4 ms·

You are both right, honestly. Much of the value of higher education as it is structured is the credentialing and the networking. Everyone knows what a bachelor

You are both right, honestly. Much of the value of higher education as it is structured is the credentialing and the networking. Everyone knows what a bachelors is, a master’s is, a doctorate is. This is important. It means something. However you are also right that education works in person for a lot of people and there are a lot of values there. Community colleges are an under utilized resource to learn. Making money by educating people is a bad business. It is expensive and time consuming and the more you try to cut expenses the worse the education gets. Non-profit is the right model for it. If you really want to make money off the back of education build something useful for colleges and universities. They are big complex organizations with specialized needs where off the shelf solutions don’t cut it and there are enough of them to make a nice business out of if you come up with a solution that is dramatically better than what is out there. A lot of the technology solutions that are used barely work but there are few options.

thwayunion 4y ago
I mostly agree. The one place I split with you -- and hard -- is that I view the institutions in my life as charities. I am admittedly blessed in that all save one (my PhD school) really is basically a well-run charity. The only one that isn't public and sparten is not rich amd not elite. All are way more lean than most businesses (<10% of staff are non-teaching, and almost all of those are feeding students or keeping buildings standing/clean/powered... I can name every employee on the Administration floor off the top of my head). If you really want to make money off the back of education... don't. Build your thing and give it away at cost. But I do understand why someone who only spent time in places like my PhD school would feel differently and view these places as just another industry. I just don't think they are ready for the fact that 90+% of the market competition is way more lean, way more low-profit, and way more human-capital-intensive than any VC is interested in.
- etempleton 4y ago
  I think higher education institutions should be non-profit. I do think there are a lot of financial pressures on most small-medium non-public schools that make them operate in a more business oriented fashion and they must do so to stay open. When I talk about making money I am talking about system utilized by colleges like enrollment CRMs, grading software etc. In most cases the only way those get made and are supported is through for-profit businesses.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Outside US and a few other countries with private universities, they actually are mostly state sponsored and everyone that meets the grades gets in (of course as per seat availability per year), instead of having to mortage the house. In some countries private universities even get a bad reputation, with exception of a few renowed ones, as their graduates are seen by the employers as having bought their degree, even if they battled throught it as everyone else, e.g. in Portugal.
jltsiren 4y ago
> Everyone knows what a bachelors is, a master’s is, a doctorate is. This is important. It means something. A bachelor's is a glorified dropout. A master's is the primary academic degree. A doctorate is more like a title rather than a degree, and if you do it full-time early in your career, it signifies that you can advance from junior to intermediate positions. Or they could mean something else, depending on which traditions you are used to.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  Harsh… I think a doctorate often means you are difficult, out of touch and got stuck in a bubble too long
- zdragnar 4y ago
  I've always understood it as: A bachelor's is an extension of high school. You show you can assimilate knowledge at a professional level. A masters shows you can do extensive research of existing knowledge in a narrow field. A doctorate shows you can perform novel research and add knowledge to a field. ...but perhaps that is not really applicable to all fields of study. In any case, "glorified dropout" is imho too harsh, as it implies a failure. For most people, the economic tradeoff in getting a masters degree or higher (both in terms of tuition and time lost not working) simply makes it a bad choice.
  - jltsiren 4y ago
    I was describing the old system in Finland, which was similar to many countries in the Continental Europe. Master's degree was the primary undergraduate degree. Bachelor's degree existed on paper, but it wasn't recognized in the society. People often got their bachelor's and master's on the same day. At some point, politicians started promoting bachelor's degrees to get people graduate faster. The academia accepted that, but the job market didn't, at least not initially. Because people were not familiar with bachelor's degrees, they often didn't consider them serious degrees. Some people knew them but took them as a negative sign. The idea was that if a university degree is a sign that you can achieve something, leaving the university after bachelor's is sign that you failed at that. I left Finland a long time ago, and I'm not familiar with the job market relevance of a bachelor's degree today.

thwayunion 4y ago

I mostly agree. The one place I split with you -- and hard -- is that I view the institutions in my life as charities. I am admittedly blessed in that all save one (my PhD school) really is basically a well-run charity. The only one that isn't public and sparten is not rich amd not elite. All are way more lean than most businesses (<10% of staff are non-teaching, and almost all of those are feeding students or keeping buildings standing/clean/powered... I can name every employee on the Administration floor off the top of my head). If you really want to make money off the back of education... don't. Build your thing and give it away at cost. But I do understand why someone who only spent time in places like my PhD school would feel differently and view these places as just another industry. I just don't think they are ready for the fact that 90+% of the market competition is way more lean, way more low-profit, and way more human-capital-intensive than any VC is interested in.

etempleton 4y ago
I think higher education institutions should be non-profit. I do think there are a lot of financial pressures on most small-medium non-public schools that make them operate in a more business oriented fashion and they must do so to stay open. When I talk about making money I am talking about system utilized by colleges like enrollment CRMs, grading software etc. In most cases the only way those get made and are supported is through for-profit businesses.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Outside US and a few other countries with private universities, they actually are mostly state sponsored and everyone that meets the grades gets in (of course as per seat availability per year), instead of having to mortage the house. In some countries private universities even get a bad reputation, with exception of a few renowed ones, as their graduates are seen by the employers as having bought their degree, even if they battled throught it as everyone else, e.g. in Portugal.

jltsiren 4y ago

> Everyone knows what a bachelors is, a master’s is, a doctorate is. This is important. It means something. A bachelor's is a glorified dropout. A master's is the primary academic degree. A doctorate is more like a title rather than a degree, and if you do it full-time early in your career, it signifies that you can advance from junior to intermediate positions. Or they could mean something else, depending on which traditions you are used to.

rdtwo 4y ago
Harsh… I think a doctorate often means you are difficult, out of touch and got stuck in a bubble too long
zdragnar 4y ago
I've always understood it as: A bachelor's is an extension of high school. You show you can assimilate knowledge at a professional level. A masters shows you can do extensive research of existing knowledge in a narrow field. A doctorate shows you can perform novel research and add knowledge to a field. ...but perhaps that is not really applicable to all fields of study. In any case, "glorified dropout" is imho too harsh, as it implies a failure. For most people, the economic tradeoff in getting a masters degree or higher (both in terms of tuition and time lost not working) simply makes it a bad choice.
- jltsiren 4y ago
  I was describing the old system in Finland, which was similar to many countries in the Continental Europe. Master's degree was the primary undergraduate degree. Bachelor's degree existed on paper, but it wasn't recognized in the society. People often got their bachelor's and master's on the same day. At some point, politicians started promoting bachelor's degrees to get people graduate faster. The academia accepted that, but the job market didn't, at least not initially. Because people were not familiar with bachelor's degrees, they often didn't consider them serious degrees. Some people knew them but took them as a negative sign. The idea was that if a university degree is a sign that you can achieve something, leaving the university after bachelor's is sign that you failed at that. I left Finland a long time ago, and I'm not familiar with the job market relevance of a bachelor's degree today.