Universities

In between student debt changing the financial calculus and covid cutting into attendence, prospective students may need to look at universities with a different, and more frugal eye. That's going to hurt. I looked at online learning before, but I think I want to try again from a different direction. AVI recently wondered about what universities would do with the diversity staff in their current financial stress.

I suspect they'd help the bottom line and provide a much better campus climate for everyone if universities fired everybody with "diversity" or "equity" in their job title. I don't think you learn a lot from picking scabs, especially when you just assume the scabs are there without asking. And I judge that there's quite a bit of unity to be found in working together to learn.

I don't think the universities will, though. A bureaucracy is like plaque--it just keeps building up while things rot underneath.

Nor do I think they'll generally get a good handle on online-learning--figuring out how to add enough value to merit the student $$$. I think a lot of universities will break before they adapt.

They provide some things we want, so whatever replaces them (assuming we don't crash so far that nothing does) should provide those same things. Some of the things a university does are easily adapted for remote students. Some don't really need anything like a university at all.

Here's my list

Credential You

1. Generic:
   1. IQ: You have above some threshold level of intelligence. This could be easily replaced with a test suite, but that's politically and sometimes legally impossible right now. (Remote=easy/impossible)
   2. Perseverance: You are able to persevere through a 4-year plan. A job history might be able to do that for you also, unless you were unlucky with job situations. (Remote=irrelevant)
   3. Getting along with others: You are able to put up with people (some of them quite strange) for 4 years without resorting to homicide. This too might be inferred from a job history. (Remote=irrelevant)
2. Specific:
   1. Body of knowledge: You absorbed, however temporarily, a specified body of knowledge. In some cases you could substitute a suite of tests, but those aren't always easy to design--imagine trying to prove by a test that you are skilled in Turkish literature. You really need experts to examine you. (Remote=possible--pay an expert to examine you and personally certify you; cheaper than 4 years of college.)
   2. Able to do work in your field. This is related to the above criterion, but is more demanding. Think of the internship after med school, or an engineering student's portfolio. A job history can do this too--often better. But getting hired in an advanced field in the first place isn't easy. (Remote=possible, with work/study)
   3. Able to contribute orginal work in your field. You've passed the apprenticeship as a researcher. Or, if this school is like Juliard, you can play music people will pay to listen to. An autodidact can demonstrate this--in theory. In practice, it isn't easy to get into the journals without somebody vouching for you--like employing you at a known research institution. (Remote=difficult)

Teach You

People learn in different ways, of course.

1. Talk at you. They use lectures, live or recorded. For these you don't need a university as much as you once did. (Remote=easy)
2. Read. Some things are harder to come by outside the university, but at least in theory you could get these elsewhere. (Remote=easy)
3. Show. Labs and some kinds of lectures (e.g. math) involve demonstrations. These could be recorded, of course. (Remote=easy)
4. Do. Labs, language classes, some kinds of physical training demand that you do them yourself. Equipment and guidance aren't free--the university is the go-to place. (Remote=impossible)
5. Discuss.
   • You question the teacher during a lecture or demo--"I don't understand X" There's no substitute for live; questions submitted and replied to the next day aren't a good substitute. (Remote=impossible for a group, possible for one on one)
   • The teacher questions you during a lecture. It is really easy to think you understand, and the best time to check and correct is right then. In person, a good teacher can sometimes spot the students who aren't quite getting it. Remotely it's not so easy. (Remote=difficult)
   • You question other students. In STEM there's generally a right answer, but in most of the other liberal arts--What is "justice," Socrates? There's something different about being physically with someone that multiplies the opportunities to talk. Phone or video-phone feel more distant. (Remote=difficult)
   • Other students question you. Can you defend what you think--without resorting to "my felt reality" solipsism? That can be a great education in itself. (Remote=difficult)
   • "The Grand Tour" of meeting other people and ideas and customs that are not always congenial. It can give a good lesson in what's common and what divides us. Most of us, by default, stick to the congenial. (Remote=possible, if you take advice)
   • Late night bull sessions. They're mostly nonsense, but who's keeping score? And it's practice thinking. (Remote=possible)

Connect You

1. Make acquaintances that will be important professionally. The Ivies are renowned for this--making sure the proper people know each other may be their main function. (Are frats like the Odd Fellows?) (Remote=possible)
2. Find a spouse. There are few other places that bring so many of your cohort together for long enough. A concert doesn't last long; classes do. (Remote=impossible; you're on your own)
3. Find friends. You can probably do this most places--in fact other places might be better, in that they mingle ages more than a college does, and there's a poverty in only having friends of one age. (Remote=impossible; you're on your own)
4. Bond you to the school so they can put the touch on you for alumni donations. I'm a cynical one sometimes. (Remote=impossible)

Labs can't be done online. Discussion, and one on on interaction with the teacher, don't seem to be done very well by most online schools, if early reports are any guide. But scheduling 1:1 teacher time should be possible, albeit expensive. I wonder how the language classes are doing.

A lot of the credentialing can be done elsewhere, or replaced with job history, or replaced by hiring specialists.

The social part would be hard to replace, since many of the older connecting institutions aren't popular anymore. (Bowling Alone?) Reviving the secular ones depends on fashion, not fiat.