way to get a handle on costs is to cut down on government subsidies. The government has made it too easy for students to borrow money. Tuition costs are going up faster than inflation. We need to reintroduce reality into the system. The government is the main culprit in driving up tuition costs because of easy loans. The universities are not being forced to respond to the pressures of the marketplace.
I see a diabolic objective in all of this. Obama has taken over the student loan program, which gives the government the ability to use student loans as a lever to influence votes. No doubt Obama could decide to excuse a large portion of student loans with the stroke of a pen. The US taxpayer would be the loser, but it is no different than the food stamp program or any other means-tested welfare program. This is just another manifestation of the welfare state.
First of all, in our fiat system, all money is debt. Secondly, the global monetary system is nothing more than a ponzi scheme; new money (ie debt) must be created to pay the accrued interest on the previous balance.
Ok, so since this describes an exponential equation, the initial part of the curve isn't that steep. But near the end of the series, it goes completely asymptotic. At that point, all asset classes & productive services are thrown into the fire to try and keep balance growing. (If not, we will experience a deflationary implosion.)
So, boys & girls, can you name/list the classes/sectors that have been thrust forward to keep the ponzi alive? It's easy to tell, because their costs have been growing far in excess of the overall economy. Military (without global war, the US would suffer an extreme depression)? Prisons (without the war-on-drugs, the US would suffer an extreme depression)? Education (without indenturing kids with $trillions of debt, the US would experience an extreme depression)? Health (what do you think Ocare is all about)?
If you want to make some money, just follow where the next bubble is being created. Or, bail out entirely knowing this mofu is going to blow, and focus on surviving the aftermath.
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