College is in serious need of disruption. Most degrees add little value compared to their current cost. But the cost doesn't have to be so high.
My idea of how it will be replaced:
All learning will be done online and by independent organizations which could range from small time publishers to even people on youtube creating courses. Students will self-study or use other methods to learn.
Each discipline will have its own certification. If you want to display your knowledge of xyz subject then you get that certification and employers will hire people based on their collection of certifications. Employees could build up their certifications as they progress in their career, life-long learning.
The entire system will be more or less free-market based but overtime I could see dominant organizations taking most of the market. The strongest will rise to the top.
You can already see this happening in high-demand fields like tech where you have these "code camps" springing up and then all the little certifications being offered by google, amazon and so on. My vision is this type of system will become the dominant way to obtain specialized skills. Traditional education will have to compete within this system.
However, universities and banks have figured out how to eat up much of that value by saddling students with debt that can take decades to pay off.
What are your definitions for "most degrees", "value", and "cost"?
Maybe they were created to fill demand that is now drying up. But if you search for any US state like: "Ohio colleges", google will show you "100+ more colleges" for majority of states.
However, the above assumes that the value proposition of college in society doesn't significantly change. There are pointers that it is. Although the problem is there isn't any alternative ready for it to switch to en mass. If people doubt the value proposition today, they're left with not going at all, which is a worse value proposition, or looking at something like a trade school-- that's a perfectly reasonable option, but issues of social perception/prestige make it less attractive, and many trades have low salary caps. A "medical assistant" tops out around $45k for example, though the more rigorous "physicians assistant" can pay up to double that. But overall, trades are fairly likely to have a firm ceiling on wages. Not that graduating college as an English major is always going to pay more, it's just that there's less of a ceiling baked in to it. (Though I'd argue the floor is much lower, like $10/hour barista low)
That's pretty darn low given that the cities hipster enough to have a barista career track tend to have the $15/hr minimum wage.
It is obviously a really good thing for smart students in small towns and rural school districts and probably a big reason Ohio has a lot of small colleges, though in recent years Ohio has allocated a pool of money to pay for it all and when it runs out (it always runs out), then you have to pay for the classes yourself.
It's a good system, though few bothered to take advantage of it. I was one of 4 or 5 kids in my grade that took advantage of the system, even though there were dozens of better students than me who doubtlessly qualified.
The study materials for those exams, worst case, bring the total to $750.
So $750 vs $50,000 for a modestly priced 4 year university.
Can anyone in intellectual good faith argue that the latter system is going to survive outside of the very short term?
Also going to university isn’t 50 000$ everywhere, this is mainly a weird US thing. I am a firm believer in the importance fundamental CS education, and picking up AWS from there shouldn’t be hard if that fundamental education was any good.
Yet when I went to University they were teaching Java/Pascal. What got me a job was learning more relevant subjects things on my own. Virtualization, Cloud, Containers, Python, Shell scripting.
Yeah I'll add my voice to the "University is overpriced and ancient" vote.
If absolutely nothing else, that $50,000 almost always includes room, utilities (electricity, water, high-speed internet, cable,) furniture, at least 3 meals a day, medical care, and a gym.
So you'd need to add the cost of those to the $750 for it to be a fair comparison.
Until the tech industry forms meaningful professional organizations with legal protections like law and medicine, these certs will be resume garnish compared to a degree.
All the expensive facilities added little.
This is how the article describes the focus of the article.
The buildings are severe 1970s concrete. The radio station is in a yurt. ... if you’re used to the grassy quads of state flagships or the rich Gothic and brick of the Ivy League, Hampshire’s austerity is striking. On my visit in the spring, tarps covered study carrels in the library to protect them from a leaky roof.
Friend: Well..long story short, they refused to continue to pay for her college, cutting her off at the end of her sophomore year. She couldn't afford to continue on her own, and she feels betrayed, and that it set her back decades.
Me: That really sucks..now I get it. They're bastards! So, where did she go?
Friend: Evergreen State.
Me: Oh.
I had great classes but I could have gotten the same education without the fluff. I bet without the fluff the cost would have been half or even cheaper.
I simply can’t feel sorry for an industry that yokes 18 year olds with $200k+ in loans for undergraduate degrees, especially in useless subjects. The faster there is consolidation the better.
> As of June 2018, Forbes reported that total US student debt was $1.52 trillion and that 44.2 million people owed debt.[3] The average student debt is $38,390. The median student debt is between $10,000 and $25,000, while 2% of borrowers owe $100,000 or more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt
$200k is closer to the kind of debt you'd expect from a medical school graduate.
You're poking at the lack of science knowledge and then immediately misuse "your". I'm not a grammar nazi but I think this underlines that we're all good and bad at various things.
That summarizes the issue. Why pay 200k or even 100k at the beginning of your adult life for something you can read and then talk to people?
If you think students or professors at these colleges will turn you away when you've studied the material, you're sadly mistaken. Why do you need to get stuck with the bill when you're not really getting anything out of it?
One liberal arts college decided to admit more diverse, poor students and fewer white rich students. Then to make things worse, they decided to give the rich white students additional financial aid. Then, surprise! They ran out of money.
This article does not touch on the real problem. A new Massachusetts regulation says that colleges must have enough money to guarantee that they can operate for four years. https://www.mass.edu/bhe/documents/THESIS%20Working%20Group%...
"The resulting Teachout Viability Metric (TVM), ... focuses on an NPIHE’s ability to meet its teaching obligations to currently enrolled undergraduate students through to their expected graduation dates."
An NPIHE is a college.
In other words, if a college doesn't have the money to guarantee it can stay open for four year, it has to start taking drastic steps which will probably scare away next fall's students.
Hampshire never had enough money to make a guaratee like that. Hampshire has always operated paycheck to paycheck, with almost no money in the bank. But it wasn't a life or death problem. They managed to slide by decade after decade. But now, with this new regulation, Hampshire is required to take drastic actions including admitting a tiny freshman class. Hampshire finances were on the shaky side and heading down. But this new regulation turned a manageable problem into an existential crisis.
But the article has problems.
First, it's not about colleges, it's about a case study on one specific cool hippy college that has no majors, no structure, a handful of semi-known graduates, and 13 students in the recent freshman class and (they think) probably 0 in the next.
Article has problems. Look at this:
> Depending on the state, needier students will usually pay less at a liberal arts college than they would at a state flagship. It sounds counterintuitive, but choosing a public school to save money is actually a privilege for the affluent.
It then clarifies:
> A survey of 405 private nonprofit four-year colleges by the National Association of College and University Business Officers found that though the average tuition rate was $38,301.
Average tuition at private colleges is $38,301, and it's more expensive at a state college?
I think not. What state colleges charge more than $38,301 tuition? Rhode Island has the highest at $39,029 for both tuition and fees. The $38,301 private average is tuition only. Or you can pay $12,363 on average for tuition in North Dakota. According to https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/state/.
But if you go to https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/state/north-dakota/ you find that in state tuition is $6,608 for North Dakota residents and $8,766 for out of state.
State colleges are dramatically less expensive in every single state than private colleges, especially for in-state students. The article's claim is so absurd that it demolishes the credibility of the entire piece.
How do other parts of the world handle education in the liberal arts?
