04-18-2020, 09:03 AM
A nice read is The End of College by Kevin Carey. In it he repeatedly argues that much of the problem is that we've evolved a "hybrid-university" that tries to (1) train workers [credentialing], (2) provide a broad based education [liberal arts], and (3) allow professional scholars to research and create knowledge [research]. And by doing all things at once it does none of them very well. Everyone who cares about higher education knows that that's generally true except for maybe the third priority, and that the students are not being well served by this model.
Stepping back we know that the most important benefit to the student of going to college is certainly not 2 or 3, and in terms of 1 it is almost entirely credentialing and signaling that matters. We know that many jobs require a degree to get a foot in the door so that is what people have been going to college for. And that employers need a screen so they fall back on selective universities to start the screening process. But the actual economic value of a degree is mostly gained in the final semester of school (the difference in expected salary of a student who leaves college at the beginning of freshman year versus who leaves at the beginning of senior year is much smaller than the difference of the student who leaves senior year versus graduating). It's not about the content or even the experience of college that is valuable to students -- it is the credentialing and signaling that matters.
Can Stanford or Harvard create a platform that would allow anyone to be able to access it in a post-pandemic world? No, not without destroying what they have. Harvard has experimented with the Extension School as a way to make access to Harvard more accessible at least to people willing to live in Boston. It may be a money maker for them but it hardly confers the benefits of Harvard on the working class. Working class (and brand chasers) who get a degree at the Extension School pay boatloads of money just to have a Harvard degree that people scoff at once they learn that it was an Extension School degree. To create an online degree that was more widely accessible Harvard would need to invest in protecting the brand of the college (and business school and law school and medical school) by distancing an online degree from their other degrees. At some point one has to ask themselves, without selective admissions that starts the screening process, why go to an online Harvard (or Stanford or MIT) when they can do so with Arizona State (or Apple or Amazon) for much cheaper?
I think the future of Higher Ed looks more like the recently departed Clay Christensen suggested ... half of the colleges and universities are going to cease to exist (his timeline for this prediction passed before he did, but it may still happen in the next five years). The colleges that remain will be supported by the state but politicians will consolidate resources toward flagship universities and begin shutting down directional colleges and community colleges to keep those universities afloat. Small liberal arts colleges that actually focused on the liberal arts (#2 goal mentioned by Carey) won't be able to survive except for the ones that have a unique brand value and strong endowment that allows them to bridge the divide. Stanford and Harvard will continue to exist as will many of the top 50 USNWR schools, and even thrive, but they will have used this experience to really play with technology as a means of supporting students outside the classroom and even off location (e.g., internships, independent study abroad away from a partner university, another pandemic), while slashing costs for facilities and faculty. This will allow them to grow their classes (maybe 2-3x) because of lower requirements for students to all be on campus at the same time, but this would not be opening it up to the world. But with the fallout of schools like Northeastern University and Santa Clara University being forced to shut down, Harvard and Stanford will still be able to easily fill their classes, and the bachelor degree will again rise in value.
Also hit hard in this is going to be the professional academic class. Less schools coupled with increased capacity for the remaining schools to teach more students with less resources is going to make a miserable field even more miserable.
That's my two cents.
Stepping back we know that the most important benefit to the student of going to college is certainly not 2 or 3, and in terms of 1 it is almost entirely credentialing and signaling that matters. We know that many jobs require a degree to get a foot in the door so that is what people have been going to college for. And that employers need a screen so they fall back on selective universities to start the screening process. But the actual economic value of a degree is mostly gained in the final semester of school (the difference in expected salary of a student who leaves college at the beginning of freshman year versus who leaves at the beginning of senior year is much smaller than the difference of the student who leaves senior year versus graduating). It's not about the content or even the experience of college that is valuable to students -- it is the credentialing and signaling that matters.
Can Stanford or Harvard create a platform that would allow anyone to be able to access it in a post-pandemic world? No, not without destroying what they have. Harvard has experimented with the Extension School as a way to make access to Harvard more accessible at least to people willing to live in Boston. It may be a money maker for them but it hardly confers the benefits of Harvard on the working class. Working class (and brand chasers) who get a degree at the Extension School pay boatloads of money just to have a Harvard degree that people scoff at once they learn that it was an Extension School degree. To create an online degree that was more widely accessible Harvard would need to invest in protecting the brand of the college (and business school and law school and medical school) by distancing an online degree from their other degrees. At some point one has to ask themselves, without selective admissions that starts the screening process, why go to an online Harvard (or Stanford or MIT) when they can do so with Arizona State (or Apple or Amazon) for much cheaper?
I think the future of Higher Ed looks more like the recently departed Clay Christensen suggested ... half of the colleges and universities are going to cease to exist (his timeline for this prediction passed before he did, but it may still happen in the next five years). The colleges that remain will be supported by the state but politicians will consolidate resources toward flagship universities and begin shutting down directional colleges and community colleges to keep those universities afloat. Small liberal arts colleges that actually focused on the liberal arts (#2 goal mentioned by Carey) won't be able to survive except for the ones that have a unique brand value and strong endowment that allows them to bridge the divide. Stanford and Harvard will continue to exist as will many of the top 50 USNWR schools, and even thrive, but they will have used this experience to really play with technology as a means of supporting students outside the classroom and even off location (e.g., internships, independent study abroad away from a partner university, another pandemic), while slashing costs for facilities and faculty. This will allow them to grow their classes (maybe 2-3x) because of lower requirements for students to all be on campus at the same time, but this would not be opening it up to the world. But with the fallout of schools like Northeastern University and Santa Clara University being forced to shut down, Harvard and Stanford will still be able to easily fill their classes, and the bachelor degree will again rise in value.
Also hit hard in this is going to be the professional academic class. Less schools coupled with increased capacity for the remaining schools to teach more students with less resources is going to make a miserable field even more miserable.
That's my two cents.