The New Model for Higher Education

Harvard Square and Harvard Yard. Might make a good theme park.

The solution to the “higher education bubble” is obvious and close at hand. The cost of college tuition, as many have observed, is becoming insupportable, especially in the US. This is going to force a sudden shift to a new model, probably very soon. "If something cannot go on forever, it won't."

The new model, of course, is free instruction through the Internet. There is no longer any need for a physical community of scholars. Instruction in anything can be broadcast into everyone’s home on the Internet: with recorded lectures, one really good prof can serve millions, rather than dozens, of students. Students might then write challenge exams, or submit projects, to earn credits towards any given degree.

How much would it all cost? The instruction could easily be free, supported by advertising or government, or cost only a small fee, since the costs could be spread out among so many students. No need to pay for moving to or living in a college town. Also, in principle, no need to stop working in order to attend school. One could just as well do a course at a time in the evenings.

Indeed, this is another vital reason to go to this online education model. Things are changing too quickly; any education that is job-specific is going to become obsolete almost faster than anyone can earn the current credentials for it, and certainly will be obsolete by the end of that graduate’s working life. Far better, then, to keep learning by slow degrees throughout, while also working.

Another advantage of this new system would be that students really can learn at their own pace. The very bright, currently, are penalized, and bored to death. Never mind if they can get the gist of the subject in two weeks; they are still tied down to a three month course. On the other end of the spectrum, if it takes someone two years instead of three months, who cares, so long as he knows his stuff in the end? No more one-size-fits-all.

So the cost of an education, now of escalating beyond control, suddenly becomes nominal, and no borrowing or debt should be involved. I like the thought, too, that students might be able to enter the workforce, and be self-sustaining, earlier. It will, as they say, keep them out of the pool halls—the long current adolescence is a form of torture.