4 ms·

Makes sense to me - if you’re mostly buying prestige that gets concentrated in the top institutions. If you’re trying to buy education the others are overprice

• colechristensen 6y ago
  This is what is frustrating about higher education, the wide gulf between chasing after a credential and chasing after an education.
  • fossuser 6y ago
    I think a lot of this could be solved by Lambda School style ISAs. If the school isn’t actually good at education then it fails. True alignment of incentives.
    • colechristensen 6y ago
      This is fine for trade schools which can reasonably measure success by short term income of new graduates, but this is a terrible metric for higher learning in general.
      • fossuser 6y ago
        It's certainly an imperfect metric, but I'm skeptical of the claims that there's a better measure for 'higher learning'. Often when people say this, I've found they're really just using it as a proxy for status or prestige rather than education or critical thinking. I agree with it in the abstract, but disagree with its use in practice.
        • colechristensen 6y ago
          Who says you have to measure it at all? A valuation based on immediate financial value turns universities into trade schools (which to be fair, more people need / are really looking for). And also it would turn universities in to not-very-good trade schools. Why would they train school teachers or social workers when they make so little money? Metrics change what they observe, unless you are extremely careful, usually for the worse.