ARNOLD KLING
February 18, 2012
Is the NAIRU 8.5 percent?
February 17, 2012
The Political Report of the President
February 17, 2012
Adaptation and Economics
February 16, 2012
Nick Rowe's Continuity Question
February 16, 2012
The Hill Criteria and the Stimulus
BRYAN CAPLAN
February 18, 2012
What Bernanke Needed
February 18, 2012
The Mystery of Bernanke Solved
February 16, 2012
Zwolinski, the Drowning Child, and the Good Samaritan
February 16, 2012
How Legal Is Free-Range Parenting?
February 16, 2012
The Orphan Not Adopted
DAVID HENDERSON
February 18, 2012
My Interview at Rockford College
February 17, 2012
Brown M&Ms and Hotdogs
February 17, 2012
A Perverse Incentive for Graduate School
February 16, 2012
Did Napster Reduce Music Quality?
February 15, 2012
Japanese Voluntarism to Solve Social Problems
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I would think Bryan would have a field day with this article.
If college is all about signaling, then isn't Stanford performing its statutory obligations very well by rejecting the online class?
I want to see the same. The question I have is why has it not already begun? - at least not to any great extent. What would be the tipping point?
I would also like to see fewer traditional college degrees and more target-specific education. I am not convinced we need more college grads in the usual sense. I happen to teach and do research at the institution that benefitted (we hope) from Stanford's failure to move to NYC.
LOL, he doesn't understand why people want to attend elite universities (espcially at the undergraduate level).
I don't think Udacity or any other free, online education program will be a big threat to Stanford. Udacity gives education to everyone, Stanford sells reputation and name recognition to elite students (i.e. people who are already educated/would obtain the same raw information from any institute). Lord knows our culture doesn't suffer from a lack of free information. Sure, maybe its not always organized efficiently for a student, but students can educate themselves if they are motivated. No, students pay for proficiency certitfication and name recognition not information.
Having said that, it doesn't make sense for Stanford to reject Udacity. It is no threat and it would do wonders for publicity. And they could recruit many bright students for its certification and reputation sales department, verifying student's potential much more effectively than the ACT does.
@Jonathan, GU, I think that's the right track. I don't think Arnold has to worry about the Ivy League entering this market because it's too 'pedestrian'. These schools bank on their 'exclusivity', so I highly doubt the independence Thrun's project, or any similar, would be in danger.
@ Jonathan Bechtel
It is difficult to think about a governance structure that can replace the colleges in their current form. At least in their signalling function. Students that can freely shop around for professors and professors with no job security in the form of tenure would be similar to suspected criminals (sorry for the analogy) that can shop around for the most lenient judge and judges that can find themselves out of work if no suspected criminals pick them.
However, with the current technological advances, should the teaching/learning and the signalling/judging be done under the same roof or by the same person?
In my elementary school district I can say that parents are often doing the teaching (with the help of Khan Academy and IXL) and the school mostly provides the curriculum and signalling services. I have a friend that tranferred his kids to private school because he was fed up with having to teach the concepts that in public elementary school had been merely 'presented'.
You're right, the sooner that education can be seen as something happening outside the classroom, the better. But we will know we have really arrived when people are willing to validate one another at local levels based on self-education. The ultimate possibility from that would be the wealth creation of countless knowledge-based communities, which would be desirable places to live based on what the local people have created in terms of knowledge wealth and participation.
This is amazing. I took the AI class and I must admit I didn't complete it. The problem is that I have a full time job and early on in the class, I got hit with a couple big projects at work and fell behind. I think the next step is to break out of the linear class format and allow for more variation in pace.
How is online higher education any different than online newspapers? Aren't both devaluing their product by giving it away for free. How do online degree from one institution differentiate themselves from other online degrees?
Also online universities will reward a smaller number of scholars as small brick and mortar institutions find they can't compete with cyberspace. Also how do online universities replace the social experience of brick and mortar institutions?
The world is inexorably moving towards open and online disintermediation of education. Thankfully it will be impossible to put the genie back into the bottle. IMHO, the value of education is its intrinsic content and the method of delivery and not the name and fame of the deliverer.
See how the tide of online (and free) education is swelling:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/learning_on_speed.html