University education can be made free pretty cheaply.
The cost at scale is in the credentials- you need to make tests, test students, and check those tests.
The classes can be filmed once, and updated every few years if necessary.
Each course can have a forum board for discussion and meeting up for studying in groups.
Well, no. the easy part of a university undergrad education is pretty cheap (to provide) already. It’s bundled with a lot of things that make it expensive to buy traditionally.
Whether something is technically and economically possible is just a part of the puzzle. The remaining part is whether the people who make decisions have the incentives to do so.
According to Bryan Caplan, schools certify: intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity. Online learning would certify intelligence, conscientiousness (even more than school attendance), but not conformity. Would the employers be okay with that?
Also, some prestigious universities select for having tons of money and/or the right social connections. The education is not the point. The point is that your parents had to be a part of the social “inner circle” to get you to the university, and you spent a few years socializing with other kids of the same kind, establishing the “inner circle” of the next generation. Making the credentials available to hoi polloi would defeat the entire purpose.
University education can be made free pretty cheaply.
The cost at scale is in the credentials- you need to make tests, test students, and check those tests.
The classes can be filmed once, and updated every few years if necessary. Each course can have a forum board for discussion and meeting up for studying in groups.
See course credentials for things like AWS.
Well, no. the easy part of a university undergrad education is pretty cheap (to provide) already. It’s bundled with a lot of things that make it expensive to buy traditionally.
So unbundle it?
Whether something is technically and economically possible is just a part of the puzzle. The remaining part is whether the people who make decisions have the incentives to do so.
According to Bryan Caplan, schools certify: intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity. Online learning would certify intelligence, conscientiousness (even more than school attendance), but not conformity. Would the employers be okay with that?
Also, some prestigious universities select for having tons of money and/or the right social connections. The education is not the point. The point is that your parents had to be a part of the social “inner circle” to get you to the university, and you spent a few years socializing with other kids of the same kind, establishing the “inner circle” of the next generation. Making the credentials available to hoi polloi would defeat the entire purpose.
There is a beautiful thing called unilateral action.
I believe most employers mostly don’t care about conformity as such.
The inner circle stuff is only true of elite schools AFAIK. You can outcompete the rest of the universities