A Note of Caution on Obama's Ideas for Fixing Higher Ed: Don't Repeat the Mistakes of No Child Left Behind

President Obama’s ideas on how to overhaul the American higher education system, which he shared at the University of Buffalo yesterday, are solid steps in the right direction, except for one. According to the New York Times, his ideas are to:

• Disburse financial aid to schools over the course of a whole semester rather than up front, remitting full payment only if the student finishes the semester, thereby incentivizing schools to ensure students don’t drop out;

• Encourage innovation in the structure of higher education, for example by awarding credits based on competency rather than seat time, by integrating MOOCs into the curriculum, or by creating a three-year bachelor degree;

• Create system to rank schools based on affordability and student outcomes, among other measures; and

• Give more financial aid to schools that score well on this rating system, and less to schools that score badly.

Most of these ideas are long overdue updates to our system. Disbursing federal aid to schools in installments during the semester makes a lot of sense. A university will be much more likely to care about whether or not a student flunks out if it stands to lose a significant chunk of money on every student who doesn’t finish the semester. The President’s exhortation for universities to turn to MOOCs, award credits for competency, and move away from the assembly line model of education is music to my ears, as you can imagine from my previous posts.

Finally, ranking schools by affordability, student educational outcomes, and measures such as the percentage of low-income students enrolled promises to empower students and families in a new way, and hold colleges accountable for keeping costs under control. For too long, fancy athletic centers, high-rise dorms, and prestigious names have blinded students and parents from seeing what truly matters: how well students at that school learn. This ranking system is a step towards rectifying that problem.

The last idea, of giving more financial aid to schools that score well on the ranking system, and less to schools that don’t, could cause a real problem.

On its face, the idea makes sense. If a college is charging $40,000 per year in tuition, but its students graduate with academic attainment equal to or less than their peers at institutions costing $8,000 per year, taxpayers should not be footing a big part of that $40k bill. It is much more cost effective - and the same or better, educationally - to send the student to the $8k school.

Let’s take another example: public community colleges, where non-completion rates are very high, and students are more likely to have to work while studying and face challenges at home. Some community colleges may not score well on this new rating system, because a higher percentage of students drop out, perhaps because they have to work, have problems at home, or transer to another school. Because of its low score, the school will receive less aid per student than schools whose students don’t have a lot of the same socio-economic challenges. Upon receiving less money, the school will have no choice but to jack up tuition, on the very students who can afford it least.

The Obama Administration and Congress must be cautious in how they implement the President’s ideas. The rating system must control for the phenomenon just described, otherwise Obama’s higher education reforms will make the same mistake as No Child Left Behind. NCLB doesn’t allow for local circumstances to play a part in the assessment of schools. If a new higher education reform fails to do so too, we will see just as much stagnation and just as many students left behind as we do in primary and secondary education.

What problems can online education solve?

How low is low enough? That was the question threading through comments to Coursera's official blog post earlier this month announcing their "Signature Track" option for certain classes they offer. Signature Track courses will use keystroke analysis to verify that the person completing coursework is actually the person registered for the course. Coursera will issue a special certificate to people who complete courses using Signature Track. This will boost the legitimacy of online learning, since there will be a way to ensure that a learner didn't cheat and ask his computer scientist friend to complete an artificial intelligence class for him, in an attempt to score a good job.

The rub came with the sticker price: $30 to $100 per course to use Signature Track. You still have the option of taking the same course for free, without Signature Track, but verification will cost you.

I initially thought this was a great deal. $30 to $100 seemed a reasonable amount to charge for access to great courses from prestigious universities. I still think its a great deal. But one commenter noted, "$30 to $100 may seem small, but it is still a lot for many people," touching off a wave of similar sentiments:

"i agree, especially considering that there are people taking these courses from countries where $30 might be a month's income"

"100$ is more than one semester fee in central government university in India. (not private ones)."

"Totally agree. Specially when you consider the price of education in some countries, in Spain I paid less than $700 per year for a degree, and a masters goes for about $1600 per year. $100 for a Coursera non-creadit bearing course is a rip-off if you compare."


In some ways, these comments are spot on. It's absolutely true that there are people in various parts of the world for whom $30, especially given some exchange rates, is a huge sum. There are even people in the U.S. for whom $30 is not something their budget can accommodate without sacrificing food or electricity. But we need to be clear about what problem we want companies like Coursera and Udacity to solve. Do we want them to solve the problem of global poverty and income inequality, or do we want them to solve the problem of skyrocketing higher education costs in the United States? These are two separate problems.

The two are often conflated because they are interrelated. Many people are poor because they don't have education (among other reasons, including oppression, discrimination, corruption, poor choices, etc). Similarly, rising educational costs are contributing to poverty in so far as they cut people off from the knowledge they need to earn a decent income. But even if we were to get educational costs under control, we would still have the problem of people being too poor to access reasonably priced education, just as there are people too poor to buy a reasonably priced used car, like a Corolla.

We can thus either expect companies like Coursera to offer top-notch, verified (i.e. Signature Track) online instruction for free, or we can search for an economic or political solution. The former option is unrealistic. Just like traditional schools, online schools have costs, such as server capacity, office space, staff, technology, etc. They can't offer their service for free indefinitely (right now they're funded by venture capital). The bills have to be paid. It is reasonable that they should be paid by the consumer. So it makes sense that students should be charged a moderate fee. It doesn't make sense that they should be charged $40,000 per year, which is of course what some traditional universities charge.

Poverty, therefore, is a separate issue, and this needs to be addressed along with the cost issue. Even if we found a way to make higher education free - maybe by deciding as a society that we want to pay for it collectively through government (which I think is a great idea), or by some kind of ad supported model (like Google's advertizing which funds its many free services) - education alone wouldn't lift people out of poverty. Public corruption, discrimination, and mental health problems also contribute. We need to systematically address these issues as well. In other words, political and economic solutions are needed to fix income inequality. Free or low cost higher education is not  a silver bullet.

How does this relate to Coursera's Signature Track? It relates in that it shows how the criticism of its pricing misses the mark. Yes, $30 is a lot to some people. But the problem is not that Coursera is charging $30; the problem is that some people live in places or in circumstances in which they can't afford that sum. The problem is with the governments, economics, and social systems of those places. Sometimes the problem is with people who make poor decisions. But it's not with Coursera. Reducing the price of a college class from $1500 to $30, or $100, or $150 is a hell of an accomplishment.

Finally, I'd like to address the comment from the person from Spain, who said that paying $100 for a Coursera course is a ripoff, since and undergraduate degree can be had in Spain for $700 per year. This is absolutely right. It makes no sense to pay $100 to Coursera when you could go to a traditional university for a full year for quite little. Many European countries have quite sensibly decided that higher education is so important that the government should vigorously subsidize it, like we do for primary education in the U.S. I wish the U.S. would do this. But I'm not holding my breath. This comment illustrates my point exactly. Spain doesn't have a problem with higher education costs; the U.S. does. So Coursera, Udacity and the like may not solve a problem in Spain, though they will in the U.S. Spain has different problems, such as an incredibly high unemployment rate. Also, Spain made a political decision about how it wants to fund higher education. We need to do the same in the U.S. Absent that, however - and who among us is hopeful that such a progressive policy on education will come out of our government? - Coursera and Udacity are doing important work bringing the cost of education down. They shouldn't be faulted because they have to pass costs on to students. The fault lies with our politics and government for not investing in making higher education affordable. The fault lies with us, as citizens.

Thank you, and leave comments!

To my surprise, it seems Open Sea has developed a real following! There are more and more page views every day, from all over the world, even when I'm not promoting it on social media. This is great, considering I started it just to see how blogging and social media work, and to riff on one of my favorite topics. I never thought anyone except my friends and acquaintances would look at it.

So I just want to say thank you to everyone who has read this! Starting today, I will update the blog more regularly with news and opinion. This will be a vast improvement over my glacial, one post every two months pace.

But now I need some help. I can't think unless I'm getting some critical feedback. So please leave comments! I like when people disagree with me. It helps me refine my ideas and - sometimes - even change them.

You can all look forward to more from me, and I look forward to hearing from all of you too!

 

Free and low cost MOOCs will benefit traditional higher education.

MOOCs 2.0

Today, Sabastian Thrun, founder of Udacity, announced in Udacity's blog that the company has partnered with San Jose State University to offer 3 MOOCs for credit, for a small fee. SJSU will charge $150 per course. Credit for these courses will be accepted by the California State University system and by the University of California, according to the promotional email Udacity sent today.

I hope the fact that SJSU is willing to vouch for the quality of Udacity's courses will boost the educational legitimacy of MOOCs. Now that MOOCs can be taken for credit, it will be harder to consider them as solely educational experiments. Of course they are educational experiments, but they are also an evidence-based method of teaching effectively that fosters lasting learning.

I've been accused of asserting that I think online classes are equivalent to traditional classes. Let me say unequivocally: They are not. Traditional learning has advantages that online learning doesn't. Classrooms promote verbal expression and debate, meaningful human interaction, and the inspiration that comes from having an outstanding, dedicated teacher. But they cost $30,000 per year.

At $150 per course, if a student takes a full load of 5 courses, a year's tuition will cost $1,500. A bachelor's degree would cost $6,000. This is an amount that a student could fund with a part-time job, or that parents could pay without having to take a home equity loan. A $6,000 college education would make a high-quality education available to millions of people who can't afford it. It would free graduates to start businesses, work at non-profits, travel the world, and create art instead of scraping pennies every month to make a slavish student loan payment. 

Yes, some things are lost with online education. But some things are gained, too: Education based on sound scientific research, instruction that reaches people who don't learn well in lectures, and widespread access to the wealth of human knowledge. Most importantly, people will be able to get educated without sacrificing their financial freedom or future economic security.

Inching Towards Meritocracy

Coursera made the world a little flatter today. They sent me an email advising me that they have established a Career Services department, which will "Help Coursera students find great jobs."

This is one more step towards a true meritocracy, brought to you by the Web and a cadre of entrepreneurs unafraid to challenge authority and convention. My question in a previous post was whether employers would be willing to look past credentials and hire people with demonstrated skills. Coursera has given employers an easy way to do this, in a guise they will be familiar with: "Career Services."

I imagine some corporate director sitting with an HR manager, saying, "We need someone with a background in sales, but who also knows Instructional Design and network security." The HR manager searches Coursera's Career Services database. "How about this sales team leader who's taken "Fundamentals of Online Education" and "Information Security and Risk Management in Context?" And voila, you have an interview.

The benefit of a system like this is that it prioritizes the skills you've learned. So much of getting a job is knowing somebody and being in the right place at the right time. Coursera's system - and Udacity can do something similar - will make the market in which workers are matched with jobs much more efficient, reducing the influence of social networks and charisma. Of course, whether or not you get the job will depend heavily on these things, but their role in matching candidates with opportunities will be greatly reduced.

This will be a boon for both individuals and organizations. For individuals, it will open up new job opportunities and could aid in changing careers. Also, people will be better matched with jobs they like, because recruiters would be contacting them based on their participation in courses that they chose to devote their leisure time to, indicating that they really enjoy the field. For organizations, it could reduce turnover and improve productivity (by finding people who love the subjects they're working on), and also reduce the nefarious impact of cronyism. It will also allow organizations to create a truly diverse workforce, as they focus recruitment efforts on people with demonstrated skills rather than pedigrees from expensive universities or membership in the field's in-group.

All of these things will conspire to make the job market more meritocratic. We're a ways off from perfection, but we've made some giant steps towards democratizing education and creating a more level playing field for everybody.

Is knowledge more important than a credential?

The rash of pontificating on the impact of MOOCs on traditional higher education continues. Duke engineering school dean Tom Katsouleas envisions a world where we all learn from MOOCs but the richest among us pay for mentoring from the world's best and brightest.The New York Times recently published another article on courses offered by Udacity, Coursera, and EdX. And a new infographic cannily points out the benefits of online education over traditional classrooms.

While it's still uncertain how MOOCs will disrupt the higher education model, their rapid proliferation and adoption (remember, it was just last year that Sebastian Thrun offered the first one on AI) raise questions about the value of knowledge over credentials. MOOCs make it possible for people to gain skills that are marketable to companies looking for talented employees. But, will organizations be willing to take the risk of hiring someone without a degree, but who has demonstrated mastery of a skill by completing a MOOC? 

Organizations are conservative beasts. They quite sensibly prefer known quantities over unknown ones. A degree from even the most obscure regionally accredited college comes with certain promises. By granting a degree, the college promises that the student had to meet certain minimal requirements, and had to learn research and critical thinking in an environment that assured some degree of academic integrity.

There are no such promises backing MOOCs. While anyone can vouch for the quality of an online course from Princeton, Stanford, MIT, or Harvard, there is no way to verify that MOOC students didn't cheat in order just to pass the class. There is also, at this point, little assurance of the quality of grading in some subjects (see the New York Times article), though this may change in the very near future.

So, will hiring managers be willing to take a risk on a candidate with a briefcase full of Coursera certificates but no degree? At this point, probably not. But I argue that they should be, because doing so might be a great way to help the U.S. economy get its groove back.

In Hackers, Stephen Levy details how a mangy group of MIT students became addicted to programming room-sized computers in the 1950s to 1970s. Few of them graduated with degrees, but most of them got jobs that allowed them to put their prodigious talents to use for leading corporations, universities, and the government. One of them even managed to get tenured as a professor at MIT without a degree. What is evident in the book is that this was made possible by the fact that a few brave souls were able to look past the lack of credentials to see their real talent. Recent history is replete with such examples, most notably Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

I hope that MOOCs allow a similar phenomenon. Instead of being limited to programmers, however, it could expand to talented people in all fields. An applicant may not have a degree in business, say, but maybe they've demonstrated their abilities in Coursera classes and have real-world experience running a small business. A talented instructional designer may learn her trade through MOOCs and prove it by designing free tutorials available on her own website. Organizations should be willing to take a chance on people like this, because too many people are cut off from access to higher education by exorbitant tuition and the demands of family, work, and life. Organizations will lose out if they don't harness the diverse talent spread throughout the population.

A flowering of talent in many spheres of human endeavor, fertilized by near universal access to education, could drive this country's economy just the way that the advances made in Cambridge and Silicon Valley have for the past 60 years. In the end, knowledge is worth more than a credential.