"We need more e-colleges"

[Don Dresden]

We need more e-colleges

Published: Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2009 12:14 a.m. MDT

Children born since the dawn of the Internet Age probably wouldn't think twice about learning online. They might just as soon read a Shakespeare sonnet on Twitter as hear it live from a teacher in a classroom.

And yet the educational establishment still debates whether e-learning (aka "virtual schooling" or "distance education") can be as good as traditional in-person teaching in a campus setting. Jokes are still being made about successful e-schools, such as the University of Phoenix, as being "diploma mills."

Now the results of a recent federal study should help "log out" of that tired debate. The study, released by the U.S. Department of Education, found that many types of online education for a college degree are better at raising student achievement than face-to-face teaching.

The big advantage in digital learning is the "time on task," or flexibility for a student to absorb the content of a subject. Once students are given "control of their interactions," they can set their own pace. They often study longer or visualize a problem differently. Professors also are forced to design better instructional techniques by the very nature of the technology.

The most effective learning occurs when a school combines e-learning with classroom teaching. Yet for many students, such as stay-at-home parents or those with day jobs or those with low income, online learning is all they can afford in time or money.

The Education Department is making plans to create free, online courses for the nation's 1,200 community colleges — which teach nearly half of undergrads — to make it easier for students to learn basic skills for jobs. The courses would be offered as part of a "national skills college" managed by the department.

The rapid rise of e-learning may finally help burst the bubble in rising tuition costs, which now average more than $25,000 a year for a degree from a private bricks-and-mortar institution.

Someday the best college teachers in the country won't need to be confined to one institution but will find their lectures and course materials spread to millions of students at low cost via the Internet. That would be a huge, historic leap in productivity for the education industry.

Any country that makes learning more accessible and less expensive through cutting-edge cybertechnology — say, by putting textbooks on devices such as the Kindle — will have a leg up in the global knowledge economy.

[ham]

Yet, if you insist on becoming a college man anyway, citing the salary discrepancies between the have degrees and the have not degrees, my advice to the young men who wrote to me, those holed up in college libraries clutching Mises and Rothbard to their furrowed brow, is to take stock of where you are and what college is really about. Think about what position you are in.

A recent blog post by Lew Rockwell sums up that position perfectly – "as I walked on a university campus this morning…the girl-boy ratio was overwhelmingly girl." Haven't you watched Animal House? What in God's name are you doing in the library? Who the hell goes to college to learn anything? Understood properly, America’s college system is not a haven of learning; it is a four-year party with the background noise provided by tenured hacks giving their interpretations of foolish utopian schemes culled from other long-dead hacks.

In college happy hour is every hour, so remember to ignore your professors and let your dog off the leash; it’s hunting season. You are there to network, drink, smoke, and build up the fond, blurry memories that will allow you in later years to watch a porn movie and reminisce about when you used to get up to such wondrous madness. Stop wasting valuable college time reading Mises and Hayek – they’ll be plenty of time for that later – and cease frittering away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I suppose the bit about living the porn star dream while attending B&M universities is on par with the bit about income.
Yes, there are studies published that -often in very a-specific terms- foresee an income of n thousands per year for graduates in the A, B or C field (subject to periodical change )...much like that cute new ad from a multi-millionaire media campaign of the new grow-me-hair, trim-my-waist or virility fix tonic, Barney lost 30kg in seven days and Beulah 28 eating all they wanted while sitting on the couch, but watch out for small print:"your results may vary".
If a study claims that your demographic group in your geographic area "typically" dines out once a week, it might just be you dined out three times last year and someone else dined out everyday.

My B&M days were the farthest thing from the dream of a porn star and I am not rolling high by any remote stretch of the term. The people I knew over the decades who (at least apparently) roll high or anyways (apparently) live very comfortably are those who inherited either wealth or business from their elders...only one guy is the exception.

So yes, you probably got nice B&M auditoriums, football, soccer-ball, gym, medical center, 71 student associations, 24 restaurants open 24-7, basketball, cricket, hockey, you name it...and you paid for it.
I don't recall where, but someone posted an article or something claiming in a poll that the fact that football team -if any- played at the college made a huge difference in students' perception of the school...amazing...

I am not saying it is necessarily evil, but why would I pay for something I have no use for, such as university sports, halls and so forth. I never visited one and never watched a game. The only people smiling from end to end are contractors hired by politically controlled universities to build, maintain and manage that giant carnival at your expenses.