The higher education system will not collapse and I also don’t think that MOOCs and distant learning are the future. While distant learning is cheap and efficient, its not effective. I think the Udacity and San Jose State experiment proves that very well. Udacity offers great courses just like Edx or Coursera, it’s just that no one finishes them and those who do don’t learn as much as they would in-class with teacher instruction. If the goal of our higher education system is to educate well - online education fails. I think there is much potential in distant learning to supplement the education in the classroom, such as interactive online homework assignments and such, but it will not replace the current educational establishment. The lecture and seminar have stood the test of time and will continue to do so.
As to what the future of education is, well we can speculate. I believe, like many have mentioned here, private schools with small endowments will go out of business, as they will not be able to sustain their model of financing. When interest rates go up - and they will - many lower ranked, for a lack of a better word, will become less attractive and force prospective students to look towards public education. In public education realm, I think that a two-year degree will become the new high school diploma, as there is a huge influx of automation in many industries especially at lower skill jobs. To finance this the funds will have to come from the federal government and I personally believe that many state universities will see their budgets shrink even as the economy improves. I think the model of state-related universities, like in Pennsylvania, is going to become more widespread. Wisconsin’s governor’s new budget calls for this sort of “quasi-privatization” of the University of Wisconsin System. I don’t know if these “trends and forces” are good overall, but it is what I see currently happening in higher education.
I will be sad if distance learning is the future. It just does not work for my kid. He LOVES to sit in class - LOVES to listen to lectures - LOVES to have discussions in smaller classes with a prof who is engages. His worse nightmare would be an online degree.
On another note, I believe that a good chunk of the value of college is the self discovery and personal growth that happens. Our D has grown and changed and blossomed in ways that I know she wouldn’t have had she gone the cheap rout of living at home for 2 years and attending the local CC then transferring to the local flagship. I would not trade it for the world. We are about to launch our son and were having the same discussion (kid is away) about his prospects and future. The growth of the soul and whole person is worth something IMO. I don’t view college as just a trade school - it is a transition.
Actually, the community colleges and commuter universities still are a huge portion of college enrollment; the residential college experience is probably experienced by only a small minority of college students – mainly those who either come from wealthy families or the non-wealthy with high end academic credentials who were told that they can be admitted to more selective residential colleges with good scholarships and/or financial aid.
However, in the old days (before the great state university expansion of the 1950s-1960s), there were fewer universities around, so the low cost commuter options were not as available as they became.
There is so much to this issue! I’m a teacher who discusses post secondary plans with every senior at my high school. Today a student in one of my classes told me her older sister has $60,000 in student loan debt from one of our state universities. She is employed as a teacher and is struggling mightily to pay back her debts. I know she will overcome this hurdle, but it is a difficult path. Another student in the same class, who will graduate this spring, was excited to tell me he was chosen to take a management position at our local McDonalds. He just received his coursework for Hamburger University. In a few years he has a higher projected income than the first year teacher with $60,000 of student loan debt.
Personally, my husband and I have moved heaven and earth (and our children have also worked their behinds off) to make sure they have graduated from college with minimal debt. It has paid fantastic dividends, both professionally and personally so far, but the above story does illustrate some of the pitfalls students can encounter.
When one borrows 40 grand for a house or car, the lender holds the title to the house or car. What collateral does the lender get for an anthropology degree?
I think it’s nuts to borrow more than 50% of the typical starting salary for the college major. That means women’s studies majors should be wary of borrowing as much as petroleum engineering majors. Then again, since oil is trading at 50 bucks a barrel, maybe petroleum engineering majors nowadays should be borrowing less than women’s studies majors.
Hmmm, what about for professional degrees? Typical medical school debt at $180,000 is already as much as the post-residency yearly pay of primary care physicians, and nearly half of the post-residency yearly pay of high paid specialty physicians. Physicians also have to pay malpractice insurance out of their income.
The current “college system”/the whole of higher education is a speculative bubble similar to the real estate bubble or the dot-com bubble, I think. The perceived value greatly exceeds the real value of a degree at the moment. The insane inflation and speculative growth/overvaluing of degrees can’t and won’t keep going at its current level. It’s bound to eventually burst and drive prices way down in all institutions while likely driving the “lower level”/less prestigious institutions of higher learning out of business. The free community college is definitely a start on decreasing demand and popping the bubble.
@ucbalumnus, physicians have very steady income streams. Much more so than many other professions. You don’t really hear of doctors who are unable to find work in their field.
As someone who teaches online college courses (as well as face-to-face ones), I’m always amused when people point to online learning as the future of higher education. Not gonna happen, folks. Done wrong, it simply doesn’t work (someone else mentioned the Udacity and San Jose fiascoes); done right, it’s more time-consuming and expensive than traditional delivery. Aspects from online course delivery have a future, sure—witness the utility of “flipped” models, for example—but as far as being the disruptor so many seem to expect it to be? Nope.
Colleges will not allow their bubbles to burst. As their US market dries up due to more and more families becoming unable to afford the ever-escalating price of higher education, these schools will simply expand their international market/customers. There seems to be a never-ending supply of international customers clamoring to pay full fare at many American colleges.
@PurpleTitan , yes, physicians will have a steady income stream…years down the line. Stafford loans are no longer subsidized for them, they are at 6.8%
I.don’t know the exact amount, but I think my daughter and her fiance will graduate with 350 to 400k between them. They will go into residency…about 50k each per year followed by fellowships. They will probably earn a good living by their mid thirtys but will be paying loans back for a very long time.
AHS Teacher, there are loan forgiveness plans for teaching. Info is easily accessible online.
I just want to add a small comment: I don’t think MOOC’s are a good example of online education. I love online courses offered by universities and colleges, and helped to get funding for our local high school to join Virtual High School (very popular) but couldn’t stand the one Coursera class I tried: too many people, chaotic and of course no obligation to do the work since no grades!
Online college courses are a salvation for college students who are working, live far from a college, have kids, are ill, or for any other non-traditional situation. If done well, I find them more inspiring than in-class time and also find they involve more writing. And you cannot hide in a corner! But the participants need to be at a certain level of academic skill to make it truly interesting. Some teachers include all kinds of media that enriches every week.
This same discussion has been going on for the last 15 years. And yet I rarely hear of a school closing it’s doors for lack of students. Costs keep going up and there are still students/parents willing to pay for this increased costs. The real issue is, as others have said, is how much debt is one willing to take on (and afford)?
Compmom, I could be wrong, but I think the loan forgiveness for teachers is for certain high-need programs such as special education or teaching in a high need area with high poverty levels. Do you have a link for loan forgiveness for all teachers? I would love to pass this along to her! Thanks!
All great countries and cultures are built on a superior intellectual capital base and training their young to think creatively and innovatively. The best repositories of expertise, hubs for collecting the latest contributions to state-of-the-art thinking and propagators of that expertise to future generations in a way that encourages innovating thinking are currently the leading US universities and LACs. Until a better vehicle for enabling the above to happen is created, the great universities and LACs in the US will continue to prosper.
There are, however, two current challenges to the current US system. The first is China, which evaluates educational institutions on the basis of scientific papers published in leading journals, and is modeling its university system to ultimately usurp the US’s leading position as the global educational leader in those areas it deems important (which are also the areas which most directly impact industrial and military strength). The second is that only a small subset of the jobs available to college graduates can provide a return on investment sufficient to justify the skyrocketing unsubsidised cost of a college education, and those are predominantly available only to the graduates of the elite universities and LACs.
Unfortunately, if we don’t recognise and adjust to the threat from China and find a way to rein in those extraneous costs (such as fancy dorms, fully-funded recruiting visits, state-of-the-art sports facilities, elaborate menus, egregious administrative salaries and bloated staffing, expensive marketing campaigns and distribution of collateral materials, etc.) that increase the cost of a US education without actually enhancing the core function of our university system (as described above), we will both relinquish our leadership position to China and reverse the gains made in democratising college education in America.
Interesting question. As others have noted above, I think the elite private schools - where demand for spaces far exceeds available spots, and where strong financial aid makes the net cost lower than state schools for many families - will be fine. I would be surprised if distance learning etc. can replicate the personal growth and network building, as well as academic learning, that students at these schools experience.
I think state supported schools, especially the flagships in each state, will generally be fine too as they have strong built-in demand from students in their states (and some also draw significant numbers of out of state students).
If there is a shakeout at some point, to me it seems most likely to affect private schools further down the ladder, with tuition far higher than state schools and not that much lower than higher profile private schools. These schools also don’t have the financial aid budgets of the wealthier private schools so more students are asked to pay full price. Some of these schools seem to have the weakest value relative to cost.