<p>I see online classes as serving a role in addition to, not instead of, the brick and mortar schools. Maybe more students will consider online and the ridiculous frenzy for college admission will slow down a bit?? well, one can dream…</p>
<p>I think it’s very important to question all of it, which is what I am doing, @Garland. I’m not sure what your post actually means.</p>
<p>I see this as an additional thing, too, Jym. I actually see the utility of it, at this point, more for a continuing education situation, which as @sax pointed out, is simply a reality at this point. But, it’s very interesting to hear what people are doing right now, and how colleges are starting to talk about it.</p>
<p>ETA: @moonchild I really am so opposed to the stratification of our society, and I’ve been rather appalled to notice that the liberal ideas are being eclipsed by the fact of consolidating administrative power and spending on hefty administrative salaries as the end of tenure seems to come our way. As more and more university classes are taught by TAs and Adjuncts, it makes me question the model as it exists. It seems to be very top heavy to me.</p>
<p>You accept the decimation of “traditional bricks and mortar colleges” as just what is. You maintain that college is about credentialing, and any pushback comes from elitism. You accept that students might not know why they’re sitting in freshman comp, so maybe it’s waste of their time. You posit MOOCs and online classes as better because cheaper. That students sitting in a class with 20 other students is archaic.</p>
<p>Everyone knows this is the truth, so it must be right.</p>
<p>I teach in a “low level” private and a non-elite “directional”. Those students appreciate old-fashioned actual human contact in their classrooms.</p>
<p>They are not “elite”. They are not just getting credentials.</p>
<p>The idea that higher level schooling is all about checking boxes for employers, and anything else is “elitist” is setting us up for a culture where thinking about anything non-economic-based doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>And I think that’s, to be honest, misguided, at the least, and at the most, elitist.</p>
<p>What makes you think that MOOCs won’t involve the same model, especially in the humanities?. Who will grade all those papers? It certainly can’t be the prof in charge. I imagine the actual grading will be done by adjuncts. And then a cadre of administrators to organize it all.</p>
<p>Poetgrl- You mentioned how banks were better when they were locally owned and run. This is certainly true from the standpoint of a regular citizen like myself. The service is fair, but much of it is online or handled on a walk-in basis with whoever happens to be on staff at the time. It gets the job done.
My husband’s clients, on the other hand, who, by the way are dealing with him through a small division of this same large bank where I have my accounts, get an entirely different level of service. If they want to talk about their investments, my Dh goes to them. He’ll fly to S.F. or even Arizona to meet for the day with high net worth individuals from whom the bank receives high fees from their investments. These folks expect this level of service, and they’ve always had it because of their wealth. I have no doubt that there will always be plenty of takers keeping the more prestigious colleges in business. And who do you think will be the power brokers of tomorrow- the kids who sat in their apartments getting their degree online or those who spent their undergrad years building their social and academic networks through their now, elite, connections? I just think this is not a good idea for our country, or for democracy.</p>
<p>This thread is full of pious generalities, and I am picturing my grandchildren sitting in solitary rooms, pushing buttons. Earning their credentials. </p>
<p>Smug swipes at “the sage on the stage” obliterating the idea of sitting in the actual same room with someone who cares about the things she/he is teaching and has lots of good stuff to say, who listens to your thoughts, who helps you connect those thoughts/questions/ideas to the best thinking of the past.</p>
<p>And don’t get me started on the swipes being taken at adjuncts. As a former one, I’ll put my ability to teach a class that matters up against anyone’s, certainly against a MOOC (a true sage on the stage, as there can’t by definition, be any interaction of substance there.) The reality of the mistreatment of adjuncts is a completely different question to their ability to connect meaningfully and teach.</p>
<p>Sorry, on a rant here. Appalled.</p>
<p>@Garland Neither of my children go to school for vocational reasons or credentialing. In fact, one of them is studying math and philosophy at my urging BEFORE going to culinary school, simply because I believe in the added life value of education.</p>
<p>One of the things I think this might do is make it possible for those who can only afford to go to college for credentialing reasons to study the great literature and art and music and history and various other subjects they are missing, the things I think are best about education.</p>
<p>My oldest studied in the arts and works in the arts.</p>
<p>But, I also find it interesting to see the path we are actually on and the fact that we have this kind of subteranean tunnel digging going on beneath these massive power structures. I like the subversive possibility I see, even if I don’t like the reason.</p>
<p>I want to talk about this. I don’t know why you want to attack me.</p>
<p>Also, my complaint about adjuncts is NOT the teaching, it is the universities refusal to PAY the professors and instead put all the money in the hands of administrators.</p>
<p>But, yeah. no need to apologize. I won’t apologize for being interested in where we are headed.</p>
<p>Garland, no need to apologize. Speak your mind. :)</p>
<p>When did I never, dstark? :)</p>
<p>Poetgrl–I’m responding to what i’m reading. I think you ought to have an opinion, beyond “it’s interesting,” frankly.</p>
<p>I really don’t see this as subversive at all. It’s interesting that this article is from a conservative publication. </p>
<p>There already exists **3rd party accreditation **of professionals: medical board exams, bar exam, CPA exam, engineer accreditation. </p>
<p>Once we have acceptable 3rd party accreditation in the US of undergrad degrees (like in Brazil), MOOC education will really take off. Then a bricks & mortar college education will become the preserve of the wealthy and the talented poor.</p>
<p>@Garland I’m not trying to have an opinion. My main opinion, at this point, is investigative.</p>
<p>I think there are huge problems with affordability in higher ed. I think it is driven by administrative bloat. I think we need to look into every avenue.</p>
<p>I have lots of opinions about education, but most of them come from a time when people could afford to go to college more easily. Now I see a lot of kids being robbed of a great education because they feel they have to justify the expense with a salable credential.</p>
<p>My opinion is that I would like to see people my age be able to learn and go to school, too, in such a changing world. I see many women my age who are having a very hard time finding work. I think affordable options are important to them. </p>
<p>My positions and opinions are informed by this.</p>
<p>@garland Wow bringing up Alexander Pope in a thread like this - it reminds me that THAT (the amazingly subtle “Essay on Man”) is exactly why a traditional college experience (can you still remember classmates analyzing and debating this very passage?) can be beneficial in surprising ways 
</p>
<p>I think the context around your quoted section of his “Essay on Man” is surprisingly relevant to this discussion, especially section 4 (see e.g. <a href=“Essay on Man”>http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2428/2428-h/2428-h.htm</a>)</p>
<p>What is it that will make the students of today “happy” (we might say fulfilled?) and how can technology help?</p>
<p>Pope ends this section with “all our knowledge is, ourselves to know”</p>
<p>In the end - how can we make the technology a tool to help rather than hurt us - and achieve these noble goals that Alexander Pope was talking about (and that we still talk about on CC).</p>
<p>
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<p>This may be the way of the future, GMT. Some see this as progress. I see it as the opposite of the direction we should be going.</p>
<p>What is the solution?</p>
<p>I would like to see the kid down the street whose parents just got divorced be able to study art history the way she wants even as she works to figure out what she is going to do to be able to afford to study art history the way she thought she would before her dad ran off with whatsername and now thinks she should pay her own bills inspite of the fact that colleges take his income into account when calculating her adult “need.”</p>
<p>I would also like to see her mother be able to get some marketable skills.</p>
<p>This is what I mean by colleges serving several masters. They are bastions of education. They are how we have chosen to credential our workforce. We chose this. They chose this.</p>
<p>Now what?</p>
<p>How do we serve the needs of a 19 year old, and the needs of her unemployed mother? </p>
<p>If these are our only avenues, we need to find a new way.</p>
<p>2018–tbh, I haven’t read much Pope since undergrad, avoided him in grad school. I think he’s the voice of conservative acceptance, “this is how it is, don’t question it.” And that’s what this thread sounds like to me. (this is the new norm, accept it,).</p>
<p>Poetgrl–you are talking about administration bloat, but you are positing blowing up the house to solve the termite problem.</p>
<p>@garland I’m not actually endorsing anything.</p>
<p>I saw this article from a friend’s facebook page. I thought it would be interesting to discuss it with all of you.</p>
<p>Your hypothetical unemployed mother has sat in my classroom many times. As has her daughter. I think they were both served pretty well, actually.</p>
<p>Good. But not all of them live near you, and not all of them can work the crazy retail or restaurant hours they have to work and still get to a set time scheduled class.</p>
<p>The woman and daughter are real, and really got me thinking about this.</p>
<p>How have we set up a system in which these two things: the need to get job skills and the desire to learn about modern art are seen as equivalent?</p>
<p>I’d like to see our secondary schools have more options than college track or drop out. I’d like to see our state colleges offer more discounts to students with need, but that takes money from government sources and an agreement from the citizenry that education is an important goal for everyone. Right now, Long Beach State University fees are around $6400 a year–$26000 for four years. That’s pretty affordable for a middle class family, but not for the poor. I think our state universities serve the middle class very well. At least in my state, many are excellent. I don’t see an online degree ever being superior to our state colleges- the Long Beach’s, CalPolySlo, San Diego States, etc. Even if a student lives at home and commutes, he’s engaged with campus life and a variety of people and experiences. Sitting at home at a computer is not progress. </p>