The future?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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<p>I have been reading in the WSJ several articles predicting in 10 years we may see a pronounced decline in the number of universities in the US due to lower populations, fewer people able to afford college, lack of value for the cost and changes in the way we will access higher education. The prediction was the top Colleges, the ones with large endowments and colleges that can merge will survive but many others will suffer.<br>
Any thoughts on the future of boarding schools as means of preparing for a college that may not be there in the future or in a different form?
As I try to learn more about the boarding school experience, it seems one of the better environments for kids to acquire the skills not just for the college of today but the skills necessary to acquire a degree that may come from a combination of college classes, work experience, self study, online courses, and tested aptitude for a future degree that may come from a certification society and not a university? Are we approaching a time when education dollars may be better spent on quality high school education? Any general predictions for the future of boarding schools?<br>
Here is an article by Mike Kalin a teacher at Noble & Greenough on the value of teachers in the Kahn Academy era. The last couple of paragraphs seem to sum up why boarding schools and the like will be relevant even if higher education changes. <a href="http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2014/01/09/salman-khan-academy-mike-kalin"&gt;http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2014/01/09/salman-khan-academy-mike-kalin&lt;/a> </p>

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Here’s an example of an interesting public charter school BS in Washington D.C. for low income kids. The school was featured in the documentary “Waiting for Superman”. I’m curious what the SEED School spends per student; its website does not show a financial statement.
<a href=“http://www.seedschooldc.org/podium/default.aspx?t=141237&rc=0”>http://www.seedschooldc.org/podium/default.aspx?t=141237&rc=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>We’re already spending serious quantity in the conventional D.C. public schools. We’re still holding our breath for the D.C. public schools to deliver quality.
<a href=“http://www.cato.org/blog/census-bureau-confirms-dc-spends-29409-pupil”>http://www.cato.org/blog/census-bureau-confirms-dc-spends-29409-pupil&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I don’t think the elite colleges and top prep schools need to worry about their future just yet. I do see the spiraling increase of applications to these schools level off in the near future, but it’s a long way from them worrying about filling their classes with quality students. On the other hand, as the COA keeps going up, the private schools are <em>more and more</em> running like businesses, so the competition of getting to the top among schools is getting intense. The low performers will be and actually are already struggling.</p>

<p>Regarding technology replacing “brick-and-mortar schools”, I don’t think that will happen any time soon either. More likely, we’ll see families using those tools to supplement their kids’ school education so they can be more competitive, and they will be used more by middle class families who are more likely to stay in the public school system and use any extra cash they may have to find tutors, consultants, online courses etc. To the wealthier and/or upper middle class busy professionals, elite schools will still be their primary source for their kids’ education. As both elite colleges and top prep schools are expanding their reach to low income families, the presence of kids from this segment will increase as well. So in summary, I think the composition in elite schools will be further “polarized” while the impact of technology to education will be more a meaningful way out for middle class families. </p>

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<p>One of my kids schools has a motto (translated from Latin) “It is not for School, but for Life, we learn”</p>

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<p>I think the future is bright for boarding schools. You don’t send your child away to school for academics alone. You send them for community as well. Were academics the be-all and end-all of schooling, we wouldn’t have schools. Correspondence schools have existed for a very long time, but no one has ever proposed replacing real schools with correspondence schools.</p>

<p>As to “fewer people able to afford college,” the top 20% are doing quite well: <a href=“Dave Gilson – Page 3 – Mother Jones”>Dave Gilson – Page 3 – Mother Jones. That 20% is likely better-educated than the norm, and unlikely to look for a cheaper way to educate their children.</p>

<p>Experience with online education is not confirming the early pie-in-the-sky predictions. <a href=“http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/11/sebastian_thrun_and_udacity_distance_learning_is_unsuccessful_for_most_students.html[/url]”>http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/11/sebastian_thrun_and_udacity_distance_learning_is_unsuccessful_for_most_students.html&lt;/a&gt; The tech industry has long experience spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt.) As far as I’m concerned, the wave of articles in newspapers and magazines predicting the end of higher education are a species of FUD.</p>