Prices will keep going up because certain schools will just get more exclusive as the population of college attending students goes up. Some schools can't really get any bigger, yet they still have the cachet. It is pretty sad.

.......not if their graduates aren't getting decent jobs.

They'll also need to compete in a whole new way.

Yes indeed. They'll need to restrict capacity and erect barriers against new entrants.

This trend has been true since Reagan. The reality is there is not a correlation between cost and value in college. It is about reputation and exclusivity. Keeping the Riff-Raff "unworthy" seems to have been national higher educational policy the last two generations.

Competition is already here--on-line and high tech remote learning will displace more and more colleges. But there has to be a reason to go to college too. Managing outsourced accounts and reselling "Pretty in Mink" calendars isn't a reason for higher education. Also, we need to displace foreign engineering and hard science students with American students made ready for the course load--or at least given the same governmnent guarantees as China or India gives their traveling kids.

Yes, but have you looked at how beautifully landscaped colleges are these days? Sure, nobody learns anything more for $50,000 per year than they did when college cost $25,000 per year, but the lawns are now just exquisite. Augusta National Golf Club couldn't ask for better.

As a side-note, China recently spun up a domestically funded scholarship program. It seems attractive on the numbers, but a colleague with good sources of information in Chinese universities assures me that the brightest will steer clear of it, because it's tied to a requirement that recipients put in two years of government service upon return -- enforced by a very substantial bond that recipients are required to post with the government before their air ticket is issued.

Socialism isn't what it used to be. Or maybe it is.

That should have read: ... domestically funded scholarship program for overseas study."

Note: Plural of anecdote is not data. That being said, I'm 29, and in my second year of going back for my MBA.

Online classes are nigh on worthless. Oh they are great for distributing information found in a book and issuing cookie cutter tests, and if that's all you are teaching, then find, online and technological mechanisms can work.

And as far as forums and chats go, they CAN work but it requires people comfortable with writing, and even within the writing intensive program that I'm a participant of, the ability of my fellow students to piece together a response that isn't three lines, most of which are restating the question is crap. They are articulate enough face-to-face, but something about posting to the forum.

There's little interplay and back and forth with an online class. I don't have experience with video classes where the classes are remote; however, while there may be a force multiplication factor thanks to technology, a 40 minute lecture is still a 40 minute lecture.

So for the transmittal of facts - sure. For the transmittal of information that requires subtlety, interplay between the student and the teacher or the students and the students, face-to-face time is still supreme.

The very elite schools excepted, the rising costs are driven no so much by status as by the country club like perks colleges are forced to provide to compete with each other. What's the difference between the top 20 small liberal arts colleges? They all have lovely campi, buildings by famous architects,distinguished faculty, small classes: They have to differentiate themselves by the luxurious extras they provide. "oh but this one has workout rooms in every dorm!" That's where the costs are--making the college experience ever more posh,so that students will deliver money as alums, years later, when they look back fondly on the impossible world their college provided for four years.

Note to Steve: You may want to think about how you present articles in the Washington Monthly, since you have a clear conflict of interest.

I would suggest something like having the words "Washington Monthly Article" in the post header, just to make it clear that you refer to an article written by one of your coworkers.

Btw, great blog!

Where have you people been? There's been a big stink going on in Ohio for years over "for-profit e-schools" competing with the traditional "brick-&-mortar" schools. For some odd reason, the state can pay an online school thousands of dollars less, per year and per student, and these schools are allegedly (at least according to Gov. Strickland) raking in obscene profits.

If it works at the K-12 level, then why not post-secondary?

YES!!! Finally a good place to put in my two cents. To increase the education of our populace, and to reinvigorate the economy, America should have a new "G.I. bill" (the bill that allowed vets returning from WWII to go to college). The new bill should enable any American access to a quality, internet-based 'distance learning' courses. These courses have very low marginal costs: a teacher can teach 100 students or 1,000,000 at a very low cost for additional students.

Right now, colleges are charging wildly inflated prices for these courses; I recently investigated signing up for an advanced calculus course and the wanted to charge $1700.00 for three credits. There is reason why it has to be as expensive as an "in person" course at a brick and morter college. The government could subsidize access to distance learning educational oportunities at a reasonable price.

Reinvigorating the old G.I. Bill would not have a like inmpact: too few people are willing to join the military, and those oportunities are limited to certain age, health and, to a lesser extent, sex. The drawback is, of course, that a regular degree will have more status. But a motivated student can get a lot done on his own, and if the goal is to have an educated populace, rather than just a population with degrees, this may be a feasible way to do it.

In education, the amount of time spent expands to fill the time remaining. Much of the technology changes what educators do in the classroom. So educators can make videos, flashier presentations, etc. but all these take additional preparation time.

A big problem with US education is the disparity of education between the best and the worst public schools. We do not make the most efficient use of student's time in K12.

For math classes, having an actual teacher present adds close to nothing. Anything the book does not provide can be found online, through lectures on MIT's website, or by asking people in chat rooms. If there is a computer program that presents and tests information step-by-step, that's actually superior to lecture-style teaching.

What schools provide, and always have provided, is backing of knowledge. That is, they VOUCH that the student has learned something. That is their only real value. I think we're all capable of learning on our own almost everything we learn in class. I'd much prefer a system of nationalized, standardized, modular tests. Instead of taking American History, you could choose to take the American History test. We SORT OF already have this with AP tests to get you out of some freshman classes, but we could do more of it.

And, frankly, taking a standardized test is harder. I've taken a lot of classes where the teacher will find every possible way to pass students -- giving ridiculous amounts of credit for homework, dropping several of the lowest grades, open book and take home tests, giving almost word-for-word examples of EXACTLY what will be on the test, not covering the material in the syllabus...

The traditional value of the liberal arts education, the discussion, the learning, the philosophy, the personal growth, etc... that seems to pretty much be a joke. Nobody's even mentioned it. Good.

"Distance education" is a contradiction in terms.

This line is deceptive: "Instead, colleges are pocketing the difference, even as they continue to jack up tuition bills."

It depends a great deal what kind of school your are talking about. State universities like the one I am at are largely getting crushed because of soaring costs that tuition raises cannot keep up with. Productivity is not the only issue. Productivity has gone up greatly and many of us are still scrambling to keep up as there are fewer faculty to teach more students. The implication is that universities are getting fat off of this. Maybe some are, but the university I work at, and the ones many of my colleagues work at, are in serious trouble due to fuel and healthcare costs.

So frankly, that article is full of it. Talk specific schools, don't label all of us. State higher ed. systems are in near crisis mode right now and nobody seems to notice.

This is a complicated topic, and this article wades through a forest of straw men. This is conflating many things about higher ed, namely costs and education pedagogy.

As for costs, one commenter has already said:

That's where the costs are--making the college experience ever more posh,so that students will deliver money as alums, years later, when they look back fondly on the impossible world their college provided for four years.

This is a simplification of the matter, but there is a grain of truth here. There is a competition between universities to add services and amenities. Some of these aid education: high speed internet in dorms, campus wifi, state-of-the-art computing labs, libraries (digital and paper). Others are life-style amenities like gyms, entertainment, etc. These add up a lot.

The other cost being ignored here (and by this article) is financial aid. Not all financial aid comes from outside sources or the endowment. A lot of it is payed for by the tuition of other students. The "discount rate" is the average amount of tuition actually paid by students (including tuition payed by scholarships external or internal). At some schools this is as low as 65%. So tuition is high, but the average person does not pay as much - stated tuition is really just a way of soaking the wealthier students and giving it to the poorer ones.

A related issue to the one above is that it is well-known that students and parents tend to equate tuition price with quality (they have done studies on this, but I am too lazy to find the link right now). Smaller liberal arts schools often keep tuition prices high in order to "compete" with the more prestigious schools.

As for the comments on teaching in the article, this is pundit level blather. We actually know quite a bit about teaching pedagogy, and none of that is examined in this article. Not all teaching is good, because many universities value grant-producing research over teaching (the number one conflict of interest in the modern university), but that is a separate issue.

Again, pulling from some commenters here:

Online classes are nigh on worthless. Oh they are great for distributing information found in a book and issuing cookie cutter tests, and if that's all you are teaching, then find, online and technological mechanisms can work.

Distance education is not a failure, but its promise is not what people thought it was at the beginning of this decade. It is great for places like India and China, where you are trying to reach remote rural places that really would get nothing else. But even then, people are just using it to transmit factual information and not develop skills.

When you have the alternative of face-to-face interaction, this is always a superior mode of instruction. Again, studies have been done on this and there are many theories as why this is true (e.g. one theory is that anonymity in the online setting removes a sense of risk that is important to education). Maybe it is just that we do not know how to use this new medium yet. But the point is that it is not as good.

Even success stories in distance education like the University of Phoenix aren't really. UP is a very people intensive business. They have local campuses and, while you get factual information online, you still have to go to these buildings to interact with tutors and study/discussion groups.

One more thing

For math classes, having an actual teacher present adds close to nothing. Anything the book does not provide can be found online, through lectures on MIT's website, or by asking people in chat rooms. If there is a computer program that presents and tests information step-by-step, that's actually superior to lecture-style teaching.

I am sorry you have had bad mathematics teachers. I am a mathematics teacher, and I agree that lecture teaching is not an effective way of teaching mathematics. But don't make the mistake that this is the only way mathematics is taught. There are many different ways to teach mathematics that are more hands on and interactive, such as getting students to work on problems together in class, discuss solutions and mistakes, etc.
There are lots of these types of teaching methods in mathematics. Google "Moore Method" for one example. MIT also teaches this way. Because the have factual material online, they do not need lectures, so all of their instruction is in small classes with students working together.

Many times these methods provide exactly the benefit that this computer program you want does. In fact, having a human do this type of instruction is much better, because a human can often "reverse engineer" students mistakes and figure out why they are making certain errors. This allows the teacher to tailor the instruction specifically to that student.

And, by the way, computers suck for proof instruction. Which is the entirety of mathematics above calculus.

The problem is that these methods are very expensive. You have to make the classes smaller so that the instructor can actually interact with the students. You cannot teach this way in a lecture hall with 300 students. This requires more instructors per student, thus increasing tuition. So the problem here is that universities are already cutting costs - to the detriment of their teaching.

You might want to do some cost-benefit analysis to see exactly what an "education" truly costs the colleges and universities today beyond simplifying everything that is suspect. I suggest you do some basic research into the actual costs of providing faculty and maintaining a campus. I've been in higher education in Texas for the past 20 years and the costs of public education increases are due to reductions in taxpayer support by the legislature and attempts to use market pricing to set tuition hour costs. Each university is allowed to charge what the market will bear and accordingly the price has gone up for everyone. Meanwhile, we still have to pay for support staff, faculty, and building maintenance. Technology costs are a constant problem too. So, yes the price of education is going up but so is demand regardless of whether it's provided online or via a standard lecture. I'd advise any student to take lecture courses over online if your truly interested in learning.

In addition to my longer posts above, let me just say this. Every so often these university education posts appear on political/wonk blogs like this or Yglesias. And when I read them, it is clear that the authors do not have the foggiest clue how universities work - either as a business or in satisfying their education goals.

I must say this does not inspire confidence in me when I read wonkish posts on areas that I know less about.

The reason Tuition is exploding (a major concern for me as my daughter is a college junior in nursing) is that Colleges are now functioning on the investor banking capitalist model. They aren't selling you an education, they are loaning you one, and figuring that their take should be based on the increased earning potential their product (a degree) gives you over your WHOLE LIFETIME.

They have a lot more to take yet.

I'm with Some Guy on this. Added on to the fact that infrastructure costs are soaring for state universities (I'm at one, also) is the fact that state legislatures are not funding them. The state that I'm in owes in excess of $50 million (million) dollars in back payments to the university, but because they don't believe that we're using the money wisely they haven't paid us what--by law--they owe us in the 13 years that I've been here. OK, the legislature won't fund us but we're still required to operate. Where do they think the money's going to come from?????

It's sad to see the Washington Monthly bashing higher education and making the fundamental error of conflating all colleges and universities with each other.

As someone who taught at an elite liberal arts college and a state university, I can tell you that there are substantial differences. State universities are in bad, bad shape. Mine is taking a 10% cut which will mean layoffs, resulting in larger classes, higher tuition and fees, and longer times for graduation. For a state that has low levels of higher education, this will lead to injuries to the state's economy and development for at least a decade.

Washington Monthly is doing a great disservice to be making the claim that on-line education is a good way to go. I've taught in the classroom and on-line and face-to-face is far superior.

You folks really can do better and you usually do. Broadbrush portrayals of higher education lack analytical rigor and create false impressions of the state of the academy.

Another thing to consider is that those outrageous tuitions are really just like the sticker price on the car- the starting point of negotiation. My daughter goes to a college that has a yearly tuition of $37,000, which is more than I make in a year. We are currently paying $8000 a year - she got a substantial merit scholarship as well as additional financial aid gifts (woman in a Polytechnic Institute; 12 AP classes with 4 or 5 on her tests; 3.97 high school GPA with focused extracurriculars).

$8000 is lower than our State University system, and not much more than our State Community College system.

I was only 19 when I had her, and so I had to drop out of college after only a year. I've been in school for the past 6 years, but taking 1 class a semester is not a great way to make fast progress. I can't afford more than that, though, and I can't afford the time to be a half-time or more student, which I would have to be to qualify for financial aid.

For math classes, having an actual teacher present adds close to nothing. Anything the book does not provide can be found online, through lectures on MIT's website, or by asking people in chat rooms. If there is a computer program that presents and tests information step-by-step, that's actually superior to lecture-style teaching.

I totally disagree with this. Math was always my weakest subject - when I took the math placement test for my community college, I was played in Remedial Pre-Algebra. If I didn't have the great math teacher I had for that class, I would not have gotten an A. She answered all my stupid questions, questions that a computer would not necessarily anticipate.

I actually agree that distance learning for math is superior--for me it was. There are very few excellent math instructors out there, and we are talking about the mechanism to a known result. But not everyone is good at self-paced/self-instructed learning.

The cost of education though, like health insurance, is becoming unaffordable. We need to focus on things the next generation needs, and they don't need crushing debt. Student loans hampered me for 15-years. Many people I know were not nearly so lucky. I guess ultimately I despise a system that is pre-loaded to favor the wealthy. W. Bush as Yale graduate. That kind of thing. Much about our country needs to be reevaluated. And college? After this financial meltdown, there is some MAJOR reckoning ahead for all of them. Sadly, I'll bet the amount of money endowment funds lost in investments this year would have more than paid for every eleigible student to have gone to college in this country. What a waste.

Classes that involve a fair bit of rote memorization and what I call "wax on-wax off" work of just grinding through the problems to engrain them in the noggin? Great for distance learning. I had to take a candidacy exam in an engineering topic I had never had a class for. I got a copy of the main textbook in the field along with a solution manual, and worked every problem in the book. Aced the test. And more importantly, I learned *far* more than if I had taken the class. No substitute for doing the repetitions.

I've also done distance learning group classes that required interaction via voice and email, and found it to not be a good experience.

The new GI Bill should be an interesting twist to the dynamic. I forget the details of how they pay, but I bet universities will see it as an ATM machine. And as costs skyrocket, it will become one of the few paths for lower income people to get to college, through the military.

Profs is greedy.

Beware of the education/human resource complex.

Education expands to fill four years regardless of subject area.

The goal is a degree. The degree is used to screen applicants for jobs. The education is largely useless and forgotten within ten minutes of graduation.

They pickle yer brains in them colleges.

Luther, it ain't profs only who are greedy. It's provosts/presidents, more and more of whom are saying we need a "business" model for college.

Typical neolib answer... make something more businesslike!

I'm not sure why anyone hasn't mentioned adjuncts yet. The push in academia to farming out the teaching grunt work to non-tenure track people is one of the more glaring ways that teaching "costs" are held down.

Sucks to be a newly minted PhD on the job market these days.

It depends a great deal what kind of school your are talking about. State universities like the one I am at are largely getting crushed because of soaring costs that tuition raises cannot keep up with.

It's the same with our community college. At my college, we recently had an emergency meeting to discuss yet another reduction in funds from the state and possible furloughs to try to cut costs. To put things in perspective, the state now provides less money (in unadjusted dollars) now to our school than it did in the year 2000. And our enrollment this year is bigger than ever, much larger than it was in 2000.

So of *course* tuition has gone up. Even doing things efficiently costs at least some money.

Agree about the waste in athletics and a few other fields (biomedicine), but we need to remember the kind of population that higher education now serves- big since the 1960s and increasingly diverse in every way. Outside the most elite public and private institutions, this means we are teaching some very primitive things because the students do not have them when they come in, but without the endless resources of the first university boom. So more selective universities can get better and better while less selective ones are scrambling to make up high school- or cope with the disastrous performance of community colleges that give kids enough credits to turn up in upper-division class, but not enough grammar to write a sentence properly. I'm glad that we are thinking about ways to automate math teaching (can we automate grammar teaching, too), but then we should consider kicking it down to the high schools. That is, after all, where the industrial model of education is expected to operate.

FWIW, the only online course we have got to work in some very elite programs I know is in...accounting and finance. Math online was great for people who were good for math and sent the bad ones into a tailspin that we only noticed when they failed.

What does it take to make people understand that someone still needs to grade all those exams, read all those homework assignments, conduct all those paper conferences, advise those students . . . ?

Distance learning is a great idea that works just fine until people think that it can magically let one professor teach 700 people just as well as she can teach 70. Guess what? Doesn't work. Remember correspondence courses, when people exchanged paper-and-ink letters with their professors? It fell apart when one instructor had to grade too many papers. Then there was closed-circuit T.V. distance learning -- a lot of expensive technology that soon became obsolete. Now it's on-line classes. A colleague of mine teaches one that's quite popular, but she has to cap enrollment in her section at 25, because -- guess why? Advising 25 people by e-mail, grading 25 papers and 25 weekly quizzes takes as much of her time as she can afford. Baumol's syndrome is real, and no new technology can solve it.

Just a note re this thread: the article isn't about online education. It's about how students are learning on (or near) traditional residential campuses.

Steve, I totally object to this.

Sure, technology is great, but someone has to pay for it. Not only the infrastructure but the people to support it.

It ain't cheap.

Anyone who claims there's "fat" at public universities is crazy. We face decreasing support from the state and soaring cost structures at my large university that shall remain unnamed.

A lousy article for several reasons. First off, there are no data about how much the Math Emporium (which I applaud) actually costs. Assuming that VATech uses a commercial mathematics package, the cost may be just as much as having a large section delivered by a traditional faculty member - the increased educational value may make it worthwhile, but that's a different argument.

Secondly, all societies with a surplus of production need a place to park their youth - whether by warfare, a grand tour, subsidized dissolution, missionary work, or college. This will never change. Indeed, as the surplus of unskilled laborers age 18-22 increases, the percentage of students going to college increases.

Given this situation, calls for "efficiency" are not going to be productive. And this is shown by the fact that the per-credit cost to students at Phoenix and similar models of "collegiate efficiency" is greater than at my big state school. Where does all the extra money (primarily student loans and federal aid) go? Guess. Or if you can't guess, read Naomi Klein.

The situation is actually fairly easy to understand, in spite of efforts by university administrations, to obscure the facts.

Look at the rate of tuition inflation.

Now compare the rate of increase in the "inputs". Oh, and by the way, faculty salaries barely keep up with 'general' inflation, telling you that's NOT where the money is going.

Infrastruture and a huge increase in admin costs. That's where it's going.

Considering that colleges and universities are also discontinuing tenure track positions in favor of adjunts they can hire at below poverty wages, I suspect the amount they're pocketing (and what gets rerouted to Deans and Presidents) is even higher than when just accounting for technological efficiency.

And it's not like professor salaries have gone up much in the last 10-20 years, either.

Anyone who is against online education has a personal agenda. About half the people in education are against online teaching and learning. So the conclusion is....

I agree with the posts above that point out that the article appears to be based on limited knowledge of higher education and how colleges an universities operate. Colleges and universities are far from perfect, and there is much they can do to improve, but technology alone cannot save higher education and reduce tuition. As other posters have said, there are myriad burdens on higher ed. institutions including greatly reduced funding from states, shrinking college age populaces in certain regions, infrastructure costs, etc. PBS produced an excellent documentary about a year and a half or two years ago on the state of higher ed. in the US. It was a grim picture in 2006, and seems to be getting worse. Are there things some colleges and universities can do better, sure, but these institutions are not solely responsible for the high cost of college. While we're giving out money, how about a bailout for higher ed. in the US?

I went to a private college for about a year in the 90's that really wasn't much better than a high school, but cost far more than a public university. And at one point, I worked for the audit team that audited the books, and got to see all the numbers and everything. And let me tell you, the people going to school there at the time were being totally ripped off.

Essentially, the school had a long term plan to greatly expand over the next twenty years, and so all the students I was going to school with were paying for the expansion that would happen long after they were gone. And sure enough, it's many years later and now they've got the buildings and dormitories that they were planning to build at the time (and are still building). But what did I get out of it? I suppose if I had graduated from there, I'd get the advantage of having graduated from a school that is now more prestigious (for whatever that's worth); but it was still a crappier education when I was there. And the whole plan involved charging as much as possible, knowing that the government would pay large chunks of it automatically through grants and loans and whatnot.

Now, perhaps this was all for the best, and that those students are better off for having paid so much, now that the school is bigger and better (though it's disputable whether the school has a better reputation). But it was never really explained to the students at the time of why they were paying so much. And I knew quite a few students who were saddled with HUGE student loans that hurt them a lot after graduation. And while it can be argued that they should have gone to a different school if they didn't want to pay so much for so little, I really think they assumed they were getting what they paid for, and didn't know they'd be paying for buildings they'd never use.

Mr. Carey-
i have a small bone to pick with you. it's not Virginia Tech University. it's either Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (on the seal and my class ring), OR it's Virginia Tech (the name everyone knows it by).

Look, computer-based instruction is only marginally better than reading the textbook. It's fine for the smartest, because they are going to learn it easily, no matter what you do. For everyone else, it's terrible, because it doesn't actually answer any questions of discover why the student doesn't understand what they're reading. When you don't understand what you're reading, reading it over and over again usually doesn't help.

My goodness. Where to begin? There are a lot of great comments on this thread and also a few of the typical "Education is for those elitists in the Ivory Tower" remarks. In short, Virginia Tech has a good model for basic math education. It works really well when someone like Michael Williams (a really nice, quirky person) is in charge. But to suggest that the Math Emporium model would work with every subject area (or every level of math education--advanced calculus, for instance) requires a huge leap. Would it work in a psychology or business class? The learning objectives are quite different in terms of content and approach, although many educators outside of the education field (a concept that makes sense if you happen to work in higher education) are starting to pay attention to broader goals beyond "learn the content" or "develop critical thinking skills" (whatever that means). Also, I am concerned when an article relies so heavily on NCAT without exploring the group's objectives more closely. NCAT's main purpose is to cut costs, but the solution often seems to encourage pushing out content without considering what is in the students' best *educational* interests (i.e., anything other than cost efficiency gets downplayed if you talk to Carol Twigg or Carolyn Jarmon. (Side note: Jarmon demands very high speaking fees to present at conferences--well beyond what most conference budgets can allot for keynote addresses.)

OK, so outside of NCAT and the Phoenix model (where teachers are not the "owners" of the content--they are often reduced to conduits of information), what else is there? Blended/hybrid learning has the potential to cut costs by combining the best practices of face-to-face interaction (such as problems-based projects in small groups) with the efficiency of online content delivery. Universities are starting to pursue this option more expansively as well as experiment with other methods of teaching.

But to blame costs on professor salaries seems to miss the point. I have worked as a teaching fellow and adjunct for insultingly low salaries, while the students still must pay the exact same tuition as if I were a tenured faculty member. The university diverts the difference between my salary and that of a full-time professor to other system expenses. In other words, tuition does not actually represent the cost of taking a class.

As for technology, consider this. A university president travels all over the country giving speeches, recruiting alumni, and with most state universities, attending athletic events. That alone costs a lot of money as airfare has risen significantly in the past few years (current gas prices excluded). Electricity costs more, and it's hard to budget for unpredictable energy costs. These are the real technology issues--not the cost of content delivery.

The real question, which I don't think was addressed with this article, is what do we want a university to be in the 21st century? The medieval model that still guides the Ivy League schools to a certain extent seems to be on the decline. State universities are growing as a more diverse population seeks higher education. Remedial instruction is on the rise as public schools fail to prepare students for college. And students justifiably want to graduate from college with workforce skills that will help them compete in a tight employment market. As educators, we have multiple responsibilities. An art professor will still be an art professor. Content does matter. But helping students develop the ability to assess a situation and propose a solution is also important. This can be done across the curriculum. And every college/university has to answer to the specific needs of its student population--a large state university is different from a small regional college. NCAT is not the only way, and I am concerned about how this article does not explore the controversial aspects of NCAT but, rather, defers to it as an absolutist authority.

One more thing: distance education *can* work if the course design is good. It doesn't have to be mere dissemination of information. Interactive components can reinforce broad concepts and specific content. Built-in self-tests can help students know whether they are mastering the content (it's somewhat analogous to a prof asking for a show of hands in answer to a question in the middle of a lecture) or need to revisit a page of the lesson. And well-designed discussion topics can challenge students to think creatively about a controversial issue. This is all contingent on an instructor who is committed to the course, however, and many online instructors either don't fully understand the course content (this is especially true with entry level university-wide curriculum requirements) or don't have the time to read through all the discussion postings. But online education *can* work when it is done right.

Cindy,

I've spoken to Carol Twigg on many occasions, heard her speak publicly, and read much of what she's written on the subject, and to say that "anything other than cost efficiency gets downplayed" when you talk to her is simply mistaken. If anything, it's the opposite -- NCAT is generally more focused on how technology can improve learning. As to the educational benefits of course transformation and whether it's applicable in psychology, business and other subjects--as the article clearly states, it's being used in many of those subjects and more right now. Most of the institutions have tracked student academic progress pre- and post-transformation, and have found either an improvement or no change. The summary results are all on the NCAT Web site.

Part of the problem is that universities are bureaucratic nightmares. I think that in many departments there are actually more administrators than professors.

It's gotten to the point where you could make the argument that a liberal arts education is no longer worth it's cost. Going to college not only costs you a significant amount of money in tuition and living expenses, but also deprives you of the income you could have earned working full-time for those four years instead.

Kevin, thanks for your follow-up. My impression of NCAT has obviously been different, but I am glad to hear that you have seen more positive things from them than merely the cost-cutting measures (which is no small feat). I still would like to have seen more than just the NCAT and Math Emporium focus in your article, but that said, I still think that the article makes some important points and contributes to the discussion on where higher education is headed. (In other words, I'll cite it if the opportunity arises.) And of course, I'm sure that you were dealing with a word count restriction that prevented you from exploring some of the other models that are currently being developed/implemented.

As for bureaucracy, mid-level administration positions are indeed on the rise. Some of these positions are necessary, but others seem to be focused on advancing the image of the university as an institution rather than keeping students enrolled and going to class.

Yes, but have you looked at how beautifully landscaped colleges are these days? Sure, nobody learns anything more for $50,000 per year than they did when college cost $25,000 per year, but the lawns are now just exquisite. Augusta National Golf Club couldn't ask for better. Posted by: Steve Sailer on November 25, 2008

It would seem the universities are improving the lives of it's staff with a lot of that money. Have students become 50% smarter by the time they graduate?

The reason Tuition is exploding (a major concern for me as my daughter is a college junior in nursing) is that Colleges are now functioning on the investor banking capitalist model. They aren't selling you an education, they are loaning you one, and figuring that their take should be based on the increased earning potential their product (a degree) gives you over your WHOLE LIFETIME.

They have a lot more to take yet.
Posted by: Lance on November 25, 2008

If you say tuitions are illegal and you force schools to teach on the basis of future payback ...

If you say future payback is illegal and you require schools to charge for their teaching ...

Maybe they need competition from the Internet schools!

If government got the very best education materials possible, by paying top-dollar, and offered them free over the (new and improved high-speed) Internet with regular updating and testing and whatnot ...

What's the best way to educate the populace?

We realize spending on the military is necessary, but not productive. It's an expense. Do we also think of human teaching as largely non-productive in the face of computerized instruction?

Face it, a lot of 'teaching' is baby-sitting and teaching kids to behave more like adults. That's why people are annoyed that teachers want higher pay -- they don't want to pay baby-sitters that much.

Darn. Sorry about the bad quotes above.

There was a time very few went to college. Some went to trade schools and the class structure was preserved. There was the Ivy league for people destined to rule the world and 'name' colleges where business leaders could send their children to become the next generation's business leaders.

It was and to some extent still is a caste system.

Enter an idea: a person lecturing the exact same words over and over isn't worthy of very high pay AND the Internet.

Get it once on disc and ship it via the Internet and you eliminate a lot of wasted money going to profs who aren't needed. Note: this is a lot like the way computer programmers meet the world -- write software once and you're not needed any more.

With a more egalitarian system a lot of these universities could begin to really focus more on HIGHER education instead of entry-level grist mills where students never even see a real professor. The fraud of the high drop-out rate for 1st year students would disappear as that could occur via the Internet in the privacy of your own home at no exorbitant price.

If we have a chance to use computers and the net to make it cheaper, then we absolutely must. To not do that would make us really moronic idiots.

Then you have another question, will we have extremely well educated people who feel above farming or construction work? Will we have people from poor families more capable of running the world and large banks pissing off the Rich who thought it was their Right? Will the crumbling of the old Order disrupt things in a bad way? Could this really be an instance of creative destruction though competition?

Do we have a choice but to use this technology we've spent so much time and money developing?