4 ms·

If you close all colleges for a year, without substantial liquidity support that is not going to be forthcoming, many (25%) will never reopen.

gowld 6y ago
There are too many private colleges so that seems fine.
vkou 6y ago
Which will create opportunities for leaner, slimmer, more efficient startup colleges to take their place. I'm not talking about coding boot camps, I'm talking about institutions that are more similar to trade schools... Or European universities. All that you need to educate people is a large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard.
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  With respect, while I am sympathetic to the creative destructive dogma of capitalism, I see reality considerably differently. I don't mean to be banal but the business of colleges is not "education". A large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard is not competitive from the perspective of the customer base, nor is it attractive from the perspective of those who would populate the whiteboard with whatever. What parents and students pay for is essentially a moderately supervised, branded, summer sleepaway camp experience (full year) filled with nice sounding time-occupying activities and vague, often unfulfilled, and also unaccountable promises that at the end of the camp experience someone will be willing to pay to utilize the time of the student, rather than the student/parents paying to have their time occupied. There are various ways to creatively package the elements of that experience into a product, but in the "lean" formulations- like Lambda School- there is no real estate, no large hall. Real estate is expensive. I think what we actually would see- are already seeing- in the closure of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small private colleges likely to die is the chain restaurant version of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small family restaurants that have largely gone by the wayside in American culture. They will have a consistent brand, will cost maybe a little less, will pay their mostly expendable teaching staff considerably less, with no tenure (though performance bonuses and maybe equity grants for the stars, the way any sensibly managed business operates these days), with a manufactured curriculum delivered consistently across the "franchises" and with lots of entertainment and parent-appealing safety/oversight options, lots of addons for extra fees (semester abroad, anyone?), and some structure around the time-occupying activities that may- no guarantees- lead to eventual employment. Welcome to Olive Garden, can I take your classroom order please? Mediocre consistency at scale is how America works. Cheers.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Sorry you picked the wrong college to attend, but I can personally vouch for them not all being like that.
    - jonahbenton 6y ago
      I didn't articulate that well- it wasn't a comment on my experience or on college experience generally. I do think the operational dynamics of colleges have changed, and the parent comment about the essence of education being someone at a whiteboard in a room- I just don't think that's sufficiently true anymore. It's not what people pay for. But more to the point- The Olive Garden analogy is what (I think) will happen. That prognostication is in line generally with the business trajectory that the US solves for. All businesses are ultimately scaled and financialized. So- as small private colleges will be the first to fail, their brands and their nostalgia will be picked up by the educational equivalent of restaurant chain operations. Chain operations will produce a product people will pay for- lots of people in the US go to chain restaurants- but the end result is going to be considerably different than what used to be called the college experience. There is no legal or financial machinery in the US to defend the small. And that's too bad. Cheers.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  The quality of the American university system is foundational to why America is such a powerful and influential country. Suggesting any significant disruption to the university system that currently exists sounds like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Everyone ranks universities different, but the broad strokes shake out the same every time. The US university system is of unparalleled quality. Perhaps the American university system could be made better, but have you noticed that literally every other country on earth does way worse? https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/ra...
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    have you noticed that literally every other country on earth does way worse? According to a website called “US news”. The US definitely has a few colleges in the top 20 say but so do a few other countries.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - red_admiral 6y ago
    Not going to downvote, but I am going to disagree. For starters, most rankings have Oxford and Cambridge in the UK quite high up, and they run on a different model. Next up, "liberal arts" today is not the same thing as it was a generation ago, and it's debatable whether it's still doing that much except credentialism (Bryan Caplan certainly thinks it isn't). This is not, by the way, a dog-whistle at social justice: I think that college SJ is a symptom of a deeper structural problem with the current university system. The 25% who are going to fail (if the poster two levels above is right) are probably also not the Ivy League. In the UK at least, there are lots of places lower down the league tables who in my opinion could contribute a lot more to the nation if they were good trade schools rather than bad universities. Less sure about the US situation, but I think it was the case until not that long ago that there were ways to power and influence that didn't go through a university - including many examples of past presidents.

gowld 6y ago

There are too many private colleges so that seems fine.

vkou 6y ago

Which will create opportunities for leaner, slimmer, more efficient startup colleges to take their place. I'm not talking about coding boot camps, I'm talking about institutions that are more similar to trade schools... Or European universities. All that you need to educate people is a large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard.

jonahbenton 6y ago
With respect, while I am sympathetic to the creative destructive dogma of capitalism, I see reality considerably differently. I don't mean to be banal but the business of colleges is not "education". A large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard is not competitive from the perspective of the customer base, nor is it attractive from the perspective of those who would populate the whiteboard with whatever. What parents and students pay for is essentially a moderately supervised, branded, summer sleepaway camp experience (full year) filled with nice sounding time-occupying activities and vague, often unfulfilled, and also unaccountable promises that at the end of the camp experience someone will be willing to pay to utilize the time of the student, rather than the student/parents paying to have their time occupied. There are various ways to creatively package the elements of that experience into a product, but in the "lean" formulations- like Lambda School- there is no real estate, no large hall. Real estate is expensive. I think what we actually would see- are already seeing- in the closure of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small private colleges likely to die is the chain restaurant version of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small family restaurants that have largely gone by the wayside in American culture. They will have a consistent brand, will cost maybe a little less, will pay their mostly expendable teaching staff considerably less, with no tenure (though performance bonuses and maybe equity grants for the stars, the way any sensibly managed business operates these days), with a manufactured curriculum delivered consistently across the "franchises" and with lots of entertainment and parent-appealing safety/oversight options, lots of addons for extra fees (semester abroad, anyone?), and some structure around the time-occupying activities that may- no guarantees- lead to eventual employment. Welcome to Olive Garden, can I take your classroom order please? Mediocre consistency at scale is how America works. Cheers.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Sorry you picked the wrong college to attend, but I can personally vouch for them not all being like that.
  - jonahbenton 6y ago
    I didn't articulate that well- it wasn't a comment on my experience or on college experience generally. I do think the operational dynamics of colleges have changed, and the parent comment about the essence of education being someone at a whiteboard in a room- I just don't think that's sufficiently true anymore. It's not what people pay for. But more to the point- The Olive Garden analogy is what (I think) will happen. That prognostication is in line generally with the business trajectory that the US solves for. All businesses are ultimately scaled and financialized. So- as small private colleges will be the first to fail, their brands and their nostalgia will be picked up by the educational equivalent of restaurant chain operations. Chain operations will produce a product people will pay for- lots of people in the US go to chain restaurants- but the end result is going to be considerably different than what used to be called the college experience. There is no legal or financial machinery in the US to defend the small. And that's too bad. Cheers.
dodobirdlord 6y ago
The quality of the American university system is foundational to why America is such a powerful and influential country. Suggesting any significant disruption to the university system that currently exists sounds like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Everyone ranks universities different, but the broad strokes shake out the same every time. The US university system is of unparalleled quality. Perhaps the American university system could be made better, but have you noticed that literally every other country on earth does way worse? https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/ra...
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  have you noticed that literally every other country on earth does way worse? According to a website called “US news”. The US definitely has a few colleges in the top 20 say but so do a few other countries.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- red_admiral 6y ago
  Not going to downvote, but I am going to disagree. For starters, most rankings have Oxford and Cambridge in the UK quite high up, and they run on a different model. Next up, "liberal arts" today is not the same thing as it was a generation ago, and it's debatable whether it's still doing that much except credentialism (Bryan Caplan certainly thinks it isn't). This is not, by the way, a dog-whistle at social justice: I think that college SJ is a symptom of a deeper structural problem with the current university system. The 25% who are going to fail (if the poster two levels above is right) are probably also not the Ivy League. In the UK at least, there are lots of places lower down the league tables who in my opinion could contribute a lot more to the nation if they were good trade schools rather than bad universities. Less sure about the US situation, but I think it was the case until not that long ago that there were ways to power and influence that didn't go through a university - including many examples of past presidents.