http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/opinion/Brooks-The-Practical-University.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
This was from about 3 weeks ago and I think David Brooks does a nice job of forecasting the future of education..
As an urban studies graduate I spent a lot of time in classes that discussed education. Its amazing how fast technology shifts perspective. As a 2011 graduate of Penn we rarely discussed the online classroom. The concept was not as exposed as its becoming today….
Here is my humble opinion that may get passionate at times…..In case you didn’t know, college education the way you used to think about it, is dead for the conscious learner. I think of a conscious learner as a person who truly wants to learn and process material. From ages 18-22 I was the farthest thing from a conscious learner. I could care less about going to class let alone what the teacher at the front of the room was saying (for the most part). I was ignorant. Today, I believe learning is one of the most fun processes to take on. It takes a lot of time and dedication to learn something….well without going too off topic….college the way our parents generation used to think of college is over.
Going across the country to pay 50k a year to attend a “great” school is a tough look. Most students end up with 200k of liabilities that will be a straight up-hill battle to pay back. If you have taken a look at the Fed’s balance sheet lately you understand how solid students are at paying back long term college debt. If you have not, please check out this link:
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/commentaries/Federal-Government-Assets-and-Student-Loans.php
After looking at the forthcoming bubble, student debt, and understanding what is going on in terms of online education one can see where the future is headed.
To get an idea of where I think education is headed please check out:
www.edx.org
www.khanacademy.org
www.mruniversity.com
I will give you a scenario. I am in HR for goldman sachs (or whatever company college graduates think is great because it pays well) and I am looking at two job candidates fresh out of an undergraduate business program. One went to Wharton and one from the hypothetical Harvard Edx Business School.
In the first interview the Wharton grad comes in and gives me the same answer Wharton grads have given me for the past 50 years. “I went to the best business school (according to Businessweek) out there. I was taught by Jeremey Siegel and some of the other best business professors and economists at Penn. I got a 3.5 grade point average. During the summers for 8 weeks I interned on Wall Street. Did I mention I paid 200k to graduate from Penn?”
Then the Harvard EdX grad comes in the room. “I made the economical choice and went to college for free. I attended lectures at Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Gerogetown, and Texas among other great institutions. I did interactive lessons with professors in all of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). I got a 95% proficiency on all the written tests I completed. I have a receipt that I attended and listened proactively (asking questions) in every single class. I have a degree from the best online university. During that time instead of investing 200k in a private college education I invested 10k a year for four years and traveled for 3 months to Asia, South America, Africa, and Europe. I was able to communicate with people of different cultures and see the world. While in the states, I was also able to intern at a company on Wall Street while I was doing my online education.”
In my opinion, the above scenario is what will begin to take place in probably 10 years, maybe sooner. I hope it does. I hope the candidate who is more ambitious jumps out to you.
There are some major positives for conscious learners from the above scenario as well. I am excited to see the price of institutional private education fall back to a respectable level. It seems that universities inflate their tuition costs yearly. Demand of out of state private school learners should decrease and hopefully there will be a healthy correction in the price of education.
I talked earlier today about access and with more access the world can and will be happier. With more education and online resources for education the world can be a happier place.
Columbia, NYU, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Boston University and Vanderbilt all have a total annual cost of over 55k a year. I am sure they are all great, special schools to attend. I’m sure anyone who goes there will learn a lot about whatever they want to study. But I am excited for the day where people can access that same level of education for the cost of the time it takes to sit down and learn the material.