patrick.net

Great. Just what we need: an infinite supply of cheap (educated) labor. Now *everyone* can work at Bangladesh wages, not just high-school dropouts.

Expensive college degrees are the last "economic moat" the middle class has against globalization. Making college "free" or "almost free" will make things worse. Much worse.

freak80 says

Expensive college degrees are the last "economic moat" the middle class has against globalization.

Since most employers want experience ... I don't see the causality. It's more that in the past, from 1960 to 2010, those with college degrees have accumulated the most relevant white collar work experience to keep the middle class afloat.

Now, no one cares about what you've learned in college, as it's become more and more apparent that the purpose of the degree is to satisfy HR barriers of entry.

freak80 says

Making college "free" or "almost free" will make things worse. Much worse.

Really ?

Even if Harvard were free (actually it is for many of its students) it doesn't mean that everyone gets to go. You have to have the aptitude and work ethic to get in.

Free college might serve as an incentive to work hard in k-12, but obviously it can't be free for everyone. There aren't enough college and universities for that.

Or maybe it could be. Give online vocational ed to those who can't get in to a good college or university.

humanity says

You have to have the aptitude and work ethic to get in.

This is not entirely true. Offical Affirmative Action policies take race into account during admissions. It is putting a student's race before the content of their character. MLK is rolling in his grave.

Unoffical liberal school policies make "diversity" the number 1 goal of many schools. If a school has anything resembling a "diversity" department, it is a racist institution where smarter whites are replaced by less intelligent non-whites, usually by self hating white liberals.

freak80 says

Great. Just what we need: an infinite supply of cheap (educated) labor.

Your solution I presume: Keep enough Americans without skills so that those with skills can be paid more. I guess that's one response to globalization.

humanity says

Dan I do feel bad for you. Not only becasause you did not get to have the experience of going away to school for 4 years, living with other like minded students and so on.

But I also feel bad for you that you therefore have these theories of higher ed reform based based exclusively on, "hey if learning from a computer is good enough for me, it's good enough for everyone."

A nice ad hominem "pity thy enemy" maneuver. BTW humanity, I also went to college, on-campus, and graduated magna cum laude. And no, I don't pity anyone.

And yes, while I did enjoy the experience, I'm also aware of the fact that today's tuition has clearly separated from the entry level to medium wages of white collar workers. Thus, what's worked a dozen years ago for me, may not be applicable anymore. What Dan is proposing, is an alternative to the stranglehold of ever increasing tuition, against the true wages of the middle class.

You made quite a post here and since I don't have speakers at this pc let me kinda say a few things.

"1. Subsidies without price controls always benefits the sellers, not the buyers."
Without a doubt. Trying to disprove this claim would be like trying to disprove gravity at this point

"3. Throwing money at colleges and schooling is not an investment in education. Education and schooling are not synonymous. Nor are education and degrees."

I would also say this is true on lower levels as well. When schools fail usually the state bails it out and increases tons of funding which frankly doesn't exactly improve the school. It will attract teachers no doubt but that doesn't change the home life of students or any issues in the community.

"6. Education doesn't guarantee growth. There are already many highly educated unemployed people. You need to fix the economy so that there is a demand for educated employees. Merely increasing the supply does not create jobs. It only lowers pay."

True although there can be a backlash with that with this odd logical paradox that reminds me of Pawn stars
Either something is so common that the value is nil
or
Something is so specific that it has few opportunities

"7. Under the current system, the taxpayer is only paying if the student defaults which is nearly impossible as these loans are not wiped out even in bankruptcy. The student is still paying under the current system. The student isn't getting a free college degree."

Although that is very true that's not always the way how things are sold to people. Furthermore even if bankruptcy was allowed with this post 2005 reform you have to plead in front of a judge. Bankruptcy was quite easy and simple to do before 2005..now not so much.

"Does Diana Carew remind anyone else of the bimbo in the opening scene of Newsroom (2012)? I so wanted to hear Peter Schiff say "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!" to her.
By the way, I'm really liking Newsroom. I saw the first eight episodes and totally identify with Will. But I digress..."

Personally I think Newsroom is horrible. Cut the show time in half and get rid of anyone under the age of 30 and it would be a good show. I hate the drama queen jr high crap they have. And why is it that everyone "knows a guy" with every episode? It's like he mixed Sports Night with West Wing. The other actors/actress are great but there's really no nudity, violence and no need for swears. It could be put on Lifetime or daytime soap for that matter.

" Why does it matter where you learn it, or for that matter in what year? There is no purpose in recreating the same lectures every year when they can be created once and viewed an infinite number of times."

That certainly can be true and I understand what you are getting at but consider a few things.
1) If you touch college sports beware the wrath of the NCAA and how much that brings into local areas. If you don't have professional sports near you then it is mostly college sports and media coverage has boomed in the past five or so years. Without college sports professional leagues are going to be hard pressed to go overseas for talent

2) The cost of knowledge should be zero and there are debates in academic journals as to how much access should really cost.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/09/scientists-boycott-academic-journals-to-protest-the-high-cost-of-paywalls/

3) It is going to be hard to get text drm free given everything. In a sense it reminds me a tad of file sharing going back a decade. If we establish that ALL non physical mediums are free the it is earth shattering. Music, movies, books, games, applications etc.

4) "It is not the responsibility of the educational system to provide teaching jobs."
I understand what you are saying but if you tried saying that to a teachers union it could get ugly. I live in Mass and although it is illegal for teachers to go on strike I was told a graphic account about in '94 about a strike. It took 10 days for the court to establish that teachers were on strike that's how Kafkaesque it is. I do understand what you mean. I can understand tenure on the higher ed level but not on lower. I met a kindergarden teacher with tenure...what research is really done on that level?

The only issues I would see with this would be the acceptance of the employer. If employers don't ask for something then people won't take it. Long ago employers taught employees. They had to because technology provided little other choice. Public school systems were modeled after factories. The ringing of a bell was for changing shifts or changing classes, the teacher was always older than the student to imply that age and authority is to be obeyed etc. Much of this was stated by John Taylor Gatto 20 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto

So employers switched to asking for education (high school mostly) because it freed them up from having to pay as much for training. Then we realized that not all schools were equal and thus higher ed was needed but now people have debt.

I don't think we'll have a national system because we are a federation. But I could see a number of major companies/employers collaborating on some system of classes/certifications.

I'd argue again the paradox of requirements of employers shows that western ones frankly don't know what to do.

So they don't accept another businesses experience because no one trains someone in a skill that has a value somewhere else

So they don't take a degree because they think it doesn't fit

So they don't promote from within because it might create a conflict of interest in someone being the boss of former coworkers (I've actually heard this!)

On a side note some might argue that they go to school for networking and that's fine and all but post facebook and linked in what exactly is the point?

Wow, I thought my posts were long!

I can tell you that online classrooms may be fine for some material but they will NEVER replace real world hand on laboratory work. Sure you can run computer simulations but they are just that - models. In a real hands-on lab subtle mistakes are made that lead to weirdness down the line. This is part of the learning experience. The occasional explosion and subsequent injuries also help re-enforce safety training.

Seriously this is analogous to saying Call of Duty or Medal of Honor are adequate training for combat soldiers. I suppose it is but only if you want cannon fodder.

Dan, while I like the idea of education becoming a lot cheaper, I really do have to take issue with the idea of it being standardized across the entire nation.

I live in a country (Japan) with a national Ministry of Education which dictates to schools just about everything down to which textbooks are used at which times. It isn't exaggerating to say that a third-grader down in Okinawa and a third-grader up north in Akita are reading the exact same passage of the exact same book on the exact same day.

Bureaucrats love it, but it creates an over-homogenized populace. They come out assuming that if something was learned in their sixth-grade history class, then everyone they're likely to meet in daily life also learned that fact at that time. If everyone learned about Bastille Day back in fourth grade and you didn't, they (unconsciously, I admit) think you're stupid and undereducated. And if you learned about the Boston Tea Party years ago and they've never heard of it, they'll think you've got a useless piece of knowledge in your head, because if it were important, their national curriculum would have addressed it.

Contrast this with a system where textbooks and curricula are chosen at the municipal level. You'll get to high school and find that while everybody got the core basics, you learned some stuff that the people who went to Springfield Junior High didn't get, and they picked up stuff that your books didn't address. See how this creates a population with a healthy variety of experiences, in contrast to one where everyone learned the same things at the same time -- and missed out on the same things?

Regional differences also get tossed aside. Imagine if some people in Washington, D.C. forced all schoolchildren to speak with a Maryland accent! It gets worse -- in Japan everyone must learn English, and the national-level English textbooks assume that the kids using them speak only Standard Japanese, so sounds that Standard Japanese doesn't contain are pushed to later lessons under the assumption that they're "difficult". Kids growing up speaking dialects that have these sounds could master English pronunciation in an instant, but they've got to slog through a system that demands that they start out not being able to make them. Imagine if you lived in a town with lots of Italians, but in freshman Italian class, with a government-produced book that presupposes that even the teacher can't speak it well, the kids are force-fed over-Anglicized rubbish Italian rather than using the surrounding community to make big leaps.

It is bad enough that corporations, television, national media, and big-box stores have done so much to homogenize American life. The last thing we need is for education to go that route.

Michinaga says

And if you learned about the Boston Tea Party years ago and they've never heard of it, they'll think you've got a useless piece of knowledge in your head

Well yeah, because if you break it down, "Boston" = Important US eastern city, home of Harvard/MIT and "Tea Party" = an English socializing tradition, thus, the avg *homogenized* Asian would associated that with Yankee nationalism involving some social event in Boston but with Earl Grey as oppose to Green Tea.

Imagine if some people in Washington, D.C. forced all schoolchildren to speak with a Maryland accent!

Their crab cakes certainly beat the ones up in New England. And despite being a Massachusetts native, the Boston accent is really coarse and rough.

It is bad enough that corporations, television, national media, and big-box stores have done so much to homogenize American life. The last thing we need is for education to go that route.

It already has. What you're talking about was that campus life from the 60s till the early 90s. Afterwards, colleges started catering to corporate interest. Even Columbia Univ (where the Beatniks started in the 50s), started to offer classes via direct bi-directional video feedback to AT&T and IBM, back in the late 80s, before broadband and media-on-demand was out.

foxmannumber1 says

Race is more than different melanin levels. Liberals typically believe in the theory of evolution. Human evolution did not stop at the neck.

There is no biological definition of race. Race is nothing more than a largely arbitrary set of physical characteristics that are grouped by historic and cultural boundaries. In reality there is and has never been a line that separates one race from another. Instead, there is a continuum of skin tones and other physical variations that gradually blend from one group to another.

Sure there are genes that promote and prohibit strength, immunity to various diseases, intelligence, paranoia, and even how religious people are. However, such genes seem to readily cross arbitrary race and ethnicity boundaries. For example, the genetic tendency to be very religious occurs in both European and African lineages, as does the genetic tendency towards rational skepticism.

The fact is that human populations were never isolated enough to break off into subspecies or separate species. Traits and genes can flow between populations A and B even if there is no interbreeding between populations A and B. Don’t believe me? Consider this. Some of population A mates with adjacent population C. Genes from A propagate through population C even among people who never mated with anyone from A, but have an ancestor from A. Then part of population C mates with members of population B. The genes in C originally from A now flow into B. The reverse also allows genes to flow from B to A.

Given how much mating goes on in our species, you probably have genes from people of races you don’t consider your ancestors.

StoutFiles says

The cost of K-12 is just fine.

From Yankee Institute

The average Connecticut high school graduate cost taxpayers about $133,000 from kindergarten through senior year, according to new research by the Yankee Institute. For high school graduates in the city of Hartford, which has the state’s most expensive graduates, that figure climbed to just under $200,000 per graduate, the data shows.

That sounds just as expensive as college. Of course, if you aren't paying the bill directly as oppose to through taxes, you might not notice how expensive it is. But have you ever wondered where all your money is going?

StoutFiles says

Tuition is only as high as they are because of supply and demand. It's common sense that if you have something that always sells out, you're going to keep raising the price until it doesn't. Let's prevent it from selling out.

VSS is the only solution to the problem of supply outstripping demand. VSS raise the supply to infinity making the cost for any finite demand effectively zero.

humanity says

But this is no replacement for the college experience.

Young people can still have drunken orgies without it costing the taxpayers a dime or forcing the students into debt. The "college experience" you speak of is not the responsibility of an educational system. Socializing and partying should be done on the student's down time and is not a function of a school system.

Trust me, young people will have on problems getting laid without brick 'n' mortar colleges.

freak80 says

Great. Just what we need: an infinite supply of cheap (educated) labor. Now *everyone* can work at Bangladesh wages, not just high-school dropouts.

Expensive college degrees are the last "economic moat" the middle class has against globalization. Making college "free" or "almost free" will make things worse. Much worse.

Your implied proposal is to keep the wages up high for a select few by keeping the vast majority in poverty. This is neither socially just nor wise.

An economy built on barriers to entry is as doomed as a city built on levies keeping out the ocean.

In any case, VSS increases the supply of education to infinity. The supply of educated workers is still limited to 100% of the population, and likely will be far less than that.

humanity says

Even if Harvard were free (actually it is for many of its students) it doesn't mean that everyone gets to go. You have to have the aptitude and work ethic to get in.

George Bush disproves that theory.

Dan8267 says

That sounds just as expensive as college. Of course, if you aren't paying the bill directly as oppose to through taxes, you might not notice how expensive it is. But have you ever wondered where all your money is going?

Over a THIRTEEN YEAR span. What thirteen year college did you go to?

It comes out to about 10k a year, which is perfectly acceptable considering they pick up your kid for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and return it. Hiring a nanny for the same days would cost more than this, and the nanny wouldn't be teaching them nor giving them valuable social experience.

Unless one parent doesn't work or you've got grandparents in the area, keeping a child at home means someone has to come watch it for a price(more money than school per year), or it means you have to quit your day job to supervise it (a lot more money than school per year).

Dan8267 says

VSS is the only solution to the problem of supply outstripping demand. VSS raise the supply to infinity making the cost for any finite demand effectively zero.

When you put it that way, it's even worse than the current system. If everyone can do a job, how much do you think you'll be paid for it? There's a reason that dishwashing and fruit picking aren't high paying jobs. I want to make college more affordable, but not tear down the boundary between the poor and middle class.

humanity says

Dan I do feel bad for you.

No you don’t. You’re making a passive aggressive personal attack because you’re afraid my idea will catch on, but you have no convincing reason why it shouldn’t. You are hoping that your transparently disingenuous response will convince enough stupid people that only a loser would side with this idea.

Now perhaps there are enough stupid people to fall for your trick. But I’m counting on there being enough intelligent people to realize how awesome VSS would be and how it would solve many problems including the student debt crisis, the poor educational standards in our country, and racial and income inequality in education. It is a shame that you would allow all these problems to continue to cause real harm to people, but don’t have the balls to honestly state why you are against VSS.

humanity says

People are not all just like Dan.

Yes, some prefer to poison the well with transparently deceptive attack ads rather than address the issues. The negative campaign ad has certainly influenced our culture.

Don’t vote for Dan’s platform because Dan likes to drown puppies in the river according to our anonymous source.

Your posting could be used in an episode of The Newsroom (2012) about what the media should not do.

humanity says

freak80 says

Great. Just what we need: an infinite supply of cheap (educated) labor.

Your solution I presume: Keep enough Americans without skills so that those with skills can be paid more. I guess that's one response to globalization.

See, now that’s an actual counter-argument against freak80’s proposal. Notice how more effective it is than accusing freak80 of being a sheep fucker?

Rin says

humanity says

Dan I do feel bad for you. Not only becasause you did not get to have the experience of going away to school for 4 years, living with other like minded students and so on.

But I also feel bad for you that you therefore have these theories of higher ed reform based based exclusively on, "hey if learning from a computer is good enough for me, it's good enough for everyone."

A nice ad hominem "pity thy enemy" maneuver. BTW humanity, I also went to college, on-campus, and graduated magna cum laude. And no, I don't pity anyone.

Exactly. No one with half a brain is fooled by humanity’s poisoning of the well.

foxmannumber1 says

Offical Affirmative Action policies take race into account during admissions. It is putting a student's race before the content of their character. MLK is rolling in his grave.

VSS eliminates the need and existence of Affirmative Action in education. It also eliminates the need and existence of sports and other scholarships, grants, and loans.

Dan8267 says

There is no biological definition of race. Race is nothing more than a largely arbitrary set of physical characteristics that are grouped by historic and cultural boundaries.

Liberal doublespeak.

One of the genetic physical traits you don't mention is brain size. Average brain size varies by race, with sub saharan africans having the smallest.

I would not expect you or anyone else to be an expert on racial genetic intelligence. The subject is so taboo that even mentioning it ends careers. James Watson is a good example of this.

IQ tests have proven that blacks are less intelligent that whites and asians. These tests indicate that the top 10% of blacks are equal in intelligence to the average white with a 100 IQ. A pure bred sub saharan african with an IQ over 115 is a very rare exception.

Many liberals and blacks claim that IQ test questions are racially biased, however I have never seen a single example of a racially biased test question.

Rin says

the purpose of the degree is to satisfy HR barriers of entry.

barrier of entry = economic moat

Without it, the middle class is competing with high school dropouts and illegal aliens for minimum wage jobs. Entry-level people, by definition, have no work experience to put on a resume.

humanity says

Even if Harvard were free (actually it is for many of its students) it doesn't mean that everyone gets to go. You have to have the aptitude and work ethic to get in.

We weren't even talking about Harvard. We were talking about online education. Theoretically *anyone* could take online courses, and as long as they can pass, everything is fine. Now maybe that's the way it should be, ethicially. But economically, it's not good for the already-hurting middle class.

freak80 says

We weren't even talking about Harvard. We were talking about online education. Theoretically *anyone* could take online courses, and as long as they can pass, everything is fine.

People ... Harvard is not out of this loop.

'humanity' has been out of touch for a number of moons.

http://www.extension.harvard.edu/distance-education

Yes, one can get credits, from Harvard, applicable towards undergraduate or graduate programs, either at Harvard (mostly at night) or at other universities.

Here's how even a Creative Writing class can be made remote, via web conferencing ...

http://www.extension.harvard.edu/courses/introduction-fiction-writing

http://www.extension.harvard.edu/distance-education/how-distance-education-works/web-conference-courses

mdovell says

"1. Subsidies without price controls always benefits the sellers, not the buyers."
Without a doubt. Trying to disprove this claim would be like trying to disprove gravity at this point

And yet people still don't accept this obvious point. Diana Carew venomously opposed this fact but never offered any reason other than “I disagree”.

mdovell says

Either something is so common that the value is nil

Change “value” to “market price” and I’ll agree. The market price of air is nil, but its value is priceless. Just try going a few minutes without it.

mdovell says

Personally I think Newsroom is horrible. Cut the show time in half and get rid of anyone under the age of 30 and it would be a good show. I hate the drama queen jr high crap they have.

Yeah, I could do without the personal stories, but television show producers are incapable of producing a series that is completely plot driven. And yes, they do rely on “insider knowledge” a bit too much on the show. But the parts when they are deciding what is newsworthy and not are great.

mdovell says

If you touch college sports beware the wrath of the NCAA and how much that brings into local areas.

Fuck them. Like on the Newsroom, you have to cut out the bullshit stories and treat news seriously. There is no place for athletics in a school system. Marrying these two unrelated functions creates enormous conflicts of interest and corruption. The market for teenage athletes should be handled outside the schooling system with a separate system all together.

mdovell says

It is going to be hard to get text drm free given everything.

Not at all. If I offer to pay a really good math professor $1 million to write the definitive text book on calculus, I’d have no trouble finding an author. Since the book is used by millions of students, it costs becomes pennies per student over the long run. And that’s even with paying him another $100k every few years to update it if necessary.

Texts are cheap to produce and distribute if you eliminate the publishing industry.

mdovell says

"It is not the responsibility of the educational system to provide teaching jobs."
I understand what you are saying but if you tried saying that to a teachers union it could get ugly.

Let it get ugly. As I stated openly, you cannot serve two masters.

Right now I’m debating the merits of VSS, not the likelihood of getting it passed. Assume fiat.

mdovell says

I live in Mass and although it is illegal for teachers to go on strike I was told a graphic account about in '94 about a strike. It took 10 days for the court to establish that teachers were on strike that's how Kafkaesque

I don’t think it should be illegal for anyone to go on strike. What right does the state have to force people to work? It violates the Thirteenth Amendment.

mdovell says

I don't think we'll have a national system because we are a federation.

America was supposed to be a federation of nation-states like the European Union is today, but it hasn’t been since at least the Civil War. Since we pay federal income taxes, go through federal airline security, have our bank accounts and phone calls monitored by federal agencies, why should education be a state issue?

New renter says

I can tell you that online classrooms may be fine for some material but they will NEVER replace real world hand on laboratory work. Sure you can run computer simulations but they are just that - models. In a real hands-on lab subtle mistakes are made that lead to weirdness down the line.

That’s actually addressed in my initial post. The physical experience is only a tiny fraction of the overall K to Ph.D. educational experience, and it comes at the end of your academic career. Even high school science experiments can be done in simulations. Doing so prevents fudging of results and offers real time feedback and multiple attempts.

Anyway, you can take on physical experience at the end of VSS for the few disciplines that require it. The cost savings for the virtual part of the education will allow more to be spent on the “hands on” part.

Michinaga says

Dan, while I like the idea of education becoming a lot cheaper, I really do have to take issue with the idea of it being standardized across the entire nation.

Actually, it sounds like you have issues with the way in which education is standardized and by whom. Any good idea, if implemented improperly, will give a bad result. The solution is not to throw away the idea, but rather to implement it correctly.

Right now, Texas dictates which textbooks are used by students across the country. And Texas thinks that creationism should be taught instead of evolution. Localization does not guarantee intellectual honesty or choice.

I do agree the government cannot be trusted with establishing the curriculum or class material. However, leading experts in each field with the input of industry leaders for college-level material would be able to produce a great curriculum. The only reason I propose a national curriculum is that I don’t think we could yet create a world-wide curriculum, which would be even better.

StoutFiles says

Over a THIRTEEN YEAR span. What thirteen year college did you go to?

The thirteen year span the article is discussion is from kindergarten to the end of high school.

However, I will admit to enjoying a thirteen year span of having sex with college students. Actually, it’s an ongoing span. I’ll let you know when I stop.

Dan8267 says

Michinaga says

Dan, while I like the idea of education becoming a lot cheaper, I really do have to take issue with the idea of it being standardized across the entire nation.

Actually, it sounds like you have issues with the way in which education is standardized and by whom. Any good idea, if implemented improperly, will give a bad result. The solution is not to throw away the idea, but rather to implement it correctly.

I agree and implementing it correctly may take a few cycles.

Concerning what Michinaga mentioned about a homogenized society, not seeing the merits in outside knowledge, I'd also like to add in that many American college students today, who're not east Asian studies majors, know very little about Japan's Meiji Restoration, aside from Commodore Perry's voyage on the battle cruisers.

So far Dan, everything you've mentioned, seems to happening in some shape or manner. The flattening of educational opportunities is occurring and distance education is slowly taking off.

This guy, Khan, offers a slew of courses for the K to 11 crowd
http://www.khanacademy.org , to help get 'em to the level to compete in college level courses.

In the future, people will still be asked to pay for and perhaps pass a few extra exams, to buy a brand name degree like a Stanford or Harvard. Access, however, won't be restricted.

"Not at all. If I offer to pay a really good math professor $1 million to write the definitive text book on calculus, I’d have no trouble finding an author. Since the book is used by millions of students, it costs becomes pennies per student over the long run. And that’s even with paying him another $100k every few years to update it if necessary.

Texts are cheap to produce and distribute if you eliminate the publishing industry."

I'm not doubting it is easy to make a ebook and distribute it more than a physical book. Just the fact that the Amazon Kindle has given world wide access to wikipedia for the past five or so years is amazing.

But within the publishing world I still have to wonder about the credentials. Academia is publish or perish. There's hardly any way for a professor to get tenure without publishing or doing some form of research. The movie Tenure showed this in a funny way when all that he published was on some foreign blog.

"I don’t think it should be illegal for anyone to go on strike. What right does the state have to force people to work? It violates the Thirteenth Amendment."

They aren't forced to work. They can quit at any time. Now technically the unions can also curtail extra activity and simply just perform the letter of the contract. I've seen that done a few times here and there.

"America was supposed to be a federation of nation-states like the European Union is today, but it hasn’t been since at least the Civil War. Since we pay federal income taxes, go through federal airline security, have our bank accounts and phone calls monitored by federal agencies, why should education be a state issue?"

I don't think it was supposed to be a federation of states in the same manner. After the constitution and certainly after more states were added they started to create balances and compromises.

Education is largely a state issue because the payments from local governments are what pay the schools. Usually in the form of property taxes for the most part. Local control being a main point. In fair amounts of the northeast we have open town meeting and people can voice their say. I'm not saying we go with what they say or that it is a fast process but generally it tends to work to a given point. If you take away local control it can be viewed as a detachment. Granted we are now seeing this in other areas. For example social security checks are going to be direct deposited. In the past if someone was missing theirs they could contact their congressman/women and they would contact the local postmaster. Now it goes to congressman/women and well social security itself.

Keep in mind that teachers are also licensed by the state and states have invested fair amounts of time and money to standardized tests for graduations.There are complete industries on the teaching of the passing of these. Heck NY's regents tests were mentioned in the Death of Salesman which was published in the 1920's! To gut the tests even after some have studied might have a backlash. But that's a whole topic in at itself, just look up the Atlanta scandal where it went on for 10 years of faking the grades.

Rin says

So far Dan, everything you've mentioned, seems to happening in some shape or manner.

Except...

1. Nationalization of the education system.
2. Standardization of curriculum.
3. Reduction in the cost of schooling.
4. Standardization of the testing of students.
5. Socialization of the costs at the federal level
6. Elimination of faculty and all staff.
7. Elimination of physical facilities for schools.
8. Elimination of the profit motive in schooling, particularly in college.
9. Inclusion of industry leaders in skill selection.
10. Decoupling students from one another so that each can progress through the system at his or her own pace.
11. Elimination of state and local control of schooling.
12. Elimination of all tuition and financial aid.
13. Separation of athletics from academics.

Just off the top of my head.

mdovell says

wikipedia for the past five or so years is amazing.

There is nothing amazing about Wikipropaganda.

mdovell says

Education is largely a state issue because the payments from local governments are what pay the schools. Usually in the form of property taxes for the most part.

Under VSS, the schooling system would be paid for by federal taxes, would cost practically nothing, and would not involve local funding.

Therefore, local governments should have no say in the schooling system, and your property taxes can be decreased or the freed revenue used to pay for essential services and repairs. I hear those things are being starved of funds.

Dan8267 says

1. Nationalization of the education system.
2. Standardization of curriculum.
3. Reduction in the cost of schooling.
4. Standardization of the testing of students.

Actually Dan, the UK federated London University enacted a distance program, during mind you, the height of the British Empire in the mid-19th century ...

http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk

It's still quite popular among the Commonwealth nations and it's got a lot of what you're saying with standardizing curricula, lower costs of schooling, and uniform tests around the globe. administered by the Consulate.

All and all, I think the primary advantage locally is that the US took advantage of online streaming, long before anyone else, but the British set the mold of how such a degree program would look, with worldwide equality. I think what you're hinting at is that this will converge into a system where standardized qualifications will become the norm.

Don't you guys know the education is the privilege only for us rich? If you are poor, you will always be our slave. And we'd like to keep you there, of course. What would be the best way to do it?

1. Keep the cost of education extremely high. We are accomplishing it by cutting the budget for school.
2. Keep the cost of living so high, so you guys wouldn't dream of using your money to educate your kids rather than paying us. Yes, we are accomplishing it by investing into the futures which tend to drive up the price rather than stabilizing the price.
3. For those of you who happened to force your way into our education system, we will slap you with so much debt. When you graduate, you will end up with tons of debt that you have no choice but to become our slaves. You must be taught a lesson. You should know your place.

We don't care our entire education system becomes deteriorated as long as we are well off.

So stop this non-sense of keeping the education affordable for the poor. We need a not too healthy host to leech on. We don't need any competition from the poor.

humanity says

please read all the way through, and try your hardest to comment on the whole of what I am saying.

I always read the whole post. And just because I respond to specifics, does not mean I miss the overall picture a post paints, if any.

humanity says

When you imply that the whole of what I am saying is inaccessible to you, because you find fault with some little snippet that is not even relevant to my point, you don't fool anyone.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

But in the case of your previous post there were no arguments.

Anyway, fooling anyone goes against my core philosophy. I always advocate rational thought, transparency, repeatability of experiments, the irrelevancy of the messenger, and confirmation of the fact. Attempts at deception are antithetical to my worldview, and the thought process is more important than the conclusion to me. Understand that, and everything I say makes sense.

humanity says

I propose that much of your suggested reforms to higher education are based on your experience.

As well as observations of other people's experiences, reports on the effectiveness of education, and years of experience in transferring and representing knowledge.

humanity says

Had you gone to a four year school and lived there, having the more traditional college experience (no not just the drinking and sex), then you likely would have a different view.

I did go to a four year school and I did live there. I did have the traditional college experience. Therefore, your conclusion is empirically false. The flaw in your thinking is assuming that the only way to reach conclusion C is to start with premise P. In fact, many roads lead to conclusion C.

More importantly, you fail to grasp the worldview of rationalists. As a rationalist, I do not consider my own point of view to be special or important. That includes the fact that I'm human. Even that is irrelevant. I would reach the same conclusions if I were a rational dolphin, extra-terrestrial, or computer. The truth is objective and therefore does not contain opinions. All correct analysis leads to the same set of solutions for a given problem. That is the rationalist philosophy. It's objective, not subjective.

humanity says

Say in a parallel universe, you are as intelligent as you say and that you got a scholarship to MIT,

I've never made a comment on my intelligent. You concluded that I'm intelligent based on my writings. That compliment came from you, not me. It hardly seems fair to imply arrogance on my part simply because I impressed you without even trying.

humanity says

Say in a parallel universe, you are as intelligent as you say and that you got a scholarship to MIT, and that you had a lot of fun there , but also were spurred on by the competition and collaboration and stimulation late night conversations with your fellow undergrads.

If were just making things up, then I prefer the parallel universe where I'm banging Scarlett Johansson.

humanity says

My guess is you might feel different about the value of a traditional college education.

As I did go through a four-year program at a college where I lived on campus, you're conclusion is incorrect. But you are missing the point altogether. My personal feelings about college are irrelevant. The messenger is irrelevant. If I had a raging boner for brick 'n' mortar or "traditional" college as you like to call it, that would make no difference. The facts are that VSS would be far cheaper, more effective, and more socially just than brick 'n' mortar schools. These facts are not even remotely affected by my personal experiences or life history, or yours.

humanity says

Look, everyuone knows that online education has been growing very quickly.

That's actually not true. Although you can learn anything online, you cannot get an accredited degree without going through a brick 'n' mortar college, and that college is simply expanding to online services to increase its profits.

VSS is way more than just learning things through the Internet. Please go back and read the initial post which details all the things that VSS does differently than the status quo.

VSS isn't the University of Phoenix or your local college offering classes to remote students by video recording lectures.

humanity says

I don't want to see college replaced by online college.

Perhaps you don't. But the advantages I've shown above include

- ending student debt
- providing universal access to all educational opportunities
- ending the gap in education of ethnic minorities
- freeing students to reach their full potential whether they are high performers or low performers
- getting a degree that actually means something to the profession you enter

These advantages far outweigh your personal preference.

humanity says

I don't want to see college replaced by online college. And I don't the old fashioned libereral arts education to be something that eventually is only for the leisure class or the children of the 1%.

If you actually believe my proposal does this, then you have absolutely no understanding of my proposal. VSS makes all liberal art courses available to all people in the world. It opens those liberal arts courses for the poorest children, old people, and invalids.

humanity says

There is noreason that in relative terms a college education, especially at the best state schools shuld cost so much more now than it did 50 years ago.

There is no reason a college level education should cost more than a few pennies. Of course, to make this happen, you must get rid of physical campuses, faculty, and staff. And that means going virtual.

Knowledge is information, and in the Information Age, data is free. Brick 'n' mortar or "traditional" colleges restrict knowledge in the same way that hand-written books chained to a desk restrict literacy. VSS is the printing press for education.

humanity says

If you are proposing that by having more online education we can prevent the supply/demand situation for traditional college education from getting further out of whack then it makes sense.

What I'm proposing is a system that does the following:

Dan8267 says

1. Nationalization of the education system.
2. Standardization of curriculum.
3. Reduction in the cost of schooling.
4. Standardization of the testing of students.
5. Socialization of the costs at the federal level
6. Elimination of faculty and all staff.
7. Elimination of physical facilities for schools.
8. Elimination of the profit motive in schooling, particularly in college.
9. Inclusion of industry leaders in skill selection.
10. Decoupling students from one another so that each can progress through the system at his or her own pace.
11. Elimination of state and local control of schooling.
12. Elimination of all tuition and financial aid.
13. Separation of athletics from academics.

humanity says

But you don't acknowledge other forces at work hewre. In fact you missed the point ogf my link entirely which is why I even copied key text for you.

None of what you said is relevant to VSS vs brick 'n' mortar, but I'll explicitly state why anyway.

humanity says

The Liberal Arts stood at the center of a college education, and students were exposed to philosophy, anthropology, literature, history, sociology, world religions, foreign languages and cultures. Of course, something else happened, beginning in the late fifties into the sixties — the uprisings and growing numbers of citizens taking part in popular dissent — against the Vietnam War, against racism, against destruction of the environment in a growing corporatized culture, against misogyny, against homophobia. Where did much of that revolt incubate? Where did large numbers of well-educated, intellectual, and vocal people congregate? On college campuses. Who didn’t like the outcome of the 60s? The corporations, the war-mongers, those in our society who would keep us divided based on our race, our gender, our sexual orientation.

1. It is a meaningless statement to say that "Liberal Arts stood at the center of a college education" even during the 1960s. I think a hell of a lot of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students would disagree with you. During the 1950s and 1960s we were fighting the cold war and STEM was emphasized. As a result, man walked on the moon. 'Nuff said.

2. Liberal Arts doesn't cure diseases, end our dependency on non-renewable and destructive fossil fuels, create wealth like the Internet did, or reduce the costs of building shelter. STEM does.

3. VSS does not in any way limit liberal art classes. In fact, all classes including liberal art classes are made more readily available to more people than under the status quo.

4. Under VSS, more students would have greater exposure to philosophy, anthropology, literature, history, sociology, world religions, foreign languages, and cultures. College X offer a course in traditional Chinese, but not Mayan. College Y may offer a course in Mayan, but not Chinese. VSS offers courses in every language living or dead including Klingon.

The whole point of VSS is that it scales infinitely better than any brick 'n' mortar college can. You're local library may have a few tens of thousands of books. A major library like University of Pennsylvania might have a library with a few hundreds of thousands of books. VSS can have a library with every book every written. 'Nuff said.

5. The hippie movement in the 1960s did not end racism, the Vietnam War, misogyny, misandry, misanthropy, or homophobia. Nor did the hippies stop corporatism. In fact, as soon as those disgusting unwashed hippies entered their 30s and started making money, they voted in Reagan to deregulate everything so they could turn the stock market into a casino.

The greed is good decade of the 1980s was created by those same assholes you are glorifying from the 1960s. Gordon Gecko was a hippie who grew up, cut his hair, and put on a suit just like all other Baby Boomers. When they were young and horny they fucked like crazy -- make love not war my ass -- and when they grew up they sent other people to war and told us if we made love we'd die of AIDS. Now that the Baby Boomers are old, their attitude is fuck every other generation, just make sure we get to milk out social security and Medicare and leave nothing for anyone else.

The Baby Boomers were the most selfish generation ever. The entire world revolved around them during their entire lives. And during their lives, they created the very evils you are denouncing including corporate control of government, illegal wars, torture as acceptable practice, and massive amounts of pollution. The hippies were never noble and should not be glorified. They were just assholes trying to get laid that later became the assholes who turned Wall Street into a casino and destroyed the economy.

Disclosure: I am a member of Generation X, and we are known to be a bit cynical.

6. The colleges in the 1960s did not accomplish any of the things you mentioned. We Generation Xer's started the end of racism and homophobia by simply not adopting it like every previous generation did. The only way to stop the virus of racism and homophobia is to prevent it from entering the next generation. And Gen X did that.

'Nuff said.

7. Every social advance is preceded by an advance in science or technology. The printing press ended the tyrannical reign of the Catholic Church. The railroads brought about the end of slavery. Radio brought the progressive reforms of the early twentieth century. Television made war and racism less attractive. The Internet brought about the Arab Spring.

Scientific and technological advancements generate social justice advancements. VSS would empower the masses by making a real education available to anyone who is willing to put the time and effort into learning. VSS is the printing press of education.

Rin says

Actually Dan, the UK federated London University enacted a distance program, during mind you, the height of the British Empire in the mid-19th century ...

Yep, I'm not the first to have those ideas.

Standardization is absolutely necessary because we don't live in villages with local economies. We compete globally, like it or not. So we have to learn globally as well.

It makes no sense for the Texas School Board to make decisions on what textbooks will be used by most states. The only thing Texas and a book repository are well-known for is, well, you know.

Ideally, education should be standardize on the international level. The whole of the world's knowledge should be made available through a global VSS. That would kick ass. It would totally erase all the geographic boundaries imposed on knowledge. Of course, are sick world is nowhere near being able to implement that. Hell, the current political system is still fighting WikiLeaks, the greatest thing on the Internet since ever.

Rin says

I think what you're hinting at is that this will converge into a system where standardized qualifications will become the norm.

One can only hope so. But it won't happen automagically. It will take people fighting and advocating for it.

Nobody says

1... 2... 3...

Yep, that pretty much describes the status quo and why we need to move to VSS.

humanity says

Apparently you aren't all that clear on what liberal arts even means. It often includes Math and Science, although usually not Math and science that is directly related to Vocational or professional education

That's bull. Calculus is no liberal art. Math and physics majors aren't liberal arts majors. They are science and engineering majors.

Just because the Liberal Arts schools want to include STEM students to make themselves look better doesn't mean STEM students want to be included as Liberal Arts. We rightfully lack respect for Liberal Arts, its majors, and its faculty.

humanity says

Online education has matured a fair amount already and is big

The system I'm proposing is way more that what's called online learning today.

humanity says

I would like to see our government go back to supporting higher education like it used to

The good old days weren't that good. Researching by scrolling through microfiche sucks compared to a Google search. Even when I was doing research the "old fashion" way, I new the future was all digital.

The fact is that eventually learning will be all digital. Either accept that and help shape the future, or fight it and have no influence on the future. Fighting digitization of knowledge is like fighting globalization. It may feel good, but it's pointless and counter-productive.

I'd rather shape the future than pine for the past. Especially since the past sucked ass anyway.

"For any degree, take the five leading companies in that field and compose a standard, national curriculum that reflects the real-world needs of the industry".

My concern with this idea is the "control" aspect. Who is composing this standard, national curriculum? And who gets to update it? Is it our government? Private corporations? This potentially could be a perfect vehicle for propaganda and furthering of an agenda, for example, the general concept of creating slave wage earners for our corporations.

Creating a "definitive" education and eliminating alternatives to this system could be dangerous and limiting to the quest for alternative viewpoints that vary from the mainstream. Only one story/version/DVD of Europe's History, for example?

Dan8267 says

We Generation Xer's started the end of racism and homophobia by simply not adopting it like every previous generation did. The only way to stop the virus of racism and homophobia is to prevent it from entering the next generation. And Gen X did that.

Gen X will stop none of these things. What you call racism is a natural self defense and survivalist instinct. Homosexuality is a genetic dead end.

Homosexuals and racial minorities have been given media time in the past 2 decades to destroy america and pacify its real citizens under the guise of equality and civil rights.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/8fQoGMtE0EY

I don't know if the Russians are still behind it, but whoever is subverting america into sheep is following their game plan.

I would argue that the real stumbling block would be a Constitutional smell test. It was already established in this case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_Independent_School_District_v._Rodriguez

So to prove that education must be provided by the federal government (even if it is just setup costs) is going to be hard.

Dan8267 says

Rin says

Actually Dan, the UK federated London University enacted a distance program, during mind you, the height of the British Empire in the mid-19th century ...

Yep, I'm not the first to have those ideas.

Standardization is absolutely necessary because we don't live in villages with local economies. We compete globally, like it or not. So we have to learn globally as well.

It makes no sense for the Texas School Board to make decisions on what textbooks will be used by most states. The only thing Texas and a book repository are well-known for is, well, you know.

Ideally, education should be standardize on the international level.

Perhaps you don't have to re-invent the wheel here. Another British operation, the Open University, has expanded beyond what London Univ has done, with a much broader audience and in today's digital era. London Univ is still mainly a pen/paper type of place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University_%28UK%29

Maybe what Americans can do is instead of let's say 'fighting the system', make these Rue Britannia programs more popular and accessible here, and then, we don't have to waste time with the whole Univ of Phoenix debacle which made online work, unpopular to locals, to begin with.

And then, Americans can have their cake and eat it. The best exam takers can opt for London School of Economics/UoL online "British Wharton" for name recognition, while everyone else can do their studies at places like Open U, and still have the bachelors degree needed to be 'seen' in corporate America.