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For my part, I don't consider college education to be exploitative or inefficient. People pay for the time and effort of professors who are very knowledgeable

For my part, I don't consider college education to be exploitative or inefficient. People pay for the time and effort of professors who are very knowledgeable and have extraordinary teaching ability. I also think MOOCs have great potential, not because college education is bad, but because MOOCs allow the best educators to reach even more people. I don't expect the top-end of education to change much, but I hope that MOOCs can raise the overall quality of education.

bun-neh 13y ago
Many universities are utilizing MOOCs and/or online material in order to implement a reverse classroom. In a reverse classroom, students watch lectures and do reading at home and class time is used to extend and reinforce that material usually by answering questions and working through more examples. Students take to it pretty well when video lectures are available (my experience is that book only reverse classrooms don't work as well). It also generally leads to better retention, since more time is spent on hands-on experience. Instructors also take it pretty well. Using an existing set of lecture materials reduces the preparation workload, especially in the first year teaching a course.
chongli 13y ago
Only a small amount of the tuition goes to pay for professors. Most money goes to feed administrative bloat. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-14/bureaucrats-paid-250-000-feed-outcry-over-college-costs.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-14/bureaucrats-paid-25...
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  I read the article, but I'm not convinced that there really is "bloat". Higher education is bigger and more complex than it once was, and the people best able to make strategic decisions might also be expensive. Coming from private industry, those salaries don't seem particularly high.
  - jjoonathan 13y ago
    They may "bring in" more than their salaries (I suspect they don't, which is a separate issue -- the incompetent bumbling cited in the article seems to be the rule rather than the exception) but even if they do "bring in" more than they cost, it doesn't mean they aren't bloat. Competition for students is a zero-sum game. Luring students to one university takes them away from another. The value of a strategic school administrator to society (the extent to which they better inform students of their options minus the extent to which they convince students to act against their interests) is tiny compared to their value to the particular school which employs them (some number of student tuitions). The difference between the two values can reasonably be called 'bloat'. This is a known flaw of free markets that we usually write off as a cost of doing business. If you present the invisible hand with a prisoner's dilemma, it falls for it every goddamn time. The 'bloat' is then the difference between the cooperative solution and the nash equilibrium. In this case, the cost is egregious enough (it is very high and it is imposed upon a very vulnerable population) that we might want to pay attention. I doubt we will, leaving disruption as the only hope for the education market.
- sanskritabelt 13y ago
  Friendly reminder that in something like 48/50 states the highest paid public employee is the football or basketball coach, and the hockey coach in NH or VT.

bun-neh 13y ago

Many universities are utilizing MOOCs and/or online material in order to implement a reverse classroom. In a reverse classroom, students watch lectures and do reading at home and class time is used to extend and reinforce that material usually by answering questions and working through more examples. Students take to it pretty well when video lectures are available (my experience is that book only reverse classrooms don't work as well). It also generally leads to better retention, since more time is spent on hands-on experience. Instructors also take it pretty well. Using an existing set of lecture materials reduces the preparation workload, especially in the first year teaching a course.

chongli 13y ago

Only a small amount of the tuition goes to pay for professors. Most money goes to feed administrative bloat. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-14/bureaucrats-paid-250-000-feed-outcry-over-college-costs.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-14/bureaucrats-paid-25...

yetanotherphd 13y ago
I read the article, but I'm not convinced that there really is "bloat". Higher education is bigger and more complex than it once was, and the people best able to make strategic decisions might also be expensive. Coming from private industry, those salaries don't seem particularly high.
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  They may "bring in" more than their salaries (I suspect they don't, which is a separate issue -- the incompetent bumbling cited in the article seems to be the rule rather than the exception) but even if they do "bring in" more than they cost, it doesn't mean they aren't bloat. Competition for students is a zero-sum game. Luring students to one university takes them away from another. The value of a strategic school administrator to society (the extent to which they better inform students of their options minus the extent to which they convince students to act against their interests) is tiny compared to their value to the particular school which employs them (some number of student tuitions). The difference between the two values can reasonably be called 'bloat'. This is a known flaw of free markets that we usually write off as a cost of doing business. If you present the invisible hand with a prisoner's dilemma, it falls for it every goddamn time. The 'bloat' is then the difference between the cooperative solution and the nash equilibrium. In this case, the cost is egregious enough (it is very high and it is imposed upon a very vulnerable population) that we might want to pay attention. I doubt we will, leaving disruption as the only hope for the education market.
sanskritabelt 13y ago
Friendly reminder that in something like 48/50 states the highest paid public employee is the football or basketball coach, and the hockey coach in NH or VT.