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I think Christensen is generally right here. Colleges exist as physical institutions for largely obsolete reasons: 1. Libraries - pre-internet/digitization, a

I think Christensen is generally right here. Colleges exist as physical institutions for largely obsolete reasons: 1. Libraries - pre-internet/digitization, a massive amount of human knowledge lived solely in university libraries. The size and contents of a given university's library was a very real driver of its value as an educational institution. That may be marginally true today, especially in the case of rare manuscripts and whatnot, but the competitive advantage of having an expansive library is basically gone. 2. Recruiting - Companies try to recruit new employees at universities for several reasons. First, they're outsourcing basic candidate diligence to admissions committees. Second, they see efficiency in putting the mouth of the candidate funnel where there are lots of smart motivated young people in one place. Third, alumni loyalty to alma mater is often very strong. However, technology (electronic background checks, being able to look at a candidate's repo, etc) has seriously degraded the AdCom's relative value in filtering for people who are smart, not criminals, and can get authority figures to say nice things about them. Similarly, technology has reduced to near-zero the necessity of having face-to-face interaction during the initial stages of the hiring process (employers will always want to do in-person final rounds, but the need for in-person funnel-mouth events like career fairs / company informational presentations / etc no longer exists as it did pre-internet). Alumni loyalty will be far more sticky, but its importance will diminish over time. 3. Professors - just as the competitive moat provided by libraries was largely destroyed by the internet, so too is professor access. You can talk shop with many big-name academics on Twitter; you can watch their lectures on Youtube; they will email you their papers if you email them to ask; etc. Is a Twitter argument the same as visiting someone during their office hours? No, but it's a big improvement on the previous status quo. I think it's going to be a very, very hard landing for colleges over the next couple decades as young people start making different decisions based on the options available to them.

glup 8y ago
Respectfully, I think analyses like this (there are many going back to the 90's at least) miss the -1st and 0th assets offered by elite universities: signaling power of the institution itself, and the opportunity to live among---and interact nearly continuously with--other full-time learners of diverse backgrounds but of generally similar ability. Elite universities do not exist to impart technical knowledge and skills (both can be obtained via many other routes), but to propagate and modulate the class system by 1) sorting individuals, 2) putting them in a warm fuzzy place where they can acculturate, form new relationships, and figure out how they (and w/e domain they choose to specialize in) relates to the broader array of institutions, and 3) providing a succinct, society-wide signaling mechanism (not that it's good/fair/accurate, just that it is widely accepted). So far as I am aware, these deeper assets of universities are not under threat. In my experience, people with strong technical skills from non-elite educational routes end up working for people with weak technical skills from elite universities, for a broad variety of reasons (esp. access to capital, comfort in managerial positions). That said, I think we are at risk of seeing the higher education system become increasingly bifurcated: winner-takes-all dynamics gradually centralize power in a tiny number of elite universities (there's a lot of work on this, that 2nd and 3rd tier colleges are under the most financial stress) and a larger 'commodity' higher education system focused on imparting skills (basically extended job training).
- secabeen 8y ago
  > I think we are at risk of seeing the higher education system become increasingly bifurcated: winner-takes-all dynamics gradually centralize power in a tiny number of elite universities (there's a lot of work on this, that 2nd and 3rd tier colleges are under the most financial stress) and a larger 'commodity' higher education system focused on imparting skills (basically extended job training). This is a pretty good analysis. Here in California, we have the community college system, which I think fits the description of your 'commodity' system quite well. We also have the Cal state schools, which I think don't, as much, but CA does have a unique system compared to a lot of other states.
philwelch 8y ago
> Professors - just as the competitive moat provided by libraries was largely destroyed by the internet, so too is professor access. You can talk shop with many big-name academics on Twitter; you can watch their lectures on Youtube; they will email you their papers if you email them to ask; etc. Is a Twitter argument the same as visiting someone during their office hours? No, but it's a big improvement on the previous status quo. I spent a lot of time chatting with professors in college, to the point where they would recognize me and we could have long, multi-session discussions we could intermittently return to. Having a smaller number of "big-name academics" (as judged by what, popularity among their students?) teaching over the internet can't reproduce that, purely because they will be stretched too thin. It can be a different experience, perhaps a better experience in terms of the lecture itself, but the student-professor relationship would definitely be harmed.

glup 8y ago

Respectfully, I think analyses like this (there are many going back to the 90's at least) miss the -1st and 0th assets offered by elite universities: signaling power of the institution itself, and the opportunity to live among---and interact nearly continuously with--other full-time learners of diverse backgrounds but of generally similar ability. Elite universities do not exist to impart technical knowledge and skills (both can be obtained via many other routes), but to propagate and modulate the class system by 1) sorting individuals, 2) putting them in a warm fuzzy place where they can acculturate, form new relationships, and figure out how they (and w/e domain they choose to specialize in) relates to the broader array of institutions, and 3) providing a succinct, society-wide signaling mechanism (not that it's good/fair/accurate, just that it is widely accepted). So far as I am aware, these deeper assets of universities are not under threat. In my experience, people with strong technical skills from non-elite educational routes end up working for people with weak technical skills from elite universities, for a broad variety of reasons (esp. access to capital, comfort in managerial positions). That said, I think we are at risk of seeing the higher education system become increasingly bifurcated: winner-takes-all dynamics gradually centralize power in a tiny number of elite universities (there's a lot of work on this, that 2nd and 3rd tier colleges are under the most financial stress) and a larger 'commodity' higher education system focused on imparting skills (basically extended job training).

secabeen 8y ago
> I think we are at risk of seeing the higher education system become increasingly bifurcated: winner-takes-all dynamics gradually centralize power in a tiny number of elite universities (there's a lot of work on this, that 2nd and 3rd tier colleges are under the most financial stress) and a larger 'commodity' higher education system focused on imparting skills (basically extended job training). This is a pretty good analysis. Here in California, we have the community college system, which I think fits the description of your 'commodity' system quite well. We also have the Cal state schools, which I think don't, as much, but CA does have a unique system compared to a lot of other states.

philwelch 8y ago

> Professors - just as the competitive moat provided by libraries was largely destroyed by the internet, so too is professor access. You can talk shop with many big-name academics on Twitter; you can watch their lectures on Youtube; they will email you their papers if you email them to ask; etc. Is a Twitter argument the same as visiting someone during their office hours? No, but it's a big improvement on the previous status quo. I spent a lot of time chatting with professors in college, to the point where they would recognize me and we could have long, multi-session discussions we could intermittently return to. Having a smaller number of "big-name academics" (as judged by what, popularity among their students?) teaching over the internet can't reproduce that, purely because they will be stretched too thin. It can be a different experience, perhaps a better experience in terms of the lecture itself, but the student-professor relationship would definitely be harmed.