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I'm sad that all education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then the goals get misaligned. Produce as many courses at as minimum cost as possible. Enr

I'm sad that all education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then the goals get misaligned. Produce as many courses at as minimum cost as possible. Enroll as many people as possible without regards for completion percentage. Create an economy where random people are incentivised to create courses and then the course quality tanks. I wish this turns out differently. Even Udemy and Coursera have become commericialised with edX the last major standing.

sokoloff 5y ago
Udemy and Coursera were entirely commercial from their start, were they not?
- nosianu 5y ago
  Originally Coursera only wanted money for the - for the vast majority of people useless - verified completion certificate. You had access to all course content including all the tests and could access course content long after the course had ended. So if you did not see any value in that "verified certificate" there was no reason to pay anything. You got a free certificate either way. I saved all certificates I ever got from edX and from Coursera as PDFs to remember which courses I took. They actually look quite fancy. - Example certificate that was free at the time: https://i.imgur.com/XFX05gx.png https://i.imgur.com/XFX05gx.png - The course was part of a series, which these days is available here: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhu-data-science#courses https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhu-data-science#co... - Here is an R-Markdown document I created for another of the courses in that series, which used peer assessment where we had to evaluate each others results: https://rpubs.com/Noseshine/74191 https://rpubs.com/Noseshine/74191 At the start everything was free, including all these exercises, all the assessments, and even the certificates. I knew it would not last and used the opportunity, over three years of heavy course taking, over 50 completed courses. I did not have much to spend at the time, I could definitely not have spend the current amounts. I took over a dozen courses on Coursera alone, medicine and statistics, it was good. I just checked my (long unused) login just now, they only list two courses under completed and "forgot" the other well over a dozen others. Good thing I saved those completion certificates, although there probably is little use in remembering what courses I took - either I remember what I learned or I don't. . Just for fun, this was one of my favorite courses, great professor too, great content: https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience Don't know if it still is as complete, at the time it was almost 25 hours of videos alone, never mind all the reading and all the tests and exercises. It wasn't complicated though, you just had to invest the time but not nearly as much brain as for other "STEM sciency" courses.
whoomp12342 5y ago
fuck completion percentage, it is more than just that. consider the QUALITY of completion. e.g. Did you show up 30% of the time? yer a graduate!
- foolmeonce 5y ago
  I think good goal posts are even further away.. If you complete 100% of calculus I and then delete all access to it instead of solidifying it by going to calculus II, you will need to learn calc I again within months and the cognitive dissonance that creates will cause most people never to learn calculus.
- jasonharris555 5y ago
  Mastery based credentialing is the future. Employers only care what you actually know and can do.
  - adolph 5y ago
    > Employers only care what you actually know and can do. That seems to fly in the face of "who you know is more important that what you know" conventional wisdom.
hatware 5y ago
> education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then the goals get misaligned. There are companies trying to battle the problems that come with a single bottom line, like Guild Education.
- kerkeslager 5y ago
  I just cannot fathom the worldview that leads one to believe a for-profit company can solve the problem of for-profit education.
  - kerkeslager 5y ago
    My previous post was a bit too glib, so here's an explanation: There's a common belief on Hacker News which verges on mental illness, that the best solution to any problem is free market capitalism. This belief is false because free market capitalism doesn't solve problems when the customer isn't the person with the problem. The problem in this case is a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to get money without an education, and it's hard to get an education without money. For-profit education cannot solve the problem, because for-profit education is the problem. If the customer is the student, then that means people without money can't be students. If you start letting people without money be students, then the customer is someone else, and the customer's incentives will always be misaligned with the student's interests in some ways. There simply isn't a way to fix this which makes any sense and still includes for-profit education.
    - Joky 5y ago
      > The problem in this case is a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to get money without an education, and it's hard to get an education without money. > For-profit education cannot solve the problem, because for-profit education is the problem. Have you seen school that only gets paid after you start working (and based on a percentage of your salary), for example: https://www.holbertonschool.com https://www.holbertonschool.com I like the concept in that these school are somehow "investing" in the student: they only get as successful as the student is.
rattray 5y ago
At least there's still Khan Academy. Very different niche, though – I sure wish they'd been the new homes of edX's content…
lvs 5y ago
> all education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then the goals get misaligned. I'm fairly certain we've been watching that mission creep in all corners of education, higher and otherwise, over the past couple of decades.

sokoloff 5y ago

Udemy and Coursera were entirely commercial from their start, were they not?

nosianu 5y ago
Originally Coursera only wanted money for the - for the vast majority of people useless - verified completion certificate. You had access to all course content including all the tests and could access course content long after the course had ended. So if you did not see any value in that "verified certificate" there was no reason to pay anything. You got a free certificate either way. I saved all certificates I ever got from edX and from Coursera as PDFs to remember which courses I took. They actually look quite fancy. - Example certificate that was free at the time: https://i.imgur.com/XFX05gx.png https://i.imgur.com/XFX05gx.png - The course was part of a series, which these days is available here: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhu-data-science#courses https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhu-data-science#co... - Here is an R-Markdown document I created for another of the courses in that series, which used peer assessment where we had to evaluate each others results: https://rpubs.com/Noseshine/74191 https://rpubs.com/Noseshine/74191 At the start everything was free, including all these exercises, all the assessments, and even the certificates. I knew it would not last and used the opportunity, over three years of heavy course taking, over 50 completed courses. I did not have much to spend at the time, I could definitely not have spend the current amounts. I took over a dozen courses on Coursera alone, medicine and statistics, it was good. I just checked my (long unused) login just now, they only list two courses under completed and "forgot" the other well over a dozen others. Good thing I saved those completion certificates, although there probably is little use in remembering what courses I took - either I remember what I learned or I don't. . Just for fun, this was one of my favorite courses, great professor too, great content: https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience Don't know if it still is as complete, at the time it was almost 25 hours of videos alone, never mind all the reading and all the tests and exercises. It wasn't complicated though, you just had to invest the time but not nearly as much brain as for other "STEM sciency" courses.

whoomp12342 5y ago

fuck completion percentage, it is more than just that. consider the QUALITY of completion. e.g. Did you show up 30% of the time? yer a graduate!

foolmeonce 5y ago
I think good goal posts are even further away.. If you complete 100% of calculus I and then delete all access to it instead of solidifying it by going to calculus II, you will need to learn calc I again within months and the cognitive dissonance that creates will cause most people never to learn calculus.
jasonharris555 5y ago
Mastery based credentialing is the future. Employers only care what you actually know and can do.
- adolph 5y ago
  > Employers only care what you actually know and can do. That seems to fly in the face of "who you know is more important that what you know" conventional wisdom.

hatware 5y ago

> education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then the goals get misaligned. There are companies trying to battle the problems that come with a single bottom line, like Guild Education.

kerkeslager 5y ago
I just cannot fathom the worldview that leads one to believe a for-profit company can solve the problem of for-profit education.
- kerkeslager 5y ago
  My previous post was a bit too glib, so here's an explanation: There's a common belief on Hacker News which verges on mental illness, that the best solution to any problem is free market capitalism. This belief is false because free market capitalism doesn't solve problems when the customer isn't the person with the problem. The problem in this case is a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to get money without an education, and it's hard to get an education without money. For-profit education cannot solve the problem, because for-profit education is the problem. If the customer is the student, then that means people without money can't be students. If you start letting people without money be students, then the customer is someone else, and the customer's incentives will always be misaligned with the student's interests in some ways. There simply isn't a way to fix this which makes any sense and still includes for-profit education.
  - Joky 5y ago
    > The problem in this case is a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to get money without an education, and it's hard to get an education without money. > For-profit education cannot solve the problem, because for-profit education is the problem. Have you seen school that only gets paid after you start working (and based on a percentage of your salary), for example: https://www.holbertonschool.com https://www.holbertonschool.com I like the concept in that these school are somehow "investing" in the student: they only get as successful as the student is.

rattray 5y ago

At least there's still Khan Academy. Very different niche, though – I sure wish they'd been the new homes of edX's content…

lvs 5y ago

> all education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then the goals get misaligned. I'm fairly certain we've been watching that mission creep in all corners of education, higher and otherwise, over the past couple of decades.