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The higher education bubble

Mark Cuban discusses the reasons behind the impending collapse of the higher educational system as we know it:

The point of the numbers is that getting a student loan is easy. Too easy.

You know who knows that the money is easy better than anyone ? The schools that are taking that student loan money in tuition. Which is exactly why they have no problems raising costs for tuition each and every year.

Unfortunately, it appears to be a basic economic fact (that gets lost on the politicians) that prices go up (inflation) when you have more money chasing after a limited supply of a product or service. The government (trying to do a good thing) by supplying easy-to-get student loans for anyone wanting to attend college, has be a major force behind the skyrocketing costs of tuition.

Until that spigot is turned off (and it will be turned off or at least slowed down), the tuition prices for higher education will continue to increase. This is going to cause a lot of universities to re-think their missions and how they can accomplish what they want to accomplish.

Couple this with the fact that communications technology (with the Internet) is making the classic on-site based version of college education obsolete and more cost efficient. As a result, only the colleges and universities that can adapt to the new realities of the future will survive.

Toward a new approach to public education

Fred Read in his own classic style extolling the “virtues” of the American public school system and pulling no punches on the reality of it:

If a child has a substantial IQ, expect him to use it for the good of society, and give him schools to let him do it. If a child needs a vocation so as to live, give him the training he needs. But don’t subject either to enstupidated, unbearably tedious, pointless, one-size-fits-nobody pseudo-schools to hide the inescapable fact that we are not all equal.

It’s true that he one-size-fits-all approach to public education in many ways can pull down the best and brightest students. (Note: Public charter and academic magnet schools can provide outlets for these students.) Less than 100 years ago, not everyone was expected to graduate from high school. In my hometown, Wausau, Wisconsin, there were essentially three tracks for minors:

1. Complete elementary school and (possibly) some middle school and go to work, usually on the family farm.

2. Complete middle school and (possibly) some high school and go to vocational or apprenticeship training for semi-skilled factory labor or skilled professions like plumbing.

3. Complete high school and (possibly) go to teacher training (at a “normal” school) or further studies at the university.

This approach allowed the educational system to naturally filter the students by ability and (as much as possible) into positions needed by society.

Of course, this system was not without its own problems, including the possibility that higher potential or late blooming students getting tracked into professions that limited their contributions to society.

Perhaps, the standard approach to public education will inherently get fixed with the Internet and technology with the introduction of online distant learning, the flipped classroom, and services like the Khan Academy. We can only hope as our future depends on it.

Politics as Sport

Excellent observation by Dave Winer @davewiner:

Many people see politics as I see sports. There are two teams, and my team is going to beat yours, and nothing else matters. Winning is everything. And that’s a bad mistake.

Yes, I don’t think the current two political parties accurately portray the nuances of American citizens. Political issues are not all black and white, us versus them. Having this confrontational and winner takes all attitudes is tearing the country apart from the inside.

Pragmatism and political compromise is disdained. And, this is a damn shame for us (as citizens) and the generations behind us.

Ballmer’s Delusion

Kyle Van Essen (@kyleve) tweeted and linked to the attached image:

Found this in my PSDs folder. I completely forget what it was for. http://cl.ly/24010Y3d1s2p2T2B0k1j

Kyle’s image totally reminded me of the time Damon Allison and I went to the Apple Store at Ridgedale Mall in Minnetonka, soon after the first iPhone was released.

Of course, I had to watch this interview with Steve Ballmer on the recently released iPhone on the store floor… just because.

Ballmer (laughing mockingly at the iPhone announcement):

Five hundred dollars! Fully subsidized with a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good e-mail machine!

At the time (1997), even as a developer whose bread and butter was developing for Microsoft’s platforms, I thought that Ballmer was nuts. In retrospect, the market has seemed to prove this.

(HT: Steve Stroughton Smith)