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Brainstorm with HN: Let's fix ridiculously expensive education

12 points by robinh 14y ago

(I'm not sure whether this 'Brainstorm with HN' will work as a good format for discussion within the HN community, but I think it fits the subject here.) Hi HN, I've been thinking about the problems with education, and what we (hackers, entrepreneurs, you name it) can do about it. I'm going to focus on education on the university level, mainly because that's what people are talking so much about nowadays. What I think is that at the university level, it's not so much the actual learning that we have to improve: it's grading. People can learn by themselves (many have been doing just that for a long time), and while there's certainly room for improvement, this isn't the part about universities I think needs replacing. Grading, or getting a degree, on the other hand, is a much more significant problem: employers want to know that you've learned something; when going through a thousand CVs, they don't want to have to extensively test every potential employee to see whether they really know what they claim to know. Thus, degrees. Of course, there have been some great improvements here. Coursera, for example, have made the big university courses more accessible for all. But I don't doubt better things are yet to come, so let's discuss those: what do you think is the largest thing that needs serious improvement in education? What, if anything, do you miss from these projects such as Coursera? What are your ideas to make (online) education even better? Discuss. :)

sonabinu 14y ago
I think there should be a clear distinction between learning for getting a job and learning to enhance your knowledge.
- shakeel_mohamed 14y ago
  And neither should cost upwards of $40,000 per year
tokenadult 14y ago
what do you think is the largest thing that needs serious improvement in education? Being aware of what is possible. Most people, by my observation of online discussions, think their own education was pretty good, and it's the "other guy" who might possibly have a poor education. But it just might be (as I think, after living in more than one country) that a great many people, perhaps including me, have plenty more to learn that they COULD learn. Maybe the current system is underpeforming more than we imagine, and more than we CAN imagine after receiving the schooling we each received.
byoung2 14y ago
It's eerie that you posted this just a few minutes before I posted this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4856307 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4856307 One thing that I think is missing from both online education and education at the university is personalization. At UCLA, I sat in lecture halls with hundreds of students, and we all got the same words. It would be nice to sign up for the lecture from the professor who makes movie analogies instead of sports analogies. Or maybe I prefer a professor who writes on the board instead of using a powerpoint. As a Kaplan instructor (SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT), I would explain a question differently depending on the student. Was this a student who had pacing problems? I might emphasize elimination strategies or guessing intelligently. Was it a student who consistently fell for trap answers? I'd advise them to try to think like the test maker and anticipate the traps. The best part about online classes is that you can capture this data pretty easily. But so far, no one is using it to deliver a more personal online learning experience.
Mz 14y ago
I think what you mean is credentialling, not "grading". Education and credentials only loosely overlap. My understanding of history is that this credentials vs education thing is a long standing problem. I don't foresee it ever really being resolved. I would love to use the Internet as a means to educate people. I am still trying to figure out how. Among other things, I would like to create a simulation (aka "game"). That's a longstanding dream. I have done things like start a design doc, but sometimes it seems like the dreams I have are impossible dreams. Effectively reaching your target audience is the big challenge. I think it only gets bigger with the Internet because of the huge diversity of people online.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- e-dard 14y ago
  This is almost exactly how it's already done in the UK, with exception that the loans are not provided by the university, but by an external loans service (The Students Loans Company). You pay for your tuition by having x% of your salary deducted from future pay packets. This does not “fix” anything. All it does is make the cost of education higher for those who earn less, like teachers and nurses. Why? Because they take longer to pay off their loans than Engineers, Lawyers, and those in Finance. An let’s not even get on to the point that Universities are really there for research as well as teaching. We shouldn't be incentivising them to solely churn out future Software Engineers, etc...
  - mvleming 14y ago
    I'm sorry I don't think I was clear on what I meant by percentage. All the students would pay for example 5% of their salary for 4 years regardless of their salary. So it's not a lump sum and it doesn't "make the cost of education higher for those who earn less" (the opposite happens actually, those who earn more pay more). Moreover, if universities only churned out software engineers then the supply of software engineers would be very high. This would make the demand for them lower and thus their salaries.
- Mz 14y ago
  I think that really wouldn't work. You cannot compel people to make X amount of money. You can compel them to pay back X amount. I don't understand why you think this would do anything.
- eshvk 14y ago
  > In one full swing, this business model would reduce unemployment, national debt, and poverty. But you're also creating an incentive for the universities to innovate. I can just see something like A/B Testing being set up. "Okay. So are you telling me students who take the general courses do not earn more than the student's who don't? Get rid of these courses!" Let me try to answer this seriously: So, the problem with your idea is that Universities are not just workshops but they are also places where research is done, where people work day in day out cranking out experiments for a pittance. If you want to optimize for a single cost function: Money, you will find that these people lose the training that got them into science on the first place. They sure as hell wouldn't go into research because the pay for Grad. Student or a Professor sucks. Also, all we would be trying to mint out in this case would be business men and lawyers. Guess what? Tech does not pay as well as you would think it would. Also, there is a special place for classrooms and Universities irrespective of this "free distribution of information" which AFAIK has been existing since the 16th century (books): Mentorship. One of the greatest experiences that going to a world class school can give you is the ability to interact with people who have significantly shit tons of experience than you, have the wisdom and depth of knowledge in the subject.
ikono 14y ago
There's no doubt that there is a lot wrong with education in general but there's also a lot of great things about it too. The value of bringing together a large number of young, intelligent people with all kinds of interests is incredible. In terms of what's wrong and suggestions for improvement, it's hard to know where to start. One big, doable change may just be more standardized testing. The price of education is simply a reflection of the fact that employers and students overvalue degrees. This leads to this perverse effect that causes people to enroll because they feel like they have to, not because they want to. The whole dynamic just seems to create an enormous amount of problems. Tying so much economic value to a college degree drives prices and attendance up and the effectiveness and true value of education down.

12 points by robinh 14y ago

sonabinu 14y ago

I think there should be a clear distinction between learning for getting a job and learning to enhance your knowledge.

shakeel_mohamed 14y ago
And neither should cost upwards of $40,000 per year

tokenadult 14y ago

what do you think is the largest thing that needs serious improvement in education? Being aware of what is possible. Most people, by my observation of online discussions, think their own education was pretty good, and it's the "other guy" who might possibly have a poor education. But it just might be (as I think, after living in more than one country) that a great many people, perhaps including me, have plenty more to learn that they COULD learn. Maybe the current system is underpeforming more than we imagine, and more than we CAN imagine after receiving the schooling we each received.

byoung2 14y ago

It's eerie that you posted this just a few minutes before I posted this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4856307 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4856307 One thing that I think is missing from both online education and education at the university is personalization. At UCLA, I sat in lecture halls with hundreds of students, and we all got the same words. It would be nice to sign up for the lecture from the professor who makes movie analogies instead of sports analogies. Or maybe I prefer a professor who writes on the board instead of using a powerpoint. As a Kaplan instructor (SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT), I would explain a question differently depending on the student. Was this a student who had pacing problems? I might emphasize elimination strategies or guessing intelligently. Was it a student who consistently fell for trap answers? I'd advise them to try to think like the test maker and anticipate the traps. The best part about online classes is that you can capture this data pretty easily. But so far, no one is using it to deliver a more personal online learning experience.

Mz 14y ago

I think what you mean is credentialling, not "grading". Education and credentials only loosely overlap. My understanding of history is that this credentials vs education thing is a long standing problem. I don't foresee it ever really being resolved. I would love to use the Internet as a means to educate people. I am still trying to figure out how. Among other things, I would like to create a simulation (aka "game"). That's a longstanding dream. I have done things like start a design doc, but sometimes it seems like the dreams I have are impossible dreams. Effectively reaching your target audience is the big challenge. I think it only gets bigger with the Internet because of the huge diversity of people online.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

e-dard 14y ago
This is almost exactly how it's already done in the UK, with exception that the loans are not provided by the university, but by an external loans service (The Students Loans Company). You pay for your tuition by having x% of your salary deducted from future pay packets. This does not “fix” anything. All it does is make the cost of education higher for those who earn less, like teachers and nurses. Why? Because they take longer to pay off their loans than Engineers, Lawyers, and those in Finance. An let’s not even get on to the point that Universities are really there for research as well as teaching. We shouldn't be incentivising them to solely churn out future Software Engineers, etc...
- mvleming 14y ago
  I'm sorry I don't think I was clear on what I meant by percentage. All the students would pay for example 5% of their salary for 4 years regardless of their salary. So it's not a lump sum and it doesn't "make the cost of education higher for those who earn less" (the opposite happens actually, those who earn more pay more). Moreover, if universities only churned out software engineers then the supply of software engineers would be very high. This would make the demand for them lower and thus their salaries.
Mz 14y ago
I think that really wouldn't work. You cannot compel people to make X amount of money. You can compel them to pay back X amount. I don't understand why you think this would do anything.
eshvk 14y ago
> In one full swing, this business model would reduce unemployment, national debt, and poverty. But you're also creating an incentive for the universities to innovate. I can just see something like A/B Testing being set up. "Okay. So are you telling me students who take the general courses do not earn more than the student's who don't? Get rid of these courses!" Let me try to answer this seriously: So, the problem with your idea is that Universities are not just workshops but they are also places where research is done, where people work day in day out cranking out experiments for a pittance. If you want to optimize for a single cost function: Money, you will find that these people lose the training that got them into science on the first place. They sure as hell wouldn't go into research because the pay for Grad. Student or a Professor sucks. Also, all we would be trying to mint out in this case would be business men and lawyers. Guess what? Tech does not pay as well as you would think it would. Also, there is a special place for classrooms and Universities irrespective of this "free distribution of information" which AFAIK has been existing since the 16th century (books): Mentorship. One of the greatest experiences that going to a world class school can give you is the ability to interact with people who have significantly shit tons of experience than you, have the wisdom and depth of knowledge in the subject.

ikono 14y ago

There's no doubt that there is a lot wrong with education in general but there's also a lot of great things about it too. The value of bringing together a large number of young, intelligent people with all kinds of interests is incredible. In terms of what's wrong and suggestions for improvement, it's hard to know where to start. One big, doable change may just be more standardized testing. The price of education is simply a reflection of the fact that employers and students overvalue degrees. This leads to this perverse effect that causes people to enroll because they feel like they have to, not because they want to. The whole dynamic just seems to create an enormous amount of problems. Tying so much economic value to a college degree drives prices and attendance up and the effectiveness and true value of education down.