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Course completion percentages are a ridiculous measure of success. Of course free online courses are going to have a lower course completion rate. I don't know

Course completion percentages are a ridiculous measure of success. Of course free online courses are going to have a lower course completion rate. I don't know how anyone could be surprised by this, or why anyone would care. This isn't a problem. If I start a MOOC and don't finish, I have gained a little knowledge and lost nothing. College completion rates are a problem, because if I start college and don't finish, I'm saddled with thousands of dollars in debt and no degree. Completion isn't a problem with MOOCs, it's an advantage of MOOCs. Missing out on the other aspects of college life is a mixed bag. Networking and lab work are definitely downsides to MOOCs, but these are potentially solvable problems. But there are serious downsides to college life too. I won't be sad to see the binge drinking and sexual assault culture of "greek" life die out, and I'm not going to shed any tears for sports stars actually having to focus on academics. But the real crux here is that if trends continue, the cost of college is going to make this all irrelevant. It already is for many people: the author's quote that most students graduate with $30K of debt, as if that's a trivial sum, shows a stunning lack of awareness. What none of the author's facts capture are the students who either don't start or don't finish because of cost. Tuition keeps rising and financial aid continues to be inadequate. There are only two solutions I see to this problem: funding gets better or we go with MOOCs. MOOCs aren't a perfect solution, but it may be the only solution we get.

ghufran_syed 12y ago
I agree, comparing completion rates for MOOCs and 4-year colleges is like comparing the percentage of couples still together 4 years after a first date (MOOC) vs 4 years after getting married (college): I don't think we would WANT those numbers to be the same.
Lawtonfogle 12y ago
For me the real benefit of college was being put with others into the same class, the access to research labs, the face to face interactions with professors, and the access to face to face academic focused student organizations. (Honestly I should've done far more on the networking side of things.) Those are not going to be easy to replace, but there should be a compromise where you can get these things without the greek life and less 'sports first and foremost' culture and with a massively reduced cost. MOOCs can definitely plan into this and even replace a lot of it for self starters, but I do think I would have been worse off without the social aspects of my university years.
- thearn4 12y ago
  For me, this was more the case in graduate school than as an undergraduate. While I did like my department (mathematics), my advisor, and the other students in my class, the majority of my undergraduate studies really did end up being direct completion of coursework (with the occasional group project). The social "coming into your own" aspect of university was there, but I'm not sure it's worth the price that we seem to attach to it. Maybe this is just the reality for state schools. On the other hand, post-calculus/diffyq mathematics can be a difficult subject to grok on your own, without at least some face time with a subject matter expert to refocus. I can't predict with confidence if I really could have MOOC'd my way into graduate school. I thinking that it is unlikely. This is probably also true for the traditional physical engineering disciplines (electrical, mechanical, civil, aero, etc.)
- ritchiea 12y ago
  There are plenty of schools without greek life and sports first cultures. Most liberal arts schools for example.
  - copsarebastards 12y ago
    That is true. But liberal arts schools are also the least likely to be priced out by MOOCs. Liberal arts schools are more affordable than most, if you can get in.
- cheatsheet 12y ago
  > I do think I would have been worse off without the social aspects of my university years What aspect of face to face interaction makes it worth seeking?
- zanny 12y ago
  As an introvert, a remote worker full time, and a traditional BS in CS from a state university, I am more and more convinced the needs of many for "face time" is just because anyone over the age of ~20-25 grew up without ubiquitous communication without faces. I'd cite my brother (age 12) and his generation, who seem to have no problem basically never seeing their peers from class anymore, but will play video games with them endlessly online. During summer break last year he barely went outside, besides what physical activity his mother compelled him to, which was not very much different from what I did, the difference being that his entire peer group is behaving the same way and from my impressions by him it is the norm rather than the exception now. I fully expect that generation to have no issue doing collaborative learning using MOOC resources and the Internet instead of brick and mortar buildings in front of lecture podiums. Throughout history we have learned many a time how adaptable the human psyche is to its environment, and how much of ones assumptions on human behavior can be challenged and changed by the world changing around them. I think this is another one of those cases - because articles like this one are talking about college ten years from now, for children born ten years later. And that makes a huge difference in the Internet age.
scott_s 12y ago
MOOC completion rates matter if we live in a world where they have replaced traditional colleges. Not the overall completion rates, because that includes people who start them on a whim - which is possible since the cost of entry is so low. But if we discover that a significant number of people who would have completed a traditional college program are not completing a commensurate MOOC program, then that would be a problem. That would mean that more people are getting even less education than they are now. I don't think we have the data for that, though, as I don't think we have a large enough population of college-age students who opted for MOOC-only programs instead of traditional college. To be clear, I am not arguing that all of the problems you pointed out are not problems. They are problems, and they are huge ones. Student loan debt is a paralyzing social and economic issue, and the cost of college is an enormous barrier to social mobility.
- gamesbrainiac 12y ago
  "Even less education" I think we definitely need less education and more learning done. The point should never to be more "education", that just gives you ammunition to defend that you've done something meaningful in life at a dinner table. The point is to use that education to do something useful. Education is a means to an end and not the end in and of itself.
  - scott_s 12y ago
    I think a charitable reading of what I wrote would imply "less education" to mean "less learning." If you don't agree that one is implied by the other, then just pretend I said "less learning".
aheilbut 12y ago
The MOOCs force one to "enroll" in the class to have a look at it or watch a few videos, to juice their enrollment numbers. Both the enrollments and completion rates are essentially meaningless.
gamesbrainiac 12y ago
As a person who took several MOOCs and completed none of them, I can honestly say that you're right on the money. I think the only real problem that the other comments allude to is the social aspect of college life. People think this because College is the de-facto solution socialization with similarly aged peers. I believe that many organizations will pop up with the death of the university to solve these problems. Think about it, all you want is a place to talk to others, and get info on jobs or other opportunities. In previous ages, a lot of this was not done at university but at coffee shops or similar institutions. Just because you don't have college doesn't mean that you can't make connections. Heck, I believe if the college fad dies down, with the amazing social networks that we have now, it will be super easy to create meet up groups, and hey, it could even open up the potential for specifically themed coffee shops. For example, there is a coffee shop in my area that caters specifically to programmers, there's a podium if anyone wants to present a talk, there are private tables further away from the podium, there's free internet, the tables can be flipped, to give you glass surface that you can write on with a marker ( the list goes on ). I feel that MOOCs will push towards students searching for mentors, who they really respect and hence can more effectively learn more. Furthermore, it will lower average student debt as well as make many aspects of selective college life publicly available. This will not however happen over night, but I see MOOCs as the harbingers of radical change in education that has been stagnated by the entrenchment of the ivory tower into the very heart of what education means today.

ghufran_syed 12y ago

I agree, comparing completion rates for MOOCs and 4-year colleges is like comparing the percentage of couples still together 4 years after a first date (MOOC) vs 4 years after getting married (college): I don't think we would WANT those numbers to be the same.

Lawtonfogle 12y ago

For me the real benefit of college was being put with others into the same class, the access to research labs, the face to face interactions with professors, and the access to face to face academic focused student organizations. (Honestly I should've done far more on the networking side of things.) Those are not going to be easy to replace, but there should be a compromise where you can get these things without the greek life and less 'sports first and foremost' culture and with a massively reduced cost. MOOCs can definitely plan into this and even replace a lot of it for self starters, but I do think I would have been worse off without the social aspects of my university years.

thearn4 12y ago
For me, this was more the case in graduate school than as an undergraduate. While I did like my department (mathematics), my advisor, and the other students in my class, the majority of my undergraduate studies really did end up being direct completion of coursework (with the occasional group project). The social "coming into your own" aspect of university was there, but I'm not sure it's worth the price that we seem to attach to it. Maybe this is just the reality for state schools. On the other hand, post-calculus/diffyq mathematics can be a difficult subject to grok on your own, without at least some face time with a subject matter expert to refocus. I can't predict with confidence if I really could have MOOC'd my way into graduate school. I thinking that it is unlikely. This is probably also true for the traditional physical engineering disciplines (electrical, mechanical, civil, aero, etc.)
ritchiea 12y ago
There are plenty of schools without greek life and sports first cultures. Most liberal arts schools for example.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  That is true. But liberal arts schools are also the least likely to be priced out by MOOCs. Liberal arts schools are more affordable than most, if you can get in.
cheatsheet 12y ago
> I do think I would have been worse off without the social aspects of my university years What aspect of face to face interaction makes it worth seeking?
zanny 12y ago
As an introvert, a remote worker full time, and a traditional BS in CS from a state university, I am more and more convinced the needs of many for "face time" is just because anyone over the age of ~20-25 grew up without ubiquitous communication without faces. I'd cite my brother (age 12) and his generation, who seem to have no problem basically never seeing their peers from class anymore, but will play video games with them endlessly online. During summer break last year he barely went outside, besides what physical activity his mother compelled him to, which was not very much different from what I did, the difference being that his entire peer group is behaving the same way and from my impressions by him it is the norm rather than the exception now. I fully expect that generation to have no issue doing collaborative learning using MOOC resources and the Internet instead of brick and mortar buildings in front of lecture podiums. Throughout history we have learned many a time how adaptable the human psyche is to its environment, and how much of ones assumptions on human behavior can be challenged and changed by the world changing around them. I think this is another one of those cases - because articles like this one are talking about college ten years from now, for children born ten years later. And that makes a huge difference in the Internet age.

scott_s 12y ago

MOOC completion rates matter if we live in a world where they have replaced traditional colleges. Not the overall completion rates, because that includes people who start them on a whim - which is possible since the cost of entry is so low. But if we discover that a significant number of people who would have completed a traditional college program are not completing a commensurate MOOC program, then that would be a problem. That would mean that more people are getting even less education than they are now. I don't think we have the data for that, though, as I don't think we have a large enough population of college-age students who opted for MOOC-only programs instead of traditional college. To be clear, I am not arguing that all of the problems you pointed out are not problems. They are problems, and they are huge ones. Student loan debt is a paralyzing social and economic issue, and the cost of college is an enormous barrier to social mobility.

gamesbrainiac 12y ago
"Even less education" I think we definitely need less education and more learning done. The point should never to be more "education", that just gives you ammunition to defend that you've done something meaningful in life at a dinner table. The point is to use that education to do something useful. Education is a means to an end and not the end in and of itself.
- scott_s 12y ago
  I think a charitable reading of what I wrote would imply "less education" to mean "less learning." If you don't agree that one is implied by the other, then just pretend I said "less learning".

aheilbut 12y ago

The MOOCs force one to "enroll" in the class to have a look at it or watch a few videos, to juice their enrollment numbers. Both the enrollments and completion rates are essentially meaningless.

gamesbrainiac 12y ago

As a person who took several MOOCs and completed none of them, I can honestly say that you're right on the money. I think the only real problem that the other comments allude to is the social aspect of college life. People think this because College is the de-facto solution socialization with similarly aged peers. I believe that many organizations will pop up with the death of the university to solve these problems. Think about it, all you want is a place to talk to others, and get info on jobs or other opportunities. In previous ages, a lot of this was not done at university but at coffee shops or similar institutions. Just because you don't have college doesn't mean that you can't make connections. Heck, I believe if the college fad dies down, with the amazing social networks that we have now, it will be super easy to create meet up groups, and hey, it could even open up the potential for specifically themed coffee shops. For example, there is a coffee shop in my area that caters specifically to programmers, there's a podium if anyone wants to present a talk, there are private tables further away from the podium, there's free internet, the tables can be flipped, to give you glass surface that you can write on with a marker ( the list goes on ). I feel that MOOCs will push towards students searching for mentors, who they really respect and hence can more effectively learn more. Furthermore, it will lower average student debt as well as make many aspects of selective college life publicly available. This will not however happen over night, but I see MOOCs as the harbingers of radical change in education that has been stagnated by the entrenchment of the ivory tower into the very heart of what education means today.