The New Republic

Yes, they will diminish. As shown by the dearth of good lectures at the best universities, there's no correlation between academic reputation and quality of lecturing. At some point the market will catch up with this reality, and students will take advantage of future collaboration, file-sharing, videosharing, social networking etc technologies in order to bypass absurdly overpriced, archaic "elite" colleges.

- teplukhin

October 20, 2006 at 2:17pm

My guess is that teaching will become disaggregated from universities. That is, the best lecturers will, like modern-day electronic Abelards, form virtual "classes" directly with paying students who may be sitting anywhere, and also collect royalties from the distribution of these videos, socratic chat sessions, video games?? etc. Students will shop for the best lecturers and will no longer be stuck with one choice for a particular academic area in a given period of time.

- teplukhin

October 20, 2006 at 2:20pm

I agree with teplukhin on the lack of good presenters among top faculty, but that points to an entirely different discussion on undergraduate education. As for the internet displacing academic lectures, I think it is important to differentiate between lower lever undergraduate courses and upper level undergraduate and graduate courses. The massive lecture with 500+ students will, and should, be pressured by virtual classes with superior speakers. However, small courses where the classroom includes direct discussion between professors and students will be harder to displace. In my opinion, these are the classes where students learn the most and should be protected whenever possible.

- tymonko

October 20, 2006 at 4:31pm

But that kind of interaction can also take place online, or through a web conference. As we're doing now, on this TalkBoard. You don't need to endure a professor's gaze (or his or her smelly breath) to engage intellectually with him or her. At least, current and future generations of college-age kids do not: they're totally comfortable with chat, videos, virtual interaction of all types.

- teplukhin

October 20, 2006 at 7:35pm

I agree with teplukhin in general but... I cannot wait for the day when our nation's elite professors condescend their dignity and sublimity to the modern age and it's seminal mechinism -- the computer. I cannot wait for the chance to study and debate ancient history, linguistics, law, theology, philosophy, art, etc. with the esteemed scholars who sustain and safeguard the citadels of understanding; moreover, I expect that the students who participate will pursue their studies in earnest, especially those subjects mentioned above. However, seeing that education, which was once considered an end in and of itself, is increasingly valued only for its utilitarian advantages as opposed to its capacity to enoble; I can only expect to see most disiplines 'evolve' into a sort of vocational program. One in which engineers, physicians, lawyers, businessmen, architechs, etc. dispense with the superfluidity of such trivialities as history, lit., etc. I lament the fact that I fritted away my years in the university getting laid and getting high (well, I don't 'completly' regret it all); and even though I make great efforts to educate myself, I feel as though my efforts are piece-meal, sophmoric, provential, imbecillic and counterproductive. I long for the opportunity to learn under the guidance of one who has endeavored his profession with disipline, devotion and passion. But I fear that I am in the minorty; I think, my own interests notwithstanding, that we will, within one generation, witness the institution of 'education' deterioate into something which not only fails to enoble mankind, but acutually deprecates his very nature; making him less man and more like his proxy-professor -- a machine. mene mene tinkle, Seth Gentry

- sethgentry

October 21, 2006 at 2:41am

There are many people, including myself, who learn much better from books than from lectures. I suppose I could have learned just fine from correspondence classes. I could have just received reading lists and asked the prof any questions I had by mail or telephone. Forget You-Tube, we could have done away with universities fifty years ago if their only purpose was to teach stuff. But why didn't we? Because much of the purpose of universities is not to teach people stuff but rather to determine whether students have learned it, and more than that, to determine how capable they are in general. Diplomas from online universities remain complete pieces of garbage. That is because it is impossible to monitor cheating and to tell how well the students are actually doing. Until a system arises that allows safeguards against cheating, perhaps a major network of certified testing centers, universities are not threatened. Finally, internet or not, scientific research will have to be conducted in laboratories and understanding an area of literature or history will require studying it a whole lot and sharing the results with your piers. Even if the educational aspect of universities is threatened, the research aspect certainly isn't.

- WillPastor

October 21, 2006 at 9:47am

I completely agree that the interaction could move from the classroom to an online setting. I just think the scale needs to remain limited to insure direct interaction with the teacher. WillPastor has a good point about determining if students are learning. Good professors can read a classroom and change course if the students don't seem to be following the lecture even before any examination is considered. Even then, the greatest strength of brick-and-mortar universities is the learing that takes place outside of the classroom. I've learned more arguing over results in the lab with my peers or talking to professors in the hallway that in any classroom. Lectures introduce ideas and explain them; direct experience provides a much more complete understanding.

- tymonko

October 21, 2006 at 12:00pm

- basman

October 21, 2006 at 11:22pm

Anyway, this debate reminds me a little of Glen Gould eventually shunning live perormance for the studio and for working through editing to a relatively flawless technical final product. And it reminds me of him saying that live performance was a distraction from the true experience of music. What a crock. Virtual commmunities have their efficacies and the impact of the internet on all aspects of higher education is an ongoing story, but the bricks and mortar university with live lecturers and person to person interaction is here to stay. And thank good- ness for that, smelly breaths and all.

- basman

October 21, 2006 at 11:32pm

Could you please make that Glenn Gould?

- basman

October 21, 2006 at 11:41pm

It's a hard task indeed both to teach and delight. We owe our notion of the prof as sublime orator to the humanists who embraced classical rhetoric not merely as the end of a humanist education, but also as a matter of pedagogical practice. Rhetoric assumed a transaction between speaker and listener, teacher and learner; indeed it assumed that that transaction was inherently dialogic in nature: that language was the product of social consent, and knowledge itself an ongoing process, not product. It was only recently that textbooks, indeed printed reading material, formed part of the syllabus (and we don't think twice about demanding that our students "do their reading," nor expect that that reading substitutes for teaching). From this perspective, it might be useful to consider computer technology as another tool to facilitate this exchange. It's a question of how (not what), as instructors should not be encouraged (University of Phoenix notwithstanding) to fetishize the technology at the expense of their teaching objectives, but consider, quite carefully, how these media complement the other methods they use. If the professors aren't clear as to how the technology advances knowledge in their classroom ("real" or virtual), their students won't be either, and the transaction is bereft. When all else fails, I also find it useful to remember that we owe the word pedagogy to the Romans, and ultimately to the Greeks, who assigned slaves --paedogogi in Latin ('fraid I can't reproduce the Greek here) -- to attend to the education and *care of their students. . . Gwynn Dujardin Queen's University

- GwynnD

October 22, 2006 at 10:43am

I'll say what I think plainly, and unsteeped in things ancient. We have no need of a notion of professor as sublime orator--if he/she is, so much the better. And, if I understand you, we don't need, necessarily, a notion of an inherently dialogic transaction. And I don't know if I understand the notion of language as a product of social consent, unless that's a fancy way of saying that when we speak to each other we have a generally common understanding of most of the words we use. We need, most generally, a conscientious, well-prepared professoriat, who seek sincerely to imbue in their students specific knowledge and academic discipline as manifest in good writing and open-minded, critical thinking. It is hard to imagine an inherently dialogic process in a crowded, hundred plus, class in introductory this or that. Even the notion of instructing and delighting needs some parsing. The delight won't be the delight that comes from being entertained or from engaging a work of art. The delight, if any, will come from the mind being engaged, enriched and expanded; the pleasures that can lie in the analytical. The true social consent derives (not from the fact that we speak the same language, except in a trivial sense, but) from the agreed to subordination to the discipline of disinterested academic inquiry by students and teacher. That technology, in the sense of computers and the use of the internet, needs by and large to be used creatively as tools by living, breathing teachers in specific physical settings, I couldn't agree with you more. To think otherwise, to make a pedagogic fetish of technology, as some have suggested, is to commensurately denude higher education.

- basman

October 22, 2006 at 12:50pm

Ha, I would've thought my concluding gesture (re profs as slaves) would've suggested as much cheek as pedantry in my post. . . which is not so much to say "lighten up, basman" as to say I think we fundamentally agree, though we take different approaches to the matter. Do "we need most generally, a conscientious, well-prepared professoriat, who seek sincerely to imbue in their students specific knowledge and academic discipline as manifest in good writing and open-minded, critical thinking?" Of course. Or, put less pedantically: duh. I was merely hoping to add some historical context to what we now generally take for granted about the goals of the humanities, which is to say that prior to the humanists, language was thought to reflect an essential reality ordained by god; and that every new innovation, be it computer technology or textbooks, requires some critical thinking on the behalf of instructors to determine how best to use it. Conceiving "critical thinking" as the end of education is an historical and conceptual by-product of the redefinition of language and knowledge itself. We so take it for granted that it's hard to believe that idea in itself was ever an innovation -- what we are discussing here are the best means to ends that end. For while "teaching centers" now proliferate on college and university campuses, many, if not most, faculty members do not avail themselves of their services, often because it somehow demystifies the process, and because experts who might be renowned among their peers might not want to think about how they could be better teachers. "Teach and delight" is the neoclassical motto -- and indeed you have parsed it both correctly -- in that the delight should lie in the intellectual engagement -- and elegantly (another source of delight, which stimulates the engagement). Where this comes in with regards to computer technology is that computers, as a form of electronic media, carry the stigma, sometimes warranted, sometimes not, of encouraging passivity, along the lines of TV (entertainment). Where parents fret that time spent "on the computer" encourages slothfulness in their progeny, advanced computer game-makers (for example) argue that their products invite and produce another form of engagement. The key for the professoriat -- I think we agree here -- is to tap effectively into the latter possibility. As a final note, where it might be "hard to imagine" stimulating dialogue among a crowd of a hundred, I wouldn't deny that it's challenging -- but worth taking up the challenge. Where a 100 students do not logistically have the chance to weigh in, dialogically, in the course of a 80-minute lecture period, some ten or twenty do, and will, if given the opportunity (they certainly do in mine: I'm a day behind in my syllabus because they have so much to say -- indeed to *add -- to my course). More important, all 100 *do have the chance to enter their own voices, and build on the knowledge from class, when they are asked to write and submit their own work. That 80-minute period forms only one aspect of teaching and learning -- along with office hours, e-mail, writing assignments, quizzes, exams, online discussions, etc. Thus my point about examining the means and ends of technology among the many other methods instructors use. But alas, I now have 100 papers to mark (to slave over!), to see how effectively my students have responded (i.e., hopefully critically). Thanks for your own response, basman (have we gotten to first, second, or third?), and I hope you see that we are actually quite closer in outlook than you may have thought. In particular, I apologize if my pedantry got under your skin. Grafton himself (where this whole thread started) has made his career out of weighing the efficacy of the humanities against the claims of the humanists ("From Humanism to the Humanities" is the title of one of his previous publications), so I thought that element might be introduced to the discussion. Best wishes, Gwynn

- GwynnD

October 22, 2006 at 2:02pm

gwynn, i myself thought your post was right on. it doesn't hurt to be reminded of the goals of the studia humanitatis and the break up of quadrivium/trivium. however, as your citation of grafton implies, it is a phenomenon that is larger than delighting and instructing-- it goes to the heart of the dream of italian civic humanism to nurture students who would go on to participate in the res publica, or public life. do we prepare students for this type of engagement? i think basman (as always) raises a capital point. what is the importance of the dialogic transaction? is it reproduceable through what remains a rather clunky medium? the question remains open as to whether the fetish for technology has led to the assumption that it can reproduce the dynamics of the classroom. the metaphor of performance is apt: in my experience, watching a play on DVD is not the same as actors playing to the house, in real time. i'm not pessimistic about technology, but my perception is that it technology will need to improve in order to make this happen. after all, a medium can mediate, but it can also contains within it an interference. the downside of "academic charisma" is the cult of personality that, in early modern times, would have included ramus, cujas, valla, and others. today, this still exists, as we all know. i'm taking liberties with the idea of "charisma" as portrayed in this post, but i think this dimension can't be overlooked.

- acgraves

October 23, 2006 at 12:11pm

in my previous post, i did not mean to imply that the ramist charisma will be a determinate factor in the worth of the humanities. i think we can safely assume that the internet will be a catalyst for changes in how information is delivered that are on par with the advent of the printed book. but the debate seems to separate into the fundamental questions of 1) what new forms will instruction take, and 2) what adaptations in teaching style/materials will need to be made in order to make it successful? it seems like the lecture is one of the worst adapted formats for internet delivery. it doesn't even capitalize on what the internet does best: direct connections with individual students, interactive learning, etc.

- acgraves

October 23, 2006 at 12:41pm

As a person currently attending a liberal arts school, the Internet has been integrated to a surprising degree in the work that students do outside of the classroom. Most, if not all articles, handouts, and syllabi that are normally distributed in class on paper are now also available on our school's server. In addition, many pre-class discussions that are held in response to reading happen in online forums, for the sake of putting more ideas on the table before the class even assembles. As for the Internet taking the place of the classroom environment, I think we'll have to wait for conferencing software to become advanced enough to incorporate the reactions of all of the students in the room. I was engaged in a debate about Paradise Lost just an hour ago, and we were talking about whether Milton's God was just or unjust in that text; my fellow students' general outrage over the deity encouraging the fall of humanity was as much a part of my learning experience today as was any single voice expressing an idea.

- zimmermd

October 23, 2006 at 12:58pm

thank you for that brilliant comment: it's testimony to the necessity to bring the peer-to-peer factor into this discussion, be it on the internet or in the classroom.

- acgraves

October 23, 2006 at 1:09pm

Malt does more than the classroom can / to justify God's ways to man

- teplukhin

October 23, 2006 at 1:54pm

The partisans of bricks 'n' mortar are failing to note the economic aspect, which argues overwhelmingly against this elitist, absurdly overpriced system. There are maybe 3 million HS grads each year, of which maybe 40% could do college work. At the 100 best universities and colleges in the country, there's space for only 10% or so of the nation's HS graduating classes. That leaves nearly 1 million 18 year-olds sh*t out of luck, facing a third-rate postsecondary education (to go with their thrid-rate secondary education). Yes, it would be nice if we could expand the ranks of high-quality brick-and-mortar institutions, but the economics don't work. The nation's families can barely afford those institutions' tuition costs as it is. The obvious solution is to use technology to drive down delivery costs and expand access to this crucial public good. This will happen, much sooner than the luddites suppose. And when it does, don't be surprised if the old elites find their market appeal steadily diminished when people realize that you can indeed have rich interactions and rich learning without pissing away $40k per year on an elite tuition.

- teplukhin

October 23, 2006 at 2:02pm

Amy (right?), thanks for your input: you're absolutely right to bring in what humanists (newly) conceived as the ends of education with regards to _public_ service (versus serving God alone). When teaching humanism recently, I asked my own undergrads "why there were here," and while many cited (perhaps to please me) the ostensibly more noble ends of learning, many were as quick to acknowledge how a college degree is a ticket to an economic strata otherwise difficult to enter. Indeed with the price tag of higher education these days -- thanks for bringing economics into the discussion, tep -- at some universities students display a sense of entitlement that comes with thinking of the degree as a commodity -- i.e., they feel they (or their parents) have already effectively purchased their degree, and expect their profs to produce it for them. Students and parents have the right to demand the very best teachers for what they pay -- that said, methods of assessment are unreliable (and I won't even go into that thorny thicket called tenure). What is best, and who says? But returning the question to tep's economic concerns and the issue of technology, for many many students outside the higher economic strata (i.e. those who cannot afford high-priced universities), the only way they will "get a college education" (so much loaded there , no, in such a familiar phrase) is by "distance learning." And I'm not thinking of the Harvard undergrad watching his or her professor on a screen televised from another building in Cambridge, but a student (say) in the rural midwest whose family can't afford for him or her to leave home and for whom the only option is a correspondence degree conducted and completed over the internet. . . . For all our harumphing about computer technology depleting academia of an essential vitality, should we really deny such a student this access, as partial a process and product we might consider it to be? What else to turn to when "bricks and mortar" aren't an option? Thus the ends of education in public service -- yes, Amy, the res publica -- resound back on us again. . .

- GwynnD

October 23, 2006 at 3:22pm

Anyone care to comment on Stanley's Fish's editorial in the Times yesterday? (it's the kind of thing I thought this blog would take up)

- GwynnD

October 23, 2006 at 4:31pm

No offense, Gwynn, but you missed the point. I don't know how many students there are whose parents need them to work the farm and thus stay close to home, but it can't be more than a percent of a percent of those 3 million HS grads each year. The issue isn't distance vs in-person learning; it's cost, period. If tuition continues to rise at a multiple of both inflation rate, and household incomes, then we're not too far from the day when elite schools will be beyond the reach of 80% or more of the population. (They're probably beyond the reach of 40-50% already.) When that day comes, students and parents will take a very hard look at hiring trends and ask themselves whether it really makes sense to deprive parents of retirement funds or take on ridiculously heavy debt loads for the sake of marginally better career prospects. That career expectation gap will almost certainly shrink as corporate employers, who will increasingly face talent shortages in future years, begin partnering with schools to deliver distance learning options and thereby drive down the cost of a degree. Anyone who wants education to serve the public better should applaud this inevitable return to economic sanity in education funding and delivery.

- teplukhin

October 23, 2006 at 4:31pm

most don't pay full tuition at elite schools, so the MSRP on top tier schools are more than misleading. i only paid 1/3 of what my undergrad tuition supposedly cost, and i'm surely not alone. state tuitions remain relatively reasonable, especially at community colleges. the return on your investment, amortized over your career, seems to be worth it. i understand the concern for parents--but, as a general rule, it is the students who shoulder the larger portion of the debt. i think that the spirit of democratizing education is an important one, especially in the globally competitive environment. if technology can help with that goal, i'm all for it. i'm less confident that technology will drive down the price of education. especially without sacrificing quality. hell, it's one factor in the rising price of tuition as it is, as campuses sink money into modernizing. a quality education is not just about delivery of info. it's also about forming minds critically. IIUC, tep suggested that the informed consumer could shop for lectures. this is assuming that an 18 year old kid has the ability to perform that type of quality analysis armed with a criterion other than charm, attractiveness and the amusement factor. at least in some small way, it's not unlike the uneven relationship between patient and doctor, and the barriers to informed consumer choices that were part of another thread not too long ago. interested to hear your thoughts, since this post is more of an improvisation than a thoughtful reflection... best, amy

- acgraves

October 23, 2006 at 4:50pm

Tep, I guess I'm just more pessimistic in the eventual response to talent shortages. I would expect a shortage to only increase the value on the limited space in existing universities, primarily because I doubt the value of distance learning as a replacement for on-campus study. Yes, as both you and GwynnD mention, distance learning will improve educational access for those who can't afford to attend college. Unfortunately, I just can't see those degrees receiving the same value upon graduation. As long as attending a traditional college is favored by companies, students and their parents will fight for the opportunity to attend, whatever the cost. Those costs aren't as high as tuition bills would suggest, as Amy pointed out. The only students I knew at my nominally expensive school who paid full tuition were mediocre children of wealthy parents. Everyone else paid much, much less. I'll add an additional complication tied to my own experiences- how do you address scientific education over long distances? No written exercise can replace laboratory experience; becoming a good scientist requires designing and conduction your own experiments and then explaining the unexpected. Distance education can teach the rote portion of a scientific education but cannot address the creative/problem solving aspects.

- tymonko

October 23, 2006 at 5:47pm

Yeah, Tep, you're absolutely right that my imagined farmboy is hardly representative (I was rushed) of the general problem with escalating costs in higher education. To be honest, I was actually thinking of(but wanted to give more thought to) the likes of the student for whom access to both *computers and higher education might be limited -- they call it the digital divide, though some call it a myth. Dunno. Don't have the stats. That doesn't diminish your overall point that the average middle-class family is priced out of the market. Ty -- you've probably gathered that I'm in the humanities, I teach English -- and indeed, how on earth can those practices central to the teaching of science be mounted though and over the internet?? Got me there, too. On the issue of cost, I should mention that I now teach for a Canadian university (a research one at that), where yearly undergraduate fees, for a Canadian resident, are roughly CA$8K in the applied sciences, and CA$5.2K in Arts and Sciences. Five grand! . . . Makes ya wonder, huh? As Amy notes, many US students are supported by loans of one form or another (but loans carry interest. . .). Should the government be doing more, or doing something differently? I too am somewhat skeptical, though probably couldn't reason out, that technology will serve to drive down the cost of higher ed for all. I suppose I'm dubious that any such partnership between colleges/universities and the corporate world will yield such a broadly beneficial result. Many US universities are already in corporations' pockets (which, to my knowledge, benefits the sciences and engineering more than the humanities: i.e., Ford and Motorola fund new research facilities, not T.S. Eliot reading groups). Where I think we are in agreement is that US higher education is in dire need of new models, both economic *and pedagogic. What will it take to generate the necessary reforms? Who will sTep up to initiate them? (and how is the post about Larry Summers, erstwhile president of Harvard -- who aspired to be innovative, but battled with his humanities faculty -- now part-time managing director of a hedge fund -- germane here?) So, I've rambled here (I've certainly let down my guard since the dense prose of my first post). But have enjoyed the discussion. Thanks.

- GwynnD

October 23, 2006 at 6:50pm

I don't have time to track down the numbers, but my guess is that there is a severe shortage of tenured spots available to the hordes of very well-qualified PhDs turned out by top research universities. Would it not make sense for our educational system to allow those PhDs to reach much larger audiences than they can at present-- and make much more $$$ -- by means of freelance online lecturing and leading online seminars? In order to ensure quality, each PhD-led course could be accredited by some national body; students would be required to pass some sort of generalized online exam whose results could be audited by that same body. Fees for each course would be set by the marketplace. The beauty of such a system is of course scale economies. Anyone could register at a centralized website (www.gladlylerne.com?) to hear lectures, although participation in seminars would be with professor permission. Professors could lecture to literally thousands of students; seminars could be augmented with cutting-edge videogame and other many-to-many online technologies of the sort that currently handle 10,000+ simultaneous gamers. If, say, Prof Gwynn attracts 1,000 students to his online lecture series, he might keep, say, $50 per student and share $30/st. with gladlylerne.com, maybe another $10/st. with the licensing body and potentially another $9/st. to his university. Students pay $99 each for the course. $0 wasted on admin, greenskeepers, healthcare benefits, housing, other faculties etc etc. Everyone wins. Except of course Behemoth U.

- teplukhin

October 23, 2006 at 8:19pm

Especially enjoying imagining my online professorial alter-ego as a male one. . . Come one, come all, Prof Gwynn wants the big bucks! _Greed is good._ I'm being cheeky. In fact, I am intrigued by your solution, on many levels. Alas, in this world, Lady Madonna Gwynn needs to put the chilluns -- at 6 & 4, 12 yrs. and counting until the first tuition bill -- to bed. Will give your model some thought in a bit.

- GwynnD

October 23, 2006 at 8:42pm

Greed may or may not be good, but indentured servitude sucks. As does tuition increasing annually at 2-3x the growth in household incomes, students being shut out of top schools for lack of funds or taking on $50k in debt before they've even held a full-time job....

- teplukhin

October 23, 2006 at 8:59pm

Again, I was being silly, imagining myself masquerading as a male (which one could) as an online prof, but also taking up the "market demands" related to your post to imagine Gordon Gekko's speech (in Wall Street) as a form of academic lecture. If there's one thing I like about what you've proposed, it's something resembling a creative solution to the glut of PhDs crowding the academic job market (talk about indentured servitude). While my protracted stint in graduate school often felt like the ninth ring of hell, I somehow managed, by hook or crook, to avoid the fiery center (where Satan lies), where expert and capable PhDs languish unable to find a job. That said, just as ty noted how an online degree would unlikely carry the same weight and authority as that from the bricks and mortar institution, so, too, would I imagine that job turnover at such a virtual institution would be considerable, i.e., thought merely a layover to a conventional tenure-track appointment. Perhaps that's what you imagine, too, and that that doesn't pose a problem for you (would your proposed institutions grant tenure?). But it would likely affect the quality of teaching there, and thus perpetuate the tiered system that dictates that some diplomas are more valuable than others, and that exorbitant tuitions can be justified on those grounds. (Thus whither reform?) I'd be curious to learn whether a degree from the University of Phoenix has any pull with employers. I have more thoughts, but must wait til tomorrow. Oh, but I am intrigued by your institution's title: "gladlylerne" -- any particular reason for the archaism (in "lerne")? Perhaps to conceive such an institution as either immediately possessing or being indebted/beholden to some kind of venerable history (it would lack in comparison to the traditional elite)? (i.e., kinda like YeOldeSchoolehouse.com?) Just curious.

- GwynnD

October 23, 2006 at 10:47pm

Re the Chaucer clerk analogy, the medieval system IIUC also entailed clerks or tutors/dons offering their services for a fee without university affiliation or other intermediation. A much smarter allocation of this untapped resource than the current system.

- teplukhin

October 24, 2006 at 10:36am

RE the value of an online degree, that too will change, in time. At some point the gap between astronomical tuition and market value will widen beyond what parents/students are willing to pay, and the value of the online degree will rise accordingly. An analogy is the dynamic between rental prices and residential housing prices.

- teplukhin

October 24, 2006 at 10:39am

- GwynnD

October 24, 2006 at 10:41am

I have never dealt directly with you, but, here, as, generally, everywhere, from what I have read from time to time on various threads, there is a great deal to what you say. I took a road trip this summer through Princeton and Yale and spent some time--a day or two in each place. I came away with sharply ambivalent feelings, hailing from a country--Canada--that does not distinguish between state and private universities. Which is to say there are none of the latter. I was overwhelmed by the brilliance, unbelievabe endowment wealth, privilege and achievement that virtually filled the Ivy air. I was struck sharply by the disproportionate privelege--especially in New Haven, Princeton seems quite the pervasively affluent community (although I did sojourn some around Rutgers and got lost in one of the Brunswicks)--suffusing these universities in comparison to my sense of American colleges and American life in general. Is there something to be done about this contrast in privelege as a matter of practical proactive, social policy, as opposed to what social and technological forces will unwittingly of themselves bring, whether glacially or imminently? I tend to think not. The Harvards and Princetons and Yales and Stanfords and so on--private bastions, relatively speaking--will, I'd argue, continue to endure and flourish, as they are now more than ever. Their (perhaps obscene) concentration of privilege the consequence of a capitalism seeking and willing to pay for excellence, and their justifiable survival dependent on increasingly jettisoning status as a means of entry in favour of genuine merit. And a great American story will continue to be natural aristocracy asserting itself, regardless of the homeliness of its points of origin. I have one particular thought in relation to what you have been saying. My though concerns law schools, something I know something about. The key to practising law in most common law jurisdictions is a degree from an accredited law school and completing the local Bar Admissions Course successfully. In my province, Ontario, the competition to get into law schools in fierce, the spots limited, the standards really high, and a great many (perhaps mute and inglorious Miltons, so to speak)turned away or not even bothering to apply. I have long been of the view that how one comes to their legal competence--whether it be Harvard Law School or reading law books in a garret--should not matter, as long as the candidate lawyer can pass a set of state exams--on the model of bar exams--designed to test for, and try to assure, competence. But I cannot imagine the same idea for a non-professional degree. And I think there is too much of a "market" component to your argument in relation to such non-professional education. The difference between the meaning of an arts or science degree and a professional degree seems to make all the difference here. Ultimately, I'd argue, the structure of American universities is a reflection of the structure of American society. And that won't knowingly change until inexorable forces--perhaps along the lines of what you have started to identify--virtually unwittingly bring that change about. p.s. GwynnD, your "duh" was a well--deserved kick in my bromide.

- basman

October 24, 2006 at 9:07pm

- basman

October 24, 2006 at 9:20pm

Hmmm. I really like the idea of your sojourn through the States via college and university campuses, as a lens through which to examine (and assess) our culture. Kind of a de Tocqueville-esque examination (though probably less generous) from the perspective of higher ed. Has someone done it? Someone should. You've got dibs, B-man.

- GwynnD

October 25, 2006 at 9:33am

I can't see how the current system can continue in a democracy. Acc to today's WSJ, tuition at 4-year colleges and univs has increased 35% on a post-inflation basis during the last five years alone. It's increasing at 6% per year. At the same time, federal grants and funding are decreasing. This is the equivalent of a residential housing market that is increasing at twice the rate of incomes-- at the same time that mortgage rates are rising and credit is becoming less available. As with any other good, there will inevitably be a market reaction. In the housing market, it means more and more people will leave the market and either rent or relocate in search of less expensive alternatives. In the education market, likewise, people with moderate or low household incomes will also seek alternatives. Online or distance learning is one such alternative. As demand increases, and video-conferencing and social networking and collaborative technologies improve, this economically attractive alternative will also become socially attractive. I'd guess that the large employers will start subsidizing such education and seeking out bright graduates who are not burdened with $50,000, er $60,000, oops I meant $75,000 of debt. The elite colleges will inevitably become farm clubs for Wall St and consultancies that pay salaries high enough to offset that debt, along with rich kids who can major in Madonna Studies or Film or somesuch.

- teplukhin

October 25, 2006 at 12:34pm

The divide between the privileged and the non-privileged may continue to increase, sharpen and intensify, but so long as top- rated universities continue to have such enormous cachet, I cannot see anything but their continuing, and doing as well as they have been.

- basman

October 25, 2006 at 1:42pm

For the rich, sure, and probably for the trade schools, where the return on investment is easily measured. But at the undergrad level, mark my words: the Ivy colleges may one day go the way of all other arrogant, overpriced market leaders. At current rates of increase, tuition will DOUBLE, in real terms, every ten years-- during which period real household incomes will go up maybe 20%, at most. Any non-minority without a million or two burning a hole in his pocket (or eligible for a 100% free ride) would be insane to blow such a sum on an Ivy undergrad degree. Don't be surprised if you see a host of new quality alternatives stepping in and offering a quality undergrad education at a fraction of the price-- and then steadily closing the quality gap just as the Japanese automakers did to Detroit in the decades after their cut-price market entry tactics first gave them a toehold in the US.

- teplukhin

October 25, 2006 at 3:44pm

Why don't you think that the Ivies et al., self-aware and flush as they now are, will see trends leading to a tipping point, if there are such trends, and adapt accordingly? Plus out of a nation of how many undergraduate candidates, and out of a world of how many undergarduate candidates, where aren't they going to find the 5,000-6,000 that go to Princeton--which includes graduate students--and the 10,000 that go to Yale--which includes graduate students-- and so on for the other high falutin schools. The numbers of students who attend these schools are shockingly low, considering their billions of dollars of endowment wealth. Nobody does this kind of hyper-elitism like you guys. On this basis I don't think your analogy holds.

- basman

October 25, 2006 at 4:22pm

Why don't you think that the Ivies et al., self-aware and flush as they now are, will see trends leading to a tipping point, if there are such trends, and adapt accordingly? Exhibit A: the Summers debacle. Not to send the thread off on a tangent but clearly one of his greatest offenses was to suggest that teaching at Harvard, um, sucks, that many students graduate without knowing much of anything, grades are inflated etc. Sort of like someone telling GM's managers that quality has slipped, the product's lame, the customers can't be conned forever, the Japanese actually do know something about manufacturing....

- teplukhin

October 25, 2006 at 5:04pm

I would have thought that his "greatest offense" was to offend against political correctness. Does teaching at Harvard really suck? Do many students graduate there wthout knowing much of anything? How can all of that be determined? On the other hand, the grade inflation problem seems, from my impressions of things, to be a real problem.

- basman

October 25, 2006 at 7:16pm

Oops, i see that Harvard Law prof Bill Stuntz used the GM/Harvard analogy in an article on Summers a while back. I haven't read it, and doubt this is a matter of great minds thinking like, but it's worth pointing out that at least one Harvard insider sees the analogy. Harvard undergrads typically get the most benefit, from what I can gather, from their peers, not from their profs, who are pretty much absent. Nearly all the teaching's done by twenty-something grad students. Why not let the better ones offer their wares in cyberspace?

- teplukhin

October 25, 2006 at 9:22pm

Who is lecturing the 100s attending introductory classes? Who is teaching sophomore courses? Who is teaching 3d and 4th year courses? Who is guiding the writing of honours essays. What is the breakdown between who is lecturing and who is doing the seminars, and how does that work in different years. What is the faculty student ratio? I know that at Princeton it is incredibly favourbale for students. Do you think there is a conspiracy to deprive undergaduates of a good, meaningful education or are you n danger of generalizing form anecdotal evidence? WEho is to say that the fancy school professoriat doesn't take teaching seriously? What are the undergraduates saying and where? And so on. Really, this needs a good, systematic analysis.

- basman

October 25, 2006 at 9:41pm