Re-assessment of education & educational institutions
I’m curious to see what happens here. I know a lot of people who are saying “I’m paying $50,000 a year to watch the same lecture I could have watched on YouTube for free?” Of course, that was also true before quarantine, but somehow quarantine has made it more salient.
I’m not sure whether this salience will last and cause a switch towards nontraditional learning.
Indeed I think it will accelerate this issue, though maybe not resolve it.
In the UK, and no doubt elsewhere, universities have cancelled courses for the rest of the year, or are making them online-only, but refusing to refund students; which will make students acutely aware of what value for money they’re getting, or not.
That said I did read somewhere the observation that as degrees are as much about status & signalling as actual learning, it may make little difference. People will still prefer the prestige of an Ivy League or Oxbridge education if they can get it. That said, that prestige is rather bound up with physical attendance in grand surroundings, surrounded by top-notch professors etc.
Yeah, even if it just leads to acceptance that higher education is about signaling, that seems like a step in the right direction to me. It at least lays the groundwork for future innovators who can optimize for signaling as opposed to “education.”
I’m curious to see what happens here. I know a lot of people who are saying “I’m paying $50,000 a year to watch the same lecture I could have watched on YouTube for free?” Of course, that was also true before quarantine, but somehow quarantine has made it more salient.
I’m not sure whether this salience will last and cause a switch towards nontraditional learning.
Indeed I think it will accelerate this issue, though maybe not resolve it.
In the UK, and no doubt elsewhere, universities have cancelled courses for the rest of the year, or are making them online-only, but refusing to refund students; which will make students acutely aware of what value for money they’re getting, or not.
That said I did read somewhere the observation that as degrees are as much about status & signalling as actual learning, it may make little difference. People will still prefer the prestige of an Ivy League or Oxbridge education if they can get it. That said, that prestige is rather bound up with physical attendance in grand surroundings, surrounded by top-notch professors etc.
Yeah, even if it just leads to acceptance that higher education is about signaling, that seems like a step in the right direction to me. It at least lays the groundwork for future innovators who can optimize for signaling as opposed to “education.”