This blog post seems like a jumble of ideas that are neither consistent or connected.
It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?).
It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each major is limited.
He talks about how administrators are unnecessary, then suggests a similarly labor intensive accreditation system that requires experts, committees and other logistics that requires significant manpower and time/energy.
There are many flaws with the educational system, of which convenience, rigor, equality, and cost are a few the OP mentions, however his solution doesn't seem to solve many of the challenges he mentions. I doubt that accreditation is a major cost to running a university - there are simply many other market forces (wanting facilities, a good football team, strong researchers that might not put teaching first) that causes the cost/benefit relationship to be the status quo. He finds it unconscionable that adjunct faculty don't make enough money, then hopes to solve it with a free market - where honestly the things he values might not be the things many others value. He wants rigor - then critiques current accreditation processes that largely does what he suggests.
Each of the major MOOCs already are trying to accredite/build reputation/be rigorous. What OP is essentially doing is describing the idea of Udacity, Coursera, etc without the technical backend, the users to attract such a marketplace, connections, support, or actually being able to do a MOOC.
Considering that it is their first degree, I made the possible inaccurate assumption that this person was just getting out of the US equivalent of high school. My thoughts at that age were pretty jumbled too.
Many of my peers didn't really have any idea why they were in college until maybe their third year. It wasn't until they had the benefit of having gone through such a program and looked back on it to appreciate what it was that it was and how it affected them.
My sister asked once why I considered college graduation a 'big deal' and not high school graduation. My response is that graduating from college is the first thing you can do where it's reasonably hard, takes a multi-year effort, and is completely optional. It is, for me, a signal that someone has decided to pursue something through to the end, and to do so with the full knowledge that not doing so is also a valid path. It is, for me, the kinds of things that adults do, and kids don't do.
You make some good points, but many of your objections are shallow.
> It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?).
It is absolutely consistent to realize that a degree is not about job training, but should probably produce employable graduates. Ensuring the quality of the program is important for both. Many universities/colleges are "not about job training", but all of them are accredited.
I think the point is to ensure quality rather than demonstrate value; the main reason he identifies for not attending the smaller public schools in his area is quality. Similarly for existing online schools, which definitely are about job training.
> It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each major is limited.
I don't think this is inconsistent (which seems to be what you're implying), but agree that the author probably has a poor understanding of how such things work. See threads below.
> He talks about how administrators are unnecessary, then suggests a similarly labor intensive accreditation system that requires experts, committees and other logistics that requires significant manpower and time/energy.
Well, you actually answer this below. Lots of those "administrative" costs are not about necessary things like accreditation and instruction (sports, fancy facilities, libraries, etc.).
Some of these (e.g. libraries) are necessary (for serious students). However, this approach could externalize many such costs. Most public universities open these facilities -- esp. their libraries -- to the public (sometimes for a small fee). That doesn't make the cost problem for the sector go away, but it does provide an affordable education for those who cannot afford the mainstream option.
> however his solution doesn't seem to solve many of the challenges he mentions.
I don't think this is intended as a complete solution. I think it's intended to solve one specific problem standing in the way of a whole variety of solutions (that is, quality assurance and associated reputation).
> He finds it unconscionable that adjunct faculty don't make enough money, then hopes to solve it with a free market - where honestly the things he values might not be the things many others value.
This is a fair and important criticism. I think the author of the post should think deeply. I imagine there are two answers. First, his approach seems to genuinely value rigor. This can go a long way toward resolving negative perceptions (one major road-block for these sorts of approaches). Second, there might be enough similar people that this sort of project could become feasible.
> He wants rigor - then critiques current accreditation processes that largely does what he suggests.
I didn't see any critique of the current accreditation process. It's fair to ask why he isn't using one of those. I assume there are two reasons. First, many probably have a strong bias toward brick and mortar institutions. Second, I am sure many are "rubber stamp" committees (e.g. consider the dubious curricula of various "accredited!" online CS degree programs).
> Each of the major MOOCs already are trying to accredite/build reputation/be rigorous. What OP is essentially doing is describing the idea of Udacity, Coursera, etc without the technical backend, the users to attract such a marketplace, connections, support, or actually being able to do a MOOC.
Well, no. His model is actually very different.
The M in the MOOC model is important. Star lecturers, hundreds of students, several TAs and little or no cost to the student has been the model thus far. There are many reasons this model probably doesn't scale to an entire degree program. Quality of assessment is one reason.
His model seems to call for something more intimate and more hands-on, with the instructor paid exclusively through student tuition. This seems both more sustainable and more likely to produce quality students (imho).
edit: cleaned up some grammar. But this is still an internet comment post, so thanks for putting up with my slopping writing!
Opening an accrediting agency is the wrong first move. There's lots of space to work within the system that's already being opened up to you easily and cheaply.
Try these two accredited schools that will award degrees entirely by examination, remote classes, independent study, project-based learning, and other proven study that matches a rigorous college program:
Excelsior is a traditional remote-degree program with lots of help to find you the right courses and get credit for them. Western Governors is new, online, and more experimental. Either one can both help you find ways to learn and get you the sheepskin bureaucrats need to hire you.
And they'll both handle all the accrediting for you.
Just looking briefly at excelsior, they don't even have a true CS degree. It looks like mostly IT, network admin, and technician kind of stuff. I don't think this really fulfills the need he was discussing.
This is sorta the business idea that I always thought should exist but never had the guts to start. So, kudos for giving it a try.
However, the reason I never started it is because the value of a degree exists mostly inside other peoples' heads. Unless you can change what's in there, it doesn't matter what the piece of paper says.
And you'll face an uphill battle in changing it. Most people are not like Hacker News readers. They don't automatically assume that new ideas are interesting ideas; they tend to be risk averse instead. And so organizations that have built up a reputation over hundreds of years (like Harvard or Oxford) are at a significant advantage compared to even colleges that are decades old. Without a significant marketing campaign and a first class that goes on to be very accomplished, it'll be very hard to get people to take a new accrediting agency seriously.
So. Instead of paying a bunch of money and spending a lot of time on something that didn't feel right, you struck out on your own and self-educated yourself.
Own that decision! Having a fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system you invented will just make you seem like you're defensive about it or trying to pull one over on people or something. It just feels weird.
Completing a list of criteria and scoring well on standardized tests is pretty much all that qualifies somebody for a "degree" from any one of our current post secondary insitutions.
When you wrote "fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system" I assumed you were talking about the Universities and Colleges of the world.
1. Apprentice in a good trade and you can earn more than the average professor. Seriously, my plumber makes more than than the prof who taught me quantum physics.
2. If you're at all cut out for college, you can get scholarships.
3. Even if you're not brilliant and just persistent, you can get loans.
University administrators and their associated bureaucracy have been expanding for quite some time now. It's actually rather sickening. I went to a conference and inadvertently lost the receipt for a $20 supper that sparked of a month-long shit-storm of gargantuan proportions when I tried to claim it as a travel expense. I think the University must have spent upwards of $2000 in man-hours lost. I honestly would have just paid the $20 had I only know what I was setting in motion! They weren't even coming down on me! They turned on each other like a starving pack of wolves, desperate to establish who was the alpha!
It's worth asking how we can step back into sanity from our current, ludicrous position. Recently, several University of Alberta professors organized a protest in which dozens of professors have applied, in groups, for the position of president of the University. They argued that any of the many groups applying for this position could do a superior job to any single person, and they'd each be getting a raise despite splitting the salary of the position! While the obvious message is that top administrators make far too much, I actually hope the UofA hires one of these groups. An absolute bloodbath for the administration of the UofA would likely ensue! Perhaps those claiming $20 for dinner at a conference will simply be given the $20 without touching off a grand inquisition that costs thousands!
I agree that higher education administrative costs have gotten higher since the 90's, BUT (and that's a big but), as far as your $20 goes, there's a reason you've been rung through the ringer. The institution didn't do that to assert dominance over you. They did it to be in compliance with the law and audit requirements. No one wants to track down $20. They have to because of rules imposed on them from outside forces.
Institutions who receive public dollars are audited at least yearly to ensure compliance with state/provincial requirements, and somewhere around every 5 years on federal statute. These audits include ensuring checks and balances on money paid out to staff/students for any reason, including travel and conference costs (fun fact, many federal programs have travel costs that are based on staff pay, thereby limiting the amount of 'excess' spending the programs can do on travel. . . .because everyone knows we attend conferences in Michigan for fun. . . ).
Anyway, it may seem like a small deal to you that you lost the receipt for $20, and in the grand scheme of life, it is. BUT, in the direct application of audit completion and legislative compliance, that $20 is the first step to lawsuits, persecution and public shaming of the University when it turns out that every employee was allowed to slip $20 past the business office. Controls are controls on everyone, they are impartial and they apply across the board; the same rules apply to the lowly grad. ass. as they do to the provost and president.
Is it senseless to have that much work and that many hours spent on on $20? Yes.
Is it senseless to have that much work and that many hours spent to ensure that tax dollars are spent reasonably and within the bounds of the law?
No.
Source: I am part of those 'sickening' higher education administrative costs, and I have personal experience consulting for federal audit compliance at public colleges in the states.
In addition to scholarships, which are merit based, many schools also have good financial aid, which is need based. I think colleges advertise this poorly but it makes a huge difference.
I am at Boston University now and while the sticker price is $55k/year the average american student pays about half of that. When my wife went to Princeton they used the FASA form to to calculate how much your family could afford and gave you a grant (gift) to cover the portion that should be student loans. In this way the fancy Ivy League schools can be cheaper than most other schools, and this is available to every student that is accepted.
Personally, I think this idea is awesome. My off the top of my head suggestion would be to open source the requirements for accrediting a specific course.
For example, it's determined that students from the "Intro to Calculus for Programmers" course need to meet certain qualifications to pass. If they finish the course on their own, with no help from an instructor, then they only need pay an Instructor to oversee an "I know my stuff" exit process. If a student needs instruction, then the student can pay for the bits that they need. Instructors can become highly leveraged, experts in the parts where people really need help, charge more for their expertise, and students pay less because they need less overall instructor time.
That may be a little unclear. I've got a couple beers in me.
Thanks! That's really nice of you to say. What you suggested is 100% what will be happening.
Everything, with the exception of the actual instruction between a professor and a student/class (not recorded lectures, actual instruction) will be open source and freely available for anyone to use with a non-commercial clause in the license allowing for the author (or anyone the author permits) to generate revenue from their use with banner ads etc.
That is very true for some degrees, but I laugh when potential C-S students say this.
My first year of undergrad at well performing state university, I took loans and worked at the schools IT support center, 7.50/hr. The following summer I worked as a "Application Development Intern" and made $10/hr. For the following three years I worked part-time at a local software consulting firm and made $15/hr and part-time as a C-S TA and made 10/hr. I paid off my debt 2 months after graduation and I got lots of great experience.
My story is very typical of my C-S and IS major classmates. And now those same internships in my Alma mater's town are paying 17-18/hr.
So when people say that can't afford to get a C-S degree I think they either don't know the score or want to be one of the "too cool for school" kids in the valley, but lack the proper reasoning (I don't use that term for people with good reasons).
I would go so far as to say that even taking out student loans and not working through college could be reasonable for a CS student, provided that they were confident in their ability to graduate and prove their worth to employers.
I didn't do that; I worked through my CS degree much like you describe, but had I instead taken on debt then proceeded to get the same job offers that I did in this timeline, then I would have had my student loans wiped out within two years of graduating. CS grad earning potential is good enough to make taking on student loan debt not entirely insane; which is more than can be said of many majors.
(Of course that is assuming that I would have received those same offers, which is questionable if I did not have the work experience that got from working myself through college).
eh, not everyone will be successful, even with a CS degree.
I know programs at many schools are hyper competitive, so that will weed out the ones that can't hack it, but College is expensive.
That said, I liked the line from Rich Dad, Poor Dad that explained the difference between thinking "I can't afford it." and "How can I afford it?" The former just shuts off your thinking and accepts a situation.
Granted the OP is taking a creative approach to the problem.
How long ago was this? It matters, a lot. Tuition doubled at my school while I was there. I ended up with ~$72k in debt. And it wasn't any Ivy-league school.
> provides me the opportunity to challenge myself and not be restricted to the 10 or 12 classes available in a major
I don't feel that you're restricted to a set number of courses for your major. Universities tend to tell students about the MINIMUM number of courses that you NEED to take within your major in order to graduate. Universities will be fine with students taking more courses within their major just as long as you take the minimum number of courses in other areas such as general studies. There are also more and more inexpensive online university programs, of which more and more are being offered by public universities.
Even if the courses don't challenge you enough in your university, there's nothing stopping you from asking a professor for more work in the form of a quarter or semester hands on project or research. GA Tech professors are more than happy to hand them out, and there are some cool ones.
Since we're on the subject of something that challenges you, you should try applying to Georgia Tech. I'm not sure what the stats are anymore, but not too long ago only 10% of incoming freshmen (most of whom were the top 5% of their HS's) would graduate.
Michael, I'm not sure you fully did your homework before coming up with your proposed solution (though I could still be wrong). imho I don't feel that anyone can fully understand the problems of the current university system, until they actually attend one.
A new form accreditation is really what's holding back a huge change in higher education. MOOCs right now, at most, can replace only traditional professional development classes. They're still not a drop-in replacement for college degrees.
That's because of accreditation. Bachelors degrees are valuable, in large part, because they're a common currency: employers know when they see a potential hire has bachelor's degree, he/she at least spent four years learning at a high level and fulfilled some level of competency in his/her chosen major.
Right now, there's no way for employers to make similar judgments about people who have obtained their education entirely online, so it's really hard to get a serious job in, say, software development, with just a few Coursera courses on your resumé. In that case, you'd need to build up a portfolio of OSS projects, etc. Whereas a newly-minted bachelor's in CS will get your foot in the door somewhere, even without that extra work to back it up.
One approach to accreditation/evaluation are domain-specific exams, like the Boards in medicine or the Bar in law. But just passing an exam doesn't necessarily communicate the same thing as a degree, and thus doesn't really solve the problem. There are also, no doubt, disciplines not well suited to this form of accreditation. This approach (Alyxandria) seems more focused on accrediting courses (which solves the same problem) and does it by peer-reviewing those courses, which I think is a very interesting, credible, and scalable approach.
Right now, LinkedIn might be the closest competitor out there to this. They offer a form of peer-review for one's skills with their endorsement feature. Another company that was trying to tackle this problem is Accredible[1], but it seems they've now pivoted to include many more features than peer accreditation — perhaps at its expense.
It'll be really cool to see how this problem is solved in the long run. I think "accrediting" individuals, rather than institutions or classes that individuals can then take, will be the winning strategy, as education becomes increasingly unbundled. That is, if articles, YouTube videos, etc. are to be considered legitimate tools of learning in the future, as college classes are today, then accreditation of individuals will be the only sensible approach.
This might be heresy here on HN, but I think that there is more than accreditation paperwork at play here. I think it remains to be proven whether a MOOC actually does deliver an education that is on par with what you would get from attending a 4-year CS degree program at a college or university.
MOOCs are new and exciting, but they're also new and unproven. Accredited bachelor degrees are valued because they have a long history of delivering value. MOOCs do not.
> "so it's really hard to get a serious job in, say, software development, with just a few Coursera courses on your resumé"
Well this is not a general solution, but for Coursera's Probabilistic Graphical Models, I remember someone in the course discussion board said that this was such a demanding course that he would hire anybody, who passed the course with good points, to his company.
Or… you could just emigrate to (one of the better-functioning parts of) Europe. Public universities with no or low fees, some of them excellent to world-class, no worries about SWAT raids, greater privacy protections, healthier food, etc. etc. I used to admire the US when I was young(er). Mostly, I came to realize, because I have deeply liberal values (liberal, that is, in the original European sense!). These days, I ask myself why anyone would even stay in that pathetic joke system, especially if young, flexible, and intelligent. You can't get anything done for your own people, starting with education and health; all you do is work them harder to extract more taxes to pay for your warlords to terrorize and snoop on the rest of the world.
Ambitious. Probably completely overreaching and doomed to failure. Small chance of a wonderful success. Good luck.
" In my mind higher education should be almost exclusively about academics. I’m looking for an affordable degree program that is academically rigorous, and provides me the opportunity to challenge myself and not be restricted to the 10 or 12 classes available in a major."
For someone with these kinds of goals, I think the best perspective is to think of universities as cultural institutions, like marriage. The institution allows young people 3-4 years to spend on education, experimenting with their personality, etc.
Peers are important from that context as are mentors.
>provides me the opportunity to challenge myself and not be restricted to the 10 or 12 classes available in a major
This seems like an exaggeration to me. Looking back at my BS I took about 45 classes total (not including labs). Of the 45 classes 16 were specifically for my major (EE), 14 were science/math/engineering, and the last 15 were general education.
I love this concept and give the author credit for articulating it so well. My only suggestion would be to add a social component to the program.
Meeting people is the most important part of college. The vast majority of graduates find jobs through their personal networks. If finding a job isn't your top priority, students who expand their circles grow intellectually as they exchange ideas with people who have different perspectives.
Having said that, I've thought about putting together a do-it-yourself comp-sci degree that involves attending local Meetup events. One of the great things about this field is that, in most cities, there are active communities surrounding what it is you want to learn. So it's possible to capture the personal networking experience of college without the tuition.
I would love to see the social and academic components of college decoupled.
One of the things that always struck me as stupid about college when I attended is that I knew I was paying mostly for the privilege of going to school with a bunch of other grads who were silly enough to drop 40 grand on an elite education, and yet would end up in powerful positions afterwards on the strength of the name alone. The academics I could (and did) get elsewhere, more efficiently, but the degree and the network can't be replicated. However, the degree (fundamentally) is just a piece of paper, and the network (fundamentally) was just hanging out with a bunch of people who also got that piece of paper. I've found both to be quite valuable post-college, but there are many, many subjects that I could've studied that would've been more useful than my courses.
I bet we would see a lot more innovation in instruction methods and content of courses if they were decoupled from social aspects, networking, residences, and accreditation.
I had a bad idea for you Michael. Every day there are news articles about university professors who did something wrong or have some other reason to quit. You could contact them and point them at your project.
I'm not sure this is what is happening with alyxandria, but Whoa. I think a peer-to-peer degree accreditation is an amazing idea, and I am a little bit sad I didn't think of it first. There might be a problem going with a strictly money-based exchange system (bad incentives) but I am certain there are solutions to this problem (some sort of rating system).
I would be willing to help. I have a PhD in chemistry/biochemistry.
"I want America like Europe where they'll educate your kid until his head explodes. You want to go to college, go, we need you, we need doctors because people grow up and fall down and go boom, everyone is going to need a doctor, let's have three doctors per floor of every apartment building in this town. How about that as a good idea? Like that is a good idea. Okay, so let's make college tuition either free or really low and if you have a country full of whip-crack smart people you have a country the rest of the world will fear. They will not invade a country of educated people because we are so smart we'll build a laser that will burn you, the enemy, in your sleep before you can even mobilize your air force to kill us. We will kill you so fast because we are so smart and we will have foreign policy that will not piss you off to the point to where you have to attack us." Henry Rollins
> I’m looking for an affordable degree program that is academically rigorous, and provides me the opportunity to challenge myself
If you're not going to university, you must find yourself some good books to read. Get in touch with someone who is knowledgeable in the field you're interested in and ask them for book recommendations. I remember one day my friend recommended me the sequence of books for learning physics (CM by Goldstein --> QM by Sakurai) and reading these two books did more for my physics education than what I learned in class...
<plug>
If you're interested in learning first-year science in an affordable manner, check out the No bullshit guide to math and physics. I wrote this book because I was tired of watching my students suffer at the hands of mainstream textbooks. http://minireference.com/
</plug>
I understand the frustration the author may have with the current college system but there are ways of getting a cheaper quality education. People overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. Take 1 college class every 6 months and you will get that degree in due time.
Yes. The title is "I can't afford a Bachelor's degree" and he talks about $12k and $17k a year programs, but if he did not take a full schedule on and cut it in half, it would be $6k to $8.5k a year (or perhaps $7-9k with fees). It takes longer but if you say you can't afford it the other way...
This could be good, but I don't think we need to imitate the "granularity" of the existing system.
Currently, the "accreditation" is very chunky: a piece of 11"x17" paper certifying you know how to read and write, and can produce a sustained effort of three years in a row.
A more interesting option would be to issue certificates for each course taken. Specifically, it shouldn't be necessary to sit through all the lectures and do all the exercises, but simply pass an "I know my stuff" exam, as per @amorphid's suggestion.
The test could be a 30 minutes skype interview + problem solving session over skype with an professional accreditator. Of course, this only pushes the reputation question to the problem of who accredidates the accreditators, but that might be easier to solve, at least for certain niches.
I haven't done it yet, but I am still contemplating the idea. One of the biggest problems that can arise with not actually attending a university in person is the lack of relationship and teamwork education. That can be partially mitigated via videoconferencing and online team projects, but it's not the same as being in an office and leading a group of individuals in person. One of these years I'm going to actually have time to do this....
You've got moxie, kid! It seems like some other commenters are raising questions about your model -- if you change your mind, I'm sure someone in this thread could get you a job that would let you pay the bills and use your spare time to learn whatever interests you. (Going to a prestigious college was cool, but Matt Damon was right: I could have learned just about everything at my local library for $1.50 in late charges.)
Universities force students to learn, otherwise students will fail courses etc. I usually make plans to learn stuff etc next to my courses, but while I'm motivated to do so, it never seems to be enough. Therefore, I fail to do this additional work because nobody enforces me to do it.
I hope that the author of the article at least thinks about motivational problems such as mine before going through with it.
I sure do. As things stand right now, the cost of a bachelor's degree from start to finish will be capped at around $20,000 (hopefully less) if a student were to pay to take complete courses with a professor in a live-web conference, 1-1 tutoring, or in-person setting.
Professors charging less than the maximum amount allowed, plus the opportunity to take competency exams administered by a professor (which have a much lower cap on how much professors can charge) could reduce that cost pretty significantly.
The site mentioned in the article (alyxandria.org) is flagged by my company's filter/proxy (IronPort) as being a potential malware site because "IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS." Perhaps this accreditation organization should check its DNS records?
Given that there are a lot of non-accredited schools filled with teachers and curricula that we don't take seriously, so I'm sure a homemade college degree by someone who thinks university is job training will go over well.
"Oh you graduated summa cum laude? From where? ... your house, you say."
This is an interesting idea, but I don't see how it differs from what Coursera and such are offering. Pay for a structured, college-like learning environment, to prove something to yourself, or brag. (I'm excluding those who are just trying to be more marketable to employers)
I attended a technology school in the Boston area with the intention of liberalizing my education once I found the time. But I never really did, save a small hobby here and there. I still have great hopes with all the new internet self-education options out there.
Why not depart even further from the traditional model of higher education? Open Master's is an interesting concept in this vein: http://www.openmasters.org/
We are refining it right now but you can go to http://www.coursebuffet.com and see approximately what level a free online course would be at a US university.
I'm not going to have any sympathy for argument that starts out with the demand that a person be able to get their education locally. A great many people have to go somewhere else and move around for school. That is the norm in a great many places. Also to pursue work, many people have to move.
The whole point of this is to disrupt the current education model, and your criticism is that it doesn't follow an aspect of the current education model.
Yes, a lot of people travel away from home for school. I'm sure it can be a great experience. Should that be a requirement for an excellent education? Of course not.
This is an interesting blog. A very good idea in my opinion
A good initiative taken as well as a strong idea built for the people who have the poor financials issues. Cheers
alphaoverlord|11 years ago
It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?).
It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each major is limited.
He talks about how administrators are unnecessary, then suggests a similarly labor intensive accreditation system that requires experts, committees and other logistics that requires significant manpower and time/energy.
There are many flaws with the educational system, of which convenience, rigor, equality, and cost are a few the OP mentions, however his solution doesn't seem to solve many of the challenges he mentions. I doubt that accreditation is a major cost to running a university - there are simply many other market forces (wanting facilities, a good football team, strong researchers that might not put teaching first) that causes the cost/benefit relationship to be the status quo. He finds it unconscionable that adjunct faculty don't make enough money, then hopes to solve it with a free market - where honestly the things he values might not be the things many others value. He wants rigor - then critiques current accreditation processes that largely does what he suggests.
Each of the major MOOCs already are trying to accredite/build reputation/be rigorous. What OP is essentially doing is describing the idea of Udacity, Coursera, etc without the technical backend, the users to attract such a marketplace, connections, support, or actually being able to do a MOOC.
ChuckMcM|11 years ago
Many of my peers didn't really have any idea why they were in college until maybe their third year. It wasn't until they had the benefit of having gone through such a program and looked back on it to appreciate what it was that it was and how it affected them.
My sister asked once why I considered college graduation a 'big deal' and not high school graduation. My response is that graduating from college is the first thing you can do where it's reasonably hard, takes a multi-year effort, and is completely optional. It is, for me, a signal that someone has decided to pursue something through to the end, and to do so with the full knowledge that not doing so is also a valid path. It is, for me, the kinds of things that adults do, and kids don't do.
nmrm|11 years ago
> It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?).
It is absolutely consistent to realize that a degree is not about job training, but should probably produce employable graduates. Ensuring the quality of the program is important for both. Many universities/colleges are "not about job training", but all of them are accredited.
I think the point is to ensure quality rather than demonstrate value; the main reason he identifies for not attending the smaller public schools in his area is quality. Similarly for existing online schools, which definitely are about job training.
> It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each major is limited.
I don't think this is inconsistent (which seems to be what you're implying), but agree that the author probably has a poor understanding of how such things work. See threads below.
> He talks about how administrators are unnecessary, then suggests a similarly labor intensive accreditation system that requires experts, committees and other logistics that requires significant manpower and time/energy.
Well, you actually answer this below. Lots of those "administrative" costs are not about necessary things like accreditation and instruction (sports, fancy facilities, libraries, etc.).
Some of these (e.g. libraries) are necessary (for serious students). However, this approach could externalize many such costs. Most public universities open these facilities -- esp. their libraries -- to the public (sometimes for a small fee). That doesn't make the cost problem for the sector go away, but it does provide an affordable education for those who cannot afford the mainstream option.
> however his solution doesn't seem to solve many of the challenges he mentions.
I don't think this is intended as a complete solution. I think it's intended to solve one specific problem standing in the way of a whole variety of solutions (that is, quality assurance and associated reputation).
> He finds it unconscionable that adjunct faculty don't make enough money, then hopes to solve it with a free market - where honestly the things he values might not be the things many others value.
This is a fair and important criticism. I think the author of the post should think deeply. I imagine there are two answers. First, his approach seems to genuinely value rigor. This can go a long way toward resolving negative perceptions (one major road-block for these sorts of approaches). Second, there might be enough similar people that this sort of project could become feasible.
> He wants rigor - then critiques current accreditation processes that largely does what he suggests.
I didn't see any critique of the current accreditation process. It's fair to ask why he isn't using one of those. I assume there are two reasons. First, many probably have a strong bias toward brick and mortar institutions. Second, I am sure many are "rubber stamp" committees (e.g. consider the dubious curricula of various "accredited!" online CS degree programs).
> Each of the major MOOCs already are trying to accredite/build reputation/be rigorous. What OP is essentially doing is describing the idea of Udacity, Coursera, etc without the technical backend, the users to attract such a marketplace, connections, support, or actually being able to do a MOOC.
Well, no. His model is actually very different.
The M in the MOOC model is important. Star lecturers, hundreds of students, several TAs and little or no cost to the student has been the model thus far. There are many reasons this model probably doesn't scale to an entire degree program. Quality of assessment is one reason.
His model seems to call for something more intimate and more hands-on, with the instructor paid exclusively through student tuition. This seems both more sustainable and more likely to produce quality students (imho).
edit: cleaned up some grammar. But this is still an internet comment post, so thanks for putting up with my slopping writing!
jalanb|11 years ago
Not being an American, may I just take a slight space to admit that Mind == Blown
senand|11 years ago
unknown|11 years ago
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MayanAstronaut|11 years ago
WildUtah|11 years ago
Try these two accredited schools that will award degrees entirely by examination, remote classes, independent study, project-based learning, and other proven study that matches a rigorous college program:
http://www.wgu.edu
http://www.excelsior.edu
Excelsior is a traditional remote-degree program with lots of help to find you the right courses and get credit for them. Western Governors is new, online, and more experimental. Either one can both help you find ways to learn and get you the sheepskin bureaucrats need to hire you.
And they'll both handle all the accrediting for you.
jelloPuddin|11 years ago
nostrademons|11 years ago
However, the reason I never started it is because the value of a degree exists mostly inside other peoples' heads. Unless you can change what's in there, it doesn't matter what the piece of paper says.
And you'll face an uphill battle in changing it. Most people are not like Hacker News readers. They don't automatically assume that new ideas are interesting ideas; they tend to be risk averse instead. And so organizations that have built up a reputation over hundreds of years (like Harvard or Oxford) are at a significant advantage compared to even colleges that are decades old. Without a significant marketing campaign and a first class that goes on to be very accomplished, it'll be very hard to get people to take a new accrediting agency seriously.
Good luck.
chasing|11 years ago
Own that decision! Having a fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system you invented will just make you seem like you're defensive about it or trying to pull one over on people or something. It just feels weird.
sirdogealot|11 years ago
Completing a list of criteria and scoring well on standardized tests is pretty much all that qualifies somebody for a "degree" from any one of our current post secondary insitutions.
When you wrote "fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system" I assumed you were talking about the Universities and Colleges of the world.
dmak|11 years ago
beloch|11 years ago
2. If you're at all cut out for college, you can get scholarships.
3. Even if you're not brilliant and just persistent, you can get loans.
University administrators and their associated bureaucracy have been expanding for quite some time now. It's actually rather sickening. I went to a conference and inadvertently lost the receipt for a $20 supper that sparked of a month-long shit-storm of gargantuan proportions when I tried to claim it as a travel expense. I think the University must have spent upwards of $2000 in man-hours lost. I honestly would have just paid the $20 had I only know what I was setting in motion! They weren't even coming down on me! They turned on each other like a starving pack of wolves, desperate to establish who was the alpha!
It's worth asking how we can step back into sanity from our current, ludicrous position. Recently, several University of Alberta professors organized a protest in which dozens of professors have applied, in groups, for the position of president of the University. They argued that any of the many groups applying for this position could do a superior job to any single person, and they'd each be getting a raise despite splitting the salary of the position! While the obvious message is that top administrators make far too much, I actually hope the UofA hires one of these groups. An absolute bloodbath for the administration of the UofA would likely ensue! Perhaps those claiming $20 for dinner at a conference will simply be given the $20 without touching off a grand inquisition that costs thousands!
Loughla|11 years ago
Institutions who receive public dollars are audited at least yearly to ensure compliance with state/provincial requirements, and somewhere around every 5 years on federal statute. These audits include ensuring checks and balances on money paid out to staff/students for any reason, including travel and conference costs (fun fact, many federal programs have travel costs that are based on staff pay, thereby limiting the amount of 'excess' spending the programs can do on travel. . . .because everyone knows we attend conferences in Michigan for fun. . . ).
Anyway, it may seem like a small deal to you that you lost the receipt for $20, and in the grand scheme of life, it is. BUT, in the direct application of audit completion and legislative compliance, that $20 is the first step to lawsuits, persecution and public shaming of the University when it turns out that every employee was allowed to slip $20 past the business office. Controls are controls on everyone, they are impartial and they apply across the board; the same rules apply to the lowly grad. ass. as they do to the provost and president.
Is it senseless to have that much work and that many hours spent on on $20? Yes. Is it senseless to have that much work and that many hours spent to ensure that tax dollars are spent reasonably and within the bounds of the law?
No.
Source: I am part of those 'sickening' higher education administrative costs, and I have personal experience consulting for federal audit compliance at public colleges in the states.
chrisBob|11 years ago
I am at Boston University now and while the sticker price is $55k/year the average american student pays about half of that. When my wife went to Princeton they used the FASA form to to calculate how much your family could afford and gave you a grant (gift) to cover the portion that should be student loans. In this way the fancy Ivy League schools can be cheaper than most other schools, and this is available to every student that is accepted.
amorphid|11 years ago
For example, it's determined that students from the "Intro to Calculus for Programmers" course need to meet certain qualifications to pass. If they finish the course on their own, with no help from an instructor, then they only need pay an Instructor to oversee an "I know my stuff" exit process. If a student needs instruction, then the student can pay for the bits that they need. Instructors can become highly leveraged, experts in the parts where people really need help, charge more for their expertise, and students pay less because they need less overall instructor time.
That may be a little unclear. I've got a couple beers in me.
Michael-XCIX|11 years ago
Everything, with the exception of the actual instruction between a professor and a student/class (not recorded lectures, actual instruction) will be open source and freely available for anyone to use with a non-commercial clause in the license allowing for the author (or anyone the author permits) to generate revenue from their use with banner ads etc.
sinwave|11 years ago
A winning combo.
VLM|11 years ago
Isn't this MIT OCW and a zillion competitors?
voidlogic|11 years ago
That is very true for some degrees, but I laugh when potential C-S students say this.
My first year of undergrad at well performing state university, I took loans and worked at the schools IT support center, 7.50/hr. The following summer I worked as a "Application Development Intern" and made $10/hr. For the following three years I worked part-time at a local software consulting firm and made $15/hr and part-time as a C-S TA and made 10/hr. I paid off my debt 2 months after graduation and I got lots of great experience.
My story is very typical of my C-S and IS major classmates. And now those same internships in my Alma mater's town are paying 17-18/hr.
So when people say that can't afford to get a C-S degree I think they either don't know the score or want to be one of the "too cool for school" kids in the valley, but lack the proper reasoning (I don't use that term for people with good reasons).
Crito|11 years ago
I didn't do that; I worked through my CS degree much like you describe, but had I instead taken on debt then proceeded to get the same job offers that I did in this timeline, then I would have had my student loans wiped out within two years of graduating. CS grad earning potential is good enough to make taking on student loan debt not entirely insane; which is more than can be said of many majors.
(Of course that is assuming that I would have received those same offers, which is questionable if I did not have the work experience that got from working myself through college).
balls187|11 years ago
I know programs at many schools are hyper competitive, so that will weed out the ones that can't hack it, but College is expensive.
That said, I liked the line from Rich Dad, Poor Dad that explained the difference between thinking "I can't afford it." and "How can I afford it?" The former just shuts off your thinking and accepts a situation.
Granted the OP is taking a creative approach to the problem.
steveklabnik|11 years ago
chaostheory|11 years ago
I don't feel that you're restricted to a set number of courses for your major. Universities tend to tell students about the MINIMUM number of courses that you NEED to take within your major in order to graduate. Universities will be fine with students taking more courses within their major just as long as you take the minimum number of courses in other areas such as general studies. There are also more and more inexpensive online university programs, of which more and more are being offered by public universities.
Even if the courses don't challenge you enough in your university, there's nothing stopping you from asking a professor for more work in the form of a quarter or semester hands on project or research. GA Tech professors are more than happy to hand them out, and there are some cool ones.
Since we're on the subject of something that challenges you, you should try applying to Georgia Tech. I'm not sure what the stats are anymore, but not too long ago only 10% of incoming freshmen (most of whom were the top 5% of their HS's) would graduate.
Michael, I'm not sure you fully did your homework before coming up with your proposed solution (though I could still be wrong). imho I don't feel that anyone can fully understand the problems of the current university system, until they actually attend one.
araftery|11 years ago
That's because of accreditation. Bachelors degrees are valuable, in large part, because they're a common currency: employers know when they see a potential hire has bachelor's degree, he/she at least spent four years learning at a high level and fulfilled some level of competency in his/her chosen major.
Right now, there's no way for employers to make similar judgments about people who have obtained their education entirely online, so it's really hard to get a serious job in, say, software development, with just a few Coursera courses on your resumé. In that case, you'd need to build up a portfolio of OSS projects, etc. Whereas a newly-minted bachelor's in CS will get your foot in the door somewhere, even without that extra work to back it up.
One approach to accreditation/evaluation are domain-specific exams, like the Boards in medicine or the Bar in law. But just passing an exam doesn't necessarily communicate the same thing as a degree, and thus doesn't really solve the problem. There are also, no doubt, disciplines not well suited to this form of accreditation. This approach (Alyxandria) seems more focused on accrediting courses (which solves the same problem) and does it by peer-reviewing those courses, which I think is a very interesting, credible, and scalable approach.
Right now, LinkedIn might be the closest competitor out there to this. They offer a form of peer-review for one's skills with their endorsement feature. Another company that was trying to tackle this problem is Accredible[1], but it seems they've now pivoted to include many more features than peer accreditation — perhaps at its expense.
It'll be really cool to see how this problem is solved in the long run. I think "accrediting" individuals, rather than institutions or classes that individuals can then take, will be the winning strategy, as education becomes increasingly unbundled. That is, if articles, YouTube videos, etc. are to be considered legitimate tools of learning in the future, as college classes are today, then accreditation of individuals will be the only sensible approach.
[1]: http://www.accredible.com
snowwrestler|11 years ago
MOOCs are new and exciting, but they're also new and unproven. Accredited bachelor degrees are valued because they have a long history of delivering value. MOOCs do not.
sampo|11 years ago
Well this is not a general solution, but for Coursera's Probabilistic Graphical Models, I remember someone in the course discussion board said that this was such a demanding course that he would hire anybody, who passed the course with good points, to his company.
HSO|11 years ago
lgieron|11 years ago
netcan|11 years ago
" In my mind higher education should be almost exclusively about academics. I’m looking for an affordable degree program that is academically rigorous, and provides me the opportunity to challenge myself and not be restricted to the 10 or 12 classes available in a major."
For someone with these kinds of goals, I think the best perspective is to think of universities as cultural institutions, like marriage. The institution allows young people 3-4 years to spend on education, experimenting with their personality, etc.
Peers are important from that context as are mentors.
jotux|11 years ago
This seems like an exaggeration to me. Looking back at my BS I took about 45 classes total (not including labs). Of the 45 classes 16 were specifically for my major (EE), 14 were science/math/engineering, and the last 15 were general education.
anigbrowl|11 years ago
harmegido|11 years ago
hawkharris|11 years ago
Meeting people is the most important part of college. The vast majority of graduates find jobs through their personal networks. If finding a job isn't your top priority, students who expand their circles grow intellectually as they exchange ideas with people who have different perspectives.
Having said that, I've thought about putting together a do-it-yourself comp-sci degree that involves attending local Meetup events. One of the great things about this field is that, in most cities, there are active communities surrounding what it is you want to learn. So it's possible to capture the personal networking experience of college without the tuition.
nostrademons|11 years ago
One of the things that always struck me as stupid about college when I attended is that I knew I was paying mostly for the privilege of going to school with a bunch of other grads who were silly enough to drop 40 grand on an elite education, and yet would end up in powerful positions afterwards on the strength of the name alone. The academics I could (and did) get elsewhere, more efficiently, but the degree and the network can't be replicated. However, the degree (fundamentally) is just a piece of paper, and the network (fundamentally) was just hanging out with a bunch of people who also got that piece of paper. I've found both to be quite valuable post-college, but there are many, many subjects that I could've studied that would've been more useful than my courses.
I bet we would see a lot more innovation in instruction methods and content of courses if they were decoupled from social aspects, networking, residences, and accreditation.
gdewilde|11 years ago
A sample for today:
Professor John Schindler posted a photoshop http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/navy...
Professor Bacevich retired http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/good-bye-professor-bacevich/
and is starting a MOOC https://www.edx.org/course/bux/bux-intl301x-war-greater-midd...
Reddit user 20kadjunct is adjunct professor with an annual salary of $20,000 and 2 other jobs. http://www.businessinsider.com/adjunct-professors-ama-on-red...
professor Thomas Docherty, a nationally recognised critic of higher education leadership and policy, was suspended last term in March. http://theboar.org/2014/06/23/suspended-professor-prevented-...
A fresh badge of Professors every day.
(the plot thickens)
dnautics|11 years ago
I would be willing to help. I have a PhD in chemistry/biochemistry.
restless|11 years ago
ivansavz|11 years ago
If you're not going to university, you must find yourself some good books to read. Get in touch with someone who is knowledgeable in the field you're interested in and ask them for book recommendations. I remember one day my friend recommended me the sequence of books for learning physics (CM by Goldstein --> QM by Sakurai) and reading these two books did more for my physics education than what I learned in class...
<plug> If you're interested in learning first-year science in an affordable manner, check out the No bullshit guide to math and physics. I wrote this book because I was tired of watching my students suffer at the hands of mainstream textbooks. http://minireference.com/ </plug>
masters3d|11 years ago
Ologn|11 years ago
ivansavz|11 years ago
A more interesting option would be to issue certificates for each course taken. Specifically, it shouldn't be necessary to sit through all the lectures and do all the exercises, but simply pass an "I know my stuff" exam, as per @amorphid's suggestion.
The test could be a 30 minutes skype interview + problem solving session over skype with an professional accreditator. Of course, this only pushes the reputation question to the problem of who accredidates the accreditators, but that might be easier to solve, at least for certain niches.
eitally|11 years ago
I haven't done it yet, but I am still contemplating the idea. One of the biggest problems that can arise with not actually attending a university in person is the lack of relationship and teamwork education. That can be partially mitigated via videoconferencing and online team projects, but it's not the same as being in an office and leading a group of individuals in person. One of these years I'm going to actually have time to do this....
nileshtrivedi|11 years ago
eastbayjake|11 years ago
MisterNegative|11 years ago
I hope that the author of the article at least thinks about motivational problems such as mine before going through with it.
ofir_geller|11 years ago
Michael-XCIX|11 years ago
Professors charging less than the maximum amount allowed, plus the opportunity to take competency exams administered by a professor (which have a much lower cap on how much professors can charge) could reduce that cost pretty significantly.
yellowapple|11 years ago
JohnHaugeland|11 years ago
"Oh you graduated summa cum laude? From where? ... your house, you say."
phazmatis|11 years ago
peter303|11 years ago
cardamomo|11 years ago
bruceb|11 years ago
nickthemagicman|11 years ago
Sort of PhD marketplace.
For smart people who can teach themselves there needs to be some sort of validating and credentialing of the knowledge they have!
tchai_|11 years ago
"The potential for a good story, is one of my only requirements in deciding to do or not do something."
webhat|11 years ago
jqm|11 years ago
It needs to be more fully fleshed out and coherent, and it needs more muscle (and players) behind it, but it is a cool ideas.
supsep|11 years ago
kbar13|11 years ago
[0] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html
javert|11 years ago
jdreaver|11 years ago
Yes, a lot of people travel away from home for school. I'm sure it can be a great experience. Should that be a requirement for an excellent education? Of course not.
maxerickson|11 years ago
johnsteve|11 years ago
spiritplumber|11 years ago
Good on you for trying this, but try to work with existing accreditors.
Bangladesh1|11 years ago
mellisarob|11 years ago
hellbreakslose|11 years ago
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ekar45|11 years ago
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pond_lilly|11 years ago
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