Where the Wheel Hits the Road on Education

Matt Miller is disappointed at how cramped President Obama’s thinking about higher education is:

The president deserves credit for calling out soaring tuition and unsustainable student debt as huge barriers to upward mobility and a strong middle class. But unfortunately, the remedies he sketched in his State of the Union address and in a speech at the University of Michigan last week are textbook examples of proposals meant to signal the president’s “values” (and win votes) while doing little to address the problem.

He then draws attention to an online higher education provider called Straighterline:

It would make the world safe for disruptive innovators such as Straighterline, a Baltimore-based firm that offers college classes online via two main models: $99 per month (for all the classes you can take), or $999 for 10 courses for one year. That’s right: freshman year for under $1,000, with no government subsidy.

Straighterline offers the general and introductory courses that account for up to a third of enrollment nationwide — subjects such as college algebra, English composition, microeconomics, psychology 101, accounting 101, and U.S. history. The 4,500 students it will serve this year then transfer the credits elsewhere.

The federal government will spend more than $17 billion on Pell Grants this year. On top of that the states will spend more than $100 billion—the state of Illinois alone will spend more than $2 billion. Students and their families will spend additional billions, much of it borrowed.

The real cost of higher education has tripled over the period of the last 20 years, much of the increase attributable to increasing administrative costs.

Straighterline, the experiments of Sebastian Thrun, and any number of other online education providers demonstrate a clear alternative: higher education can be provided online at a significantly lower cost, perhaps as low as 10% of what is being paid now when all factors are considered.

If there are questions about quality, address them. It is simply unconsionable to proceed as we have.

In his most recent remarks on the subject Illinois’s Governor Pat Quinn has announced his objective that 60% of Illinois’s young people go on to higher education. Ignore for a moment that the highest proportion of people with higher education in the world (Canada) is 50%. Ignore that 50% is probably the upper limit on the proportion of the population that can actually do the work that higher education requires. Higher education for that large a proportion of young people at today’s costs is unaffordable, let alone at tomorrow’s costs.

We are reaching the point where the wheel hits the road on higher education. Is the purpose of higher education to enable young people to lead fuller, more productive lives? Is it to provide a backdrop for research, the greater proportion of which is utterly useless? Is it to employ a large cadre of adults at wages they otherwise could not realize? Is it to enrich those in the credit-extending industry? We can’t accomplish all of those objectives.

45 comments… add one
  • michael reynolds Link

    As you know, I completely agree. And I don’t think this needs to be limited to higher education, I think a lot of high school can go online.

    But sticking to higher education, think how much faster and more adaptive we could be. It’s not just a matter of getting a degree, but of shifting focus as necessary, pursuing special interests, continuing education. Something that is now static and hierarchical could be organic. And for once it’s a change that would actually save money. Staggering piles of money.

  • The worst is that nibbling around the edges of the problem will actually increase its severity.

  • Drew Link

    This year we had to navigate the system at our daughters school to make sure she got into honors classes. She was getting straight As and complaining of not being challenged, and was resentful of the slackers in class and the attention paid to them. We found ourselves speaking with a whole host of administrators. Not teachers. After awhile we found ourselves asking what do these people do? What we discovered is that they do what all unnecessary overhead does.: politics, obstruct, invent issues out of thin air. And boy, you challenge them and they are the most indignant people around. We eventually had to go to the principal to resolve the issues. Later another parent said to me Drew you haven’t figured it out? Your daughter transferred in and they placed her in regular classes. These people have a vested interest in not being viewed as wrong. The honors track students are “theirs.”. And you are questioning their judgment. Well, the daughter is still straight As. And I still don’t know what productive function the majority of the administrators fulfill. Any time I see administration as a major cost escalator I say to myself “something’s wrong.”

    Separately, markets respond. As we evaluate whether to move to Scottsdale permanently we came across a new school option called “Basis” schools. Fed up with the public system, these schools are providing top notch education as an alternative. Clearly, Straightliner is a similar response.

    I’d wonder about one thing. And it’s a question rather than assertion. Will the on line approach rob students ov valuable interaction with other students. A playing to your competition concept.

    As for Mr Quinn. Gawd. Expect anything different? Another IL pol embarrassment.

  • Drew Link

    PS

    The worst is that nibbling around the edges of the problem will actually increase its severity.

    Spoken like a manager.

  • Ben Wolf Link

    I’ve never understood why the federal government doesn’t negotiate tuition in exchange for subsidizing the system.

  • steve Link

    Drew- Pump up her extracurriculars. There are tons of kids with 4.0’s and 800s on their SATs. Check out the track record for the Basis schools and their college admissions. Long term, online may work, short term, probably best to aim for a good school.

    Steve

  • PD Shaw Link

    I’m at least glad that Obama gave voice to the issue, perhaps this might lay the groundwork for a Republican to make the changes that Ben Wolf suggests. The feds taking over the student loan program is probably a foot in the door, but I don’t expect Obama to force it open.

    Quinn is in the position of many Democrats across the nation, their elective life is spent promoting _new_ programs and here we are, your program will either suck, it won’t get passed, or you will have to kill someone else’s important program to get it. (I suppose the counterpart are Republicans who’ve spent their careers opposed to government, suddenly becoming in charge of government; life’s little twists)

  • michael reynolds Link

    Drew:

    As a former student, and now as a father with one kid in public High School, and a daughter in private school, I feel qualified to say: f–k school.

  • Ben Wolf Link

    Off topic: The recent CBO report recommends preparing for negative interest rates on T-bills, meaning U.S. bonds are in such extreme demand the bond market is willing to pay the Treasury a premium (and take a loss) for the opportunity to acquire more. This is the exact opposite of what mainstream (neo-liberal) economics tells us should be happening.

  • Icepick Link

    As a former student, and now as a father with one kid in public High School, and a daughter in private school, I feel qualified to say: f–k school.

    This is the rare occassion where I agree with you.

  • Drew Link

    Steve

    I understand. She seems to have settled into two extras. As much as I want golf to be one since at one time many moons ago I though a pro career might be in my offing,…….she’s just not interested. It’s all dance (and serious dance; Joffrey here in Chicago) and some modeling/ acting. She’s done modeling since she was a Gerber baby on food jars. A few commercials and a bit part in the Superman movie coming out next year. But nothing earth shattering.

    I don’t think I was clear on Basis. They are not on line. They are just blowing away both public and many private schools. They simoly are saying phooey on traditional programs. Their college admissions exceed some of the best schools here in Chicago. Dave would understand the references like New Trier, Benet, St Ignacious etc.

    Michael

    You have no idea how much sympathy I have for “f” school. I’m not exactly a conformist. But outside of home schooling where does one go. We have her in so many things from the extras to tudoring enrichment to reg. school to exam prep that the school wrote us a letter implying she was a truant. Given my shy and retiring demeanor you can imagine how that went over. I still remember the cold, lifeless eyes of the (moronic) administrator lecturing us about attendance – she with her holier than thou attitude and PhD on the wall – and me thinking “you are the stupidest f-wad I’ve talked to in some time”. Let’s say we aren’t fan favorites at the school. But the daughter seems to get it in spades, makes the grades in her sleep, and enjoys the outside stuff.

  • Michael reynolds Link

    Drew:
    Every year my wife and I vow that we will not become hate-objects for the school administration. And yet. . .

  • Drew:

    Re: theater

    Speaking as someone whose mother and grandparents were entertainers, has friends who are high in the worlds of ballet and opera, has many old friends were making their livings as actors, entertainment is a lousy way to make a living. The conditions are awful, the pay (in all likelihood) is poor, and the hours are terrible.

    It’s something you do because you must. You can’t live without it. Without that sort of fire in your belly you just can’t make it.

  • Icepick Link

    Tudoring enrichment?

  • Andy Link

    For high school you guys may be right. I’m not there yet with my kids. I have a first and a second grader and I couldn’t imagine trying to teach them online. Socialization is a critical part of what they’re learning which is at least as important as academics at this age IMO.

    My daughter is doing really well – basically a grade level ahead. My son is having some issues and I think he’s a strong candidate for an alternative once he’s a little older. This week for homework he had to think of an invention, draw a picture of it and write a short paragraph about it. His invention was a learning chair so people wouldn’t have to go to school. Just sit in the chair for a while and then go play.

  • Icepick Link

    PS I told you they would have the UE down low by summer, and sure as shit it is down even more today. Of course, all I’m seeing are more store closures, and the business people I talk to all say there STILL isn’t anything but minimal demand for what they’re offering, but hey, somehow we magically added a quarter million jobs in one of the two months every year when jobs get cut in large numbers.

  • I don’t have many fond memories of public school because it was fraught with the tension of integration in the 60s and 70s. That was all a terrible distraction during those days.

    Don’t get me wrong, I think it needed doing and I didn’t have problems with black classmates or teachers. Well, past Martin Luther King’s assassination anyway. I was one of three whites in a black school (our neighborhood school), studying for a spelling bee when the killing was announced. The looks.

    My parents moved house the next year.

    Tensions were always simmering under the surface. They pitched in a few experimental teaching methods on top of that. I couldn’t get out of school fast enough.

    I have a fairly jaundiced view of the whole enterprise.

  • Online teaching would certainly be a good alternative to those huge survey classes with 200 people in a lecture hall.

  • Tudoring enrichment is a survey course of tacky architecture in the suburbs circa 1948, Icepick.

  • Icepick Link

    Online teaching would certainly be a good alternative to those huge survey classes with 200 people in a lecture hall.

    200? That isn’t a large survey class, that’s a medium-sized survey class. I don’t think they count as big until they’re over 300 people, and they aren’t really big until you get to 400 students. Carleton Auditorium at the University of Florida seats about 680 students.

  • Icepick Link

    Tudoring enrichment is a survey course of tacky architecture in the suburbs circa 1948, Icepick.

    Ah, now I understand. Thank you, Janis.

  • I went to small schools.

    And not all lecturers are created equal. Wouldn’t it be better to watch a production by a great lecturer than sit in a hall being nattered at by a mediocre one?

  • Icepick Link

    I’ve actually taken video courses, as they had them at UF back in the day. They’re coma inducing. It’s bad enough trying to stay awake in a corporate finance class (the material is deadly dull, although I don’t remember if it is more boring than accounting) but to try and maintain concentration at home, with all the distractions that entails?

    All I’m sayin’ is that it won’t be a panacea, and it won’t necessarily work all that well. Sometimes there is just no substitute for having one’s ass in the classroom. (Perforce, the rest of you follows.) Of course, these days the students are required to bring laptops to the classrooms, so they bring their distractions with them. (We had to make do with the crossword puzzles in the student paper.)

  • Tudoring enrichment pairs well with the McMansions in the Suburban Corridor course, which has interesting section on energy loss through enormous entry atria with ugly chandeliers.

  • Icepick Link

    which has interesting section on energy loss through enormous entry atria with ugly chandeliers.

    Well, the good news is they’re building a lot less of those now. The bad news is they’re building a lot less of everything now.

  • PD Shaw Link

    I’m required to have 15 hours or so a year in continuing education courses and it would be nice if the online/video form were improved; it sucks. John Personna linked to an online economics seminar approvingly once, and it was basically a teacher lecturing with the equivalent of a fancy chalkboard. I couldn’t watch the whole thing.

    A large part of the problem is that the colleges are not organized around good teaching. I recall some good professors and earnest grad students, but the bulk were not terribly good at actually teaching.

  • But, take something like 20th C art history. That can best be taught with plenty of visual aids. I took it as an elective with a good lecturer, but best presentation would be a narrator over film.

  • Then there’s always the ability to review with an online course. If one’s attention flags during some transition in a lecture on, say, embryology, you can go back and pick up the information.

  • Drew Link

    Dave

    I know. And I don’t think she has the fire, it’s just a serious interest. But I think she knows that and views it as a reasonable endeavor for now. She has zero athletic ability- her moms fault. So it’s the arts on a reasonable basis until she can pick a real career. One thing she does have is “the look.” put her on camera and she lights up. American Girl doll magazine covers and banners at Mall of America and on and on. In commercials, the directors love her because she shows up, they tell what look they want and bang she gives it to them. One take. Keeps production costs down.

    Ice pick and Janis

    Hey, hey, hey. YOU try writing after days of hustling for money dawn to night in front of investors. Exhausting. I’ve got to go now, my, ahem, spelling tutor is here………

  • Icepick Link

    Yeah, it’s so hard being rich. Try living in the slums for a couple of years, and try being out of work for FOUR GODDAMNED YEARS and having your entire working and educational life flushed down the toilet, asshole, and then tell me what that does for you.

    What a fucking clueless shithead….

  • Drew Link

    That’s the spirit, ice pick. Put me in, coach!

  • Michael reynolds Link

    Online courses are about to change radically. Think app and enhanced ebook not video.

  • Enhanced e-book would have been good for Norwich’s History of Byzantium. I was at the computer dozens of times to look at maps, definitions of assorted heresies, tortures. ethnic groups, and on.

  • Icepick Link

    Online courses are about to change radically. Think app and enhanced ebook not video.

    That would be an improvement over what I used, but the real problem is that some subjects are so boring you’d have to be nearly braindead or completely crazy to find them interesting. Examples: Accounting, corporate finance, just about any -ism course in a lit department, any [Insert Politically Favored Group/Status] Studies course, etc.

  • I dunno. You could change the examples: get a kilo of heroin, step on it several times before it gets to the street, figure out money laundering and factor in losses.

  • Icepick Link

    You could change the examples: get a kilo of heroin, step on it several times before it gets to the street, figure out money laundering and factor in losses.

    But that isn’t corporate finance. Nothing about warranties and convertibles, debt policy, etc.

  • But it would make accounting more interesting, wouldn’t it?

  • Icepick Link

    Maybe some, but you still have to work in stuff like financial statements. No doubt drug dealers (at the high end) use something along those lines, but do they really use the classified balance sheet, the statement of retained earnings, the income statement and the statement of cash flows? And we haven’t even touched upon stuff like EBITDA, tax accounting, etc, etc. And that stuff is all DULL DULL DULL no matter which examples you use.

    Truly, some subjects are just completely boring.

  • steve Link

    ” my, ahem, spelling tutor is here”

    Henry VIII ?

    Steve

  • michael reynolds Link

    Truly, some subjects are just completely boring.

    Explaining perfectly why I spend my time imagining kids who can shoot light out of their hands or wars between different nanotechnologies.

  • Icepick Link

    If you could write an interesting tale that focused primarily on the technical aspects of corporate finance and accounting, I would proclaim you a rival to Shakespeare. And I’m not even kidding around about that.

  • Drew Link

    Have you sobered up since that earlier post, ice pick?

  • Icepick Link

    Guess what, dickhead? I don’t drink. I don’t use drugs either.

    I don’t know why this is so hard for you, but it is possible for someone to be annoyed by your extravagent behavior simply on its own grounds. Many of your comments lately have had this nature of “Oh, it is so hard being rich and successful! Pity me for my wealth and great life! It is so hard being me!”

    Examples: You can’t decide on whether or not to dodge taxes in Florida or Arizona. (I vote for Arizona, being a Floridian myself. Or better yet the Caymens. Better yet, move to Somalia.) And I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before you moan and groan about not being able to fully screw over whoever you buy your house from because the property market isn’t a depressed as you like. You complain about how hard it is having a talented, beautiful & smart daughter, because it is so HARD to find exactly the right good school for her to attend. (Most people don’t have little choice in the matter.) No doubt you’re worried about whether or not she will get into a FABULOUS college or merely a great one. Boo-fucking-hoo. You bitch about having (highly paid) work to do. Any idea when I might find that objectionable when McDonald’s and Walmart won’t even give me a call for part-time work?

    My alltime favorite remains you comparing a situation in which you had a starter job in the career track that you had set out on that wasn’t as FABULOUS as you had hoped, and comparing that to having one’s life destroyed by losing one’s job at the start of the worst economic crisis in 80 years. Let’s see: career-track job that’s a little tough, or unemployed for almost four years – I wonder which is worse? Guess what? The situations are not comparable in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.

    I’ll give Michael this much credit, when he flaunts his wallet he doesn’t try to make me feel sorry for him. You want a “there, there” and a pat on the head for getting everything you want out of life.

    You know, Drew, it is possible that I just hate your stinking guts because of what a smug clueless asswipe you happen to be.

  • Drew Link

    I love you too, ice pick. Loser.

  • Icepick Link

    At least that last sentence has the ring of honesty about it, instead of your usual mock concern for your fellow human beings.

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