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The problem with that lottery is that it still doesn’t solve the problem of artificial scarcity. There is no reason why a “Harvard” level class is restricted to

The problem with that lottery is that it still doesn’t solve the problem of artificial scarcity. There is no reason why a “Harvard” level class is restricted to just a room full of people. We totally have the technology and capabilities to scale it to the masses and make education vastly cheaper but we choose not to for some reason. I think part of YC’s philosophy is basically this. Think making startups accessible rather than just some elite institution for wealth preservation.

buzzy_hacker 4y ago
I completely agree with you. I think it would be best to expand class sizes in addition to this lottery.
- chrischen 4y ago
  Yea or do virtual classes or even video classes with distributed TAs that answer questions.
meowkit 4y ago
> The problem with that lottery is that it still doesn’t solve the problem of artificial scarcity. This is assuming it's a problem that can be solved with simple tweaks or "startup disruption". It's an issue very much related to conspicuous consumption as education >in the Ivy League/cohort< is now a luxury good. Modeling a "prestige" factor helps account for the inequality [0]. Freakonomics[1] just did an episode on this, but I've come across similar data points else where. It's a stamp of not just a good education, but a social credential implying you have connections or money. You can already get an equivalent education to one you might get at Harvard (or better in some majors) at many other public/private universities. The key here is the human connections you form, which go on to pay dividends later given the point above. MOOCs were the golden child a decade ago, and they are working to some extent, but they're not breaking the elite walled garden of premier higher education. [0] https://www.nber.org/papers/w29309 https://www.nber.org/papers/w29309 [1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-university-of-impossible-to-get-into/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-university-of-impossibl...
- chrischen 4y ago
  I’d imagine they work nicely for software engineering, but even then a lot of jobs out there are requiring degrees and might attribute too much ti the brand of college. Some sort of objective skill evaluation that is also officially recognized must be implemented in addition to actual knowledge acquisition. As I understand it if you are a doctor and capable in every way if you don’t have the degrees you can’t even be tested?
  - pas 4y ago
    > but even then a lot of jobs out there are requiring degrees and ... yes, and that's basically the crux of the problem. this is a social coordination problem, not a problem of education. the trivial solution is to "outlaw" this by blinding the prestige credentials of the candidate (so only show a standardized thing like 3 year applied maths bsc) and only ask about previous experience (2 years working as data scientist) or whatever "obviously" people will try to game this (though other universities can then copy what comes out of the fancy universities) of course this could quickly lead to the rise of alternative prestige/reputation networks, but if the whole job application is standardized (so it becomes very hard to identify the candidate) then at least it gives a chance for folks to get in the door. then only the usual biases remain, and the usual unfair questions (and typically the most disadvantaged candidates have the least chance to know about what kind of questions are discriminatory, and even if they know most of the time they don't have the time/energy to do anything about it)
bnralt 4y ago
Harvard is a good example of artificial scarcity. They have an extension school[1], where they advertise that you'll be given a Harvard education, by Harvard faculty, virtual or at the Harvard campus. It has somewhat open-enrollment, and thousands of people enroll every year. They're happy to take their money, but the students aren't allowed to say they're a Harvard graduate, they have to say they're "Harvard Extension School" graduates. Harvard knows it's whole mystique is based on elitism and the artificial scarcity it creates by denying people admission. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Extension_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Extension_School
- maneesh 4y ago
  I'm finishing my masters with Harvard Extension School and it's mostly as you say. It's good curriculum, pretty good professors (in comparison to my Stanford undergrad) but open-enrollment + Harvard's famous grade inflation does make it somewhat of a back door.
logifail 4y ago
> We totally have the technology and capabilities to scale it to the masses If you're an undergraduate at Oxford[0] or Cambridge[1] you can expect to have multiple weekly sessions where two or three students get a session with a professor or postgraduate to go through material that's been presented in lectures. Does this scale? Based on my experiences (six years in total, three on each side of the table as it were) I very much doubt it. [0] https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/student-life/exceptional-education/personalised-learning https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/student-life/e... [1] https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/how-will-i-be-taught https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/how-will-i...
- CuriouslyC 4y ago
  It can, very easily. Have students watch a lecture and read the accompanying text, then have them take a quiz, then have a review session where the most missed quiz questions are covered, along with popular questions submitted beforehand. Finally, set up study groups to let peers answer easy questions, and have virtual office hours/email for the few remaining difficult questions that peer groups can't answer. The only thing that doesn't scale is on campus life, and that's meaningless to the degree that college is nominally about.
  - forgotusername6 4y ago
    What you are describing doesn't really compare. I'm sure it would do a reasonable job, but focused individual attention is really hard to replace. Most of what you've described happens at Oxbridge in addition to tutorials/supervisions.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > Have students watch a lecture and read the accompanying text, then have them take a quiz, then have a review session where the most missed quiz questions are covered, along with popular questions submitted beforehand. Finally, set up study groups to let peers answer easy questions, and have virtual office hours/email for the few remaining difficult questions that peer groups can't answer With respect, I don't believe that approach could work for the combination of the type of material covered and the type of (often open-ended) questions and discussions that resulted from it. One of the questions I recall being asked to solve for a first-year Physics tutorial was "estimate the change in the length of the Earth's day if all the vehicles in the UK were to swap to driving on the right hand side of the road instead of on the left"
jkingsbery 4y ago
Having had small classes undergrad and larger classes where I went to grad school, scaling a class is not simple, the experience changes. With larger class size comes less in interactive lectures, more reliance on TAs (of varying quality) instead of professors, and different kinds of assignments. We don't have an easy way to scale these things yet.
chipgap98 4y ago
I think there are a lot of reasons why it can’t scale but none of them are related to the time spent in a Harvard class room. The social connections and the culture are the key parts of elite colleges. I don’t think you can scale that with online classes.
scld 4y ago
The main reason is that the vast majority of the benefit of the Harvard is not the class but the name on the diploma. Signaling and status do not scale.

buzzy_hacker 4y ago

I completely agree with you. I think it would be best to expand class sizes in addition to this lottery.

chrischen 4y ago
Yea or do virtual classes or even video classes with distributed TAs that answer questions.

meowkit 4y ago

> The problem with that lottery is that it still doesn’t solve the problem of artificial scarcity. This is assuming it's a problem that can be solved with simple tweaks or "startup disruption". It's an issue very much related to conspicuous consumption as education >in the Ivy League/cohort< is now a luxury good. Modeling a "prestige" factor helps account for the inequality [0]. Freakonomics[1] just did an episode on this, but I've come across similar data points else where. It's a stamp of not just a good education, but a social credential implying you have connections or money. You can already get an equivalent education to one you might get at Harvard (or better in some majors) at many other public/private universities. The key here is the human connections you form, which go on to pay dividends later given the point above. MOOCs were the golden child a decade ago, and they are working to some extent, but they're not breaking the elite walled garden of premier higher education. [0] https://www.nber.org/papers/w29309 https://www.nber.org/papers/w29309 [1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-university-of-impossible-to-get-into/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-university-of-impossibl...

chrischen 4y ago
I’d imagine they work nicely for software engineering, but even then a lot of jobs out there are requiring degrees and might attribute too much ti the brand of college. Some sort of objective skill evaluation that is also officially recognized must be implemented in addition to actual knowledge acquisition. As I understand it if you are a doctor and capable in every way if you don’t have the degrees you can’t even be tested?
- pas 4y ago
  > but even then a lot of jobs out there are requiring degrees and ... yes, and that's basically the crux of the problem. this is a social coordination problem, not a problem of education. the trivial solution is to "outlaw" this by blinding the prestige credentials of the candidate (so only show a standardized thing like 3 year applied maths bsc) and only ask about previous experience (2 years working as data scientist) or whatever "obviously" people will try to game this (though other universities can then copy what comes out of the fancy universities) of course this could quickly lead to the rise of alternative prestige/reputation networks, but if the whole job application is standardized (so it becomes very hard to identify the candidate) then at least it gives a chance for folks to get in the door. then only the usual biases remain, and the usual unfair questions (and typically the most disadvantaged candidates have the least chance to know about what kind of questions are discriminatory, and even if they know most of the time they don't have the time/energy to do anything about it)

bnralt 4y ago

Harvard is a good example of artificial scarcity. They have an extension school[1], where they advertise that you'll be given a Harvard education, by Harvard faculty, virtual or at the Harvard campus. It has somewhat open-enrollment, and thousands of people enroll every year. They're happy to take their money, but the students aren't allowed to say they're a Harvard graduate, they have to say they're "Harvard Extension School" graduates. Harvard knows it's whole mystique is based on elitism and the artificial scarcity it creates by denying people admission. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Extension_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Extension_School

maneesh 4y ago
I'm finishing my masters with Harvard Extension School and it's mostly as you say. It's good curriculum, pretty good professors (in comparison to my Stanford undergrad) but open-enrollment + Harvard's famous grade inflation does make it somewhat of a back door.

logifail 4y ago

> We totally have the technology and capabilities to scale it to the masses If you're an undergraduate at Oxford[0] or Cambridge[1] you can expect to have multiple weekly sessions where two or three students get a session with a professor or postgraduate to go through material that's been presented in lectures. Does this scale? Based on my experiences (six years in total, three on each side of the table as it were) I very much doubt it. [0] https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/student-life/exceptional-education/personalised-learning https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/student-life/e... [1] https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/how-will-i-be-taught https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/how-will-i...

CuriouslyC 4y ago
It can, very easily. Have students watch a lecture and read the accompanying text, then have them take a quiz, then have a review session where the most missed quiz questions are covered, along with popular questions submitted beforehand. Finally, set up study groups to let peers answer easy questions, and have virtual office hours/email for the few remaining difficult questions that peer groups can't answer. The only thing that doesn't scale is on campus life, and that's meaningless to the degree that college is nominally about.
- forgotusername6 4y ago
  What you are describing doesn't really compare. I'm sure it would do a reasonable job, but focused individual attention is really hard to replace. Most of what you've described happens at Oxbridge in addition to tutorials/supervisions.
- logifail 4y ago
  > Have students watch a lecture and read the accompanying text, then have them take a quiz, then have a review session where the most missed quiz questions are covered, along with popular questions submitted beforehand. Finally, set up study groups to let peers answer easy questions, and have virtual office hours/email for the few remaining difficult questions that peer groups can't answer With respect, I don't believe that approach could work for the combination of the type of material covered and the type of (often open-ended) questions and discussions that resulted from it. One of the questions I recall being asked to solve for a first-year Physics tutorial was "estimate the change in the length of the Earth's day if all the vehicles in the UK were to swap to driving on the right hand side of the road instead of on the left"

jkingsbery 4y ago

Having had small classes undergrad and larger classes where I went to grad school, scaling a class is not simple, the experience changes. With larger class size comes less in interactive lectures, more reliance on TAs (of varying quality) instead of professors, and different kinds of assignments. We don't have an easy way to scale these things yet.

chipgap98 4y ago

I think there are a lot of reasons why it can’t scale but none of them are related to the time spent in a Harvard class room. The social connections and the culture are the key parts of elite colleges. I don’t think you can scale that with online classes.

scld 4y ago

The main reason is that the vast majority of the benefit of the Harvard is not the class but the name on the diploma. Signaling and status do not scale.