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A battle at one university is a case study in why higher ed is so slow to change
- nonrandomstring 4y agoThe academics at Utah are right to resist the kind of "change" implied in this article. In every case it leads to a race to the bottom for the cheapest "quality". The overhead of factory production line "accountability" breaks staff already on the brink, overburdened with impossible workloads. This article avoids questioning why so many students fail. Often it is because staff are working hard to maintain academic standards while admissions are allowing anyone entrance. Most poor students need to work to afford fees, and so have no time to study. They really just want a certificate for their money. The commercialisation of education points inevitably to the conclusion that students should just be allowed to buy a certificate. Any learning they get on top of that is just a bonus if you're lucky enough to get a professor who cares. That's what capital has done to education. But all that's moot. Within 10 years all professors will be replaced by interactive "learning bots" who can give the capitalists as much "accountability" as they like. It won't make a shit of difference to student outcomes though. Higher ed will become nothing but a racket for selling opportunity tickets to those who already have the money. Actual human learning will move elsewhere.