liberal arts

In case you missed it, WMU-Cooley’s President and Board of Directors took a look at our tuition rates and made the decision to reduce them by 21 percent starting Fall 2020! https://t.co/FjC6hk4vnE pic.twitter.com/NkCMAzoomE

— WMU-Cooley Law School (@WMUcooleylaw) October 16, 2019

From DSC:
Regular readers of this blog will know that for years, I’ve made it one of my goals to try and raise awareness of the need for institutions of higher education to lower their tuitions! For example, Yohan Na and I designed the graphic below way back in 2009.

Daniel S. Christian: My concerns with just maintaining the status quo

Through those years, I cringed when I kept hearing various Boards say, “We only increased our tuition by ___ % — the lowest percentage increase in our state.” The direction was completely wrong! It needed to go down, not up. If you work in higher ed, I encourage you to find a way for that to happen at your own institution.

So I’m very pleased to report that the WMU-Thomas M. Cooley Law School — where I work — was able to reduce tuition by 21%!!!

Don’t get me wrong, some tough decisions were made to pave the way for that to occur. But this will be the case no matter which institution of higher education that you look at. An institution will have to make some tough choices to reduce their tuition. But it HAS to occur. We can’t keep this upward trajectory going.

If we don’t change this trajectory, we will continue to put enormous gorillas (of debt) on our graduates’ backs! Such debt will take our graduates decades to pay off.

We need to be aware of these invisible gorillas of debt. That is, our students move on…and we don’t see them. But their gorillas remain.

Addendum on 10/18/19:

The 2019 Law School Experience — from info.cooley.edu

Victoria Vuletich, the assistant dean at the Grand Rapids, Michigan campus of Western Michigan University Cooley Law School, was interviewed by the State Bar of Michigan’s Legal Talk Network to discuss what the law school experience is like for the current generation of students.

5 Years Since Starbucks Offered to Help Baristas Attend College, How Many Have Graduated? — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpts:

…nearly 3,000 Starbucks employees who have earned bachelor’s degrees online through the company-university partnership program.

The arrangement was possible logistically because Humberstone took her courses in business and environmental sustainability entirely online. And it was feasible financially because Starbucks and Arizona State University covered most of her tuition bill.

Going Beyond the Digital Diploma — from campustechnology.com by Sara Friedman

Excerpts:

“We see great opportunities with this platform to create a more streamlined approach to help with students transferring, receiving degrees, honoring requests to verify degrees and to admit new students and evaluate their transcripts,” said ECPI University CIO Jeff Arthur. “The ability to let someone hold all of their accomplishments on their phone and have them to share with anybody in a way that is secure and reliable — without having to chase down entities to verify — is attractive to us.”
…
College and university CIOs also hope that blockchain technology can help to streamline other administrative functions. For instance, the ability to transfer credits between institutions could be simplified, according to Arthur.

The next big leap for blockchain in the higher education space is likely to be the ability to put badges and certificates for technical skills on the chain.

“We want to create a lifelong learning approach where people who want to represent their skills and experience can do so through a blockchain-based app,” said Callahan.

The Growing Profile of Non-Degree Credentials: Diving Deeper into ‘Education Credentials Come of Age’ [Gallagher]

On 04/17/2019, in 21st century, accreditation, assessment, career development, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, digital learning, distance education, face-to-face, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, innovation, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, lifelong learning, Michigan, microlearning, Microsoft, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, platforms, student-related, technology (general), training / L&D, trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

The Growing Profile of Non-Degree Credentials: Diving Deeper into ‘Education Credentials Come of Age’ — from evolllution.com by Sean Gallagher
Higher education is entering a “golden age” of lifelong learning and that will mean a spike in demand for credentials. If postsecondary institutions want to compete in a crowded market, they need to change fast.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

One of the first levels of opportunity is simply embedding the skills that are demanded in the job market into educational programs. Education certainly has its own merits independent of professional outcomes. But critics of higher education who suggest graduates aren’t prepared for the workforce have a point in terms of the opportunity for greater job market alignment, and less of an “ivory tower” mentality at many institutions. Importantly, this does not mean that there isn’t value in the liberal arts and in broader ways of thinking—problem solving, leadership, critical thinking, analysis, and writing are among the very top skills demanded by employers across all educational levels. These are foundational and independent of technical skills.

The second opportunity is building an ecosystem for better documentation and sharing of skills—in a sense what investor Ryan Craig has termed a “competency marketplace.” Employers’ reliance on college degrees as relatively blunt signals of skill and ability is partly driven by the fact that there aren’t many strong alternatives. Technology—and the growth of platforms like LinkedIn, ePortfolios and online assessments—is changing the game. One example is digital badges, which were originally often positioned as substitutes to degrees or certificates.

Instead, I believe digital badges are a supplement to degrees and we’re increasingly seeing badges—short microcredentials that discretely and digitally document competency—woven into degree programs, from the community college to the graduate degree level.

However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the market is demanding more “agile” and shorter-form approaches to education. Many institutions are making this a strategic priority, especially as we read the evolution of trends in the global job market and soon enter the 2020s.

Online education—which in all its forms continues to slowly and steadily grow its market share in terms of all higher ed instruction—is certainly an enabler of this vision, given what we know about pedagogy and the ability to digitally document outcomes.

In addition, 64 percent of the HR leaders we surveyed said that the need for ongoing lifelong learning will demand higher levels of education and more credentials in the future.

Along these lines of online-based collaboration and learning,
go to the 34 minute mark of this video:

From DSC:
The various pieces are coming together to build the next generation learning platform. Although no one has all of the pieces yet, the needs/trends/signals are definitely there.

Addendums on 4/20/19:

Community Colleges And Tech Companies Are Co-Branding Credentials To Solve The Skills Gap — from forbes.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury

DC: The larger 85” model could be interesting to use in smaller classrooms that bring face-to-face students on campus w/ remote students. https://t.co/c2lvG2VoM3

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) April 19, 2019

4 key tech strategies for the survival of the small liberal arts college [Campbell]

On 03/14/2019, in 21st century, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, data related items, disruption, distance education, education technology, experimentation, face-to-face, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, leadership, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, microlearning, mobile learning, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, platforms, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

4 key tech strategies for the survival of the small liberal arts college — from campustechnology.com by Kellie B. Campbell
In a recent study on the use of technology to reduce academic costs in liberal arts colleges, four distinct themes emerged: the strategic role of IT; the importance of data; the potential of alternative education delivery modes; and opportunities for institutional partnerships. Here’s how IT leaders at these small colleges understand the future of their institutions.

Excerpt:

In this study, the flexibility of the semi-constructed interview format resulted in a fascinating level of honesty and bluntness from participants. In particular, participants’ language changed when they were asked to take off their professional hat and consider a new point of view — it was a chance to be vulnerable and honest. What was probably most interesting was that almost everyone signaled that the status quo is not sustainable. Something in the higher education model has to change for institutions to stay open, yet many lack a strategy for effecting change. Even if they do have a strategy in place on the business side, many are hesitant to dive into analysis and change on the academic side of the institution.

Institutions simply cannot continue to nibble at the edges of change. Significant change is needed in order to sustain the financial model of higher education. The ideas for doing so are out there, though the work must be guided by the institutional mission and consider new models for delivering education. CIOs and their departments can play an important role in that work — providing infrastructure, data, access, services and ideas — but institutional leadership at large needs to understand IT’s strategic role and position the organization to make that impact.

When participants were able to think about the “what if” question — what if the institution were forced to drastically cut academic costs — several had detailed, “out there” ideas that might not be traditionally welcomed into higher education cultures. Yet a number of participants were not being asked by their institutions to think about such ideas. The question is, if everyone agrees that the status quo is not sustainable, why aren’t they thinking about it?

Why AI is a threat to democracy — and what we can do to stop it [Webb & Hao]

On 03/08/2019, in 21st century, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, bots, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, higher education, intelligent systems, IT in HE, liberal arts, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, morals/values, platforms, political science, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Why AI is a threat to democracy — and what we can do to stop it — from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao and Amy Webb

Excerpt:

Universities must create space in their programs for hybrid degrees. They should incentivize CS students to study comparative literature, world religions, microeconomics, cultural anthropology and similar courses in other departments. They should champion dual degree programs in computer science and international relations, theology, political science, philosophy, public health, education and the like. Ethics should not be taught as a stand-alone class, something to simply check off a list. Schools must incentivize even tenured professors to weave complicated discussions of bias, risk, philosophy, religion, gender, and ethics in their courses.

One of my biggest recommendations is the formation of GAIA, what I call the Global Alliance on Intelligence Augmentation. At the moment people around the world have very different attitudes and approaches when it comes to data collection and sharing, what can and should be automated, and what a future with more generally intelligent systems might look like. So I think we should create some kind of central organization that can develop global norms and standards, some kind of guardrails to imbue not just American or Chinese ideals inside AI systems, but worldviews that are much more representative of everybody.

Most of all, we have to be willing to think about this much longer-term, not just five years from now. We need to stop saying, “Well, we can’t predict the future, so let’s not worry about it right now.” It’s true, we can’t predict the future. But we can certainly do a better job of planning for it.

Using arts education to help other lessons stick [Klass]

On 03/07/2019, in art, creativity, education, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, liberal arts, love of learning, media/film, multimedia, pedagogy, play, story, storytelling, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

Using arts education to help other lessons stick — from nytimes.com by Perri Klass
The arts can be a source of joy in a child’s day, and also come in handy for memorizing times tables.

Excerpts:

Arts education in schools has introduced many children to great painters and great music, and helped them through their first dance steps or tentative musical endeavors. It can serve as a bright spot in the schoolchild’s day or week, a class that brings in beauty, color and joy, and which is not about testing.

These subjects are often under threat either from budget cuts or from the inexorable demands of academic testing and “accountability,” but insights from neuroscience suggest that arts education can play additional important roles in how children learn.
…
Arts education encompasses many disciplines: “I’m talking about everything from music, drama, dance, design, visual arts,” Dr. Sowden said. And the goal goes beyond the specific subjects, he said: “You’re looking for opportunities in the arts education context to encourage children to ask questions, to use their imaginations, but also to approach their work in a systematic, disciplined way.”

A model for other CS departments to follow? https://t.co/KchlDi2Try

— Chris Kuang (@chris_kuang) February 22, 2019

Joint CS and Philosophy Initiative, Embedded EthiCS, Triples in Size to 12 Courses — from thecrimson.com by Ruth Hailu and Amy Jia

Excerpt:

The idea behind the Embedded EthiCS initiative arose three years ago after students in Grosz’s course, CS 108: “Intelligent Systems: Design and Ethical Challenges,” pushed for an increased emphasis on ethical reasoning within discussions surrounding technology, according to Grosz and Simmons. One student suggested Grosz reach out to Simmons, who also recognized the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to computer science.

“Not only are today’s students going to be designing technology in the future, but some of them are going to go into government and be working on regulation,” Simmons said. “They need to understand how [ethical issues] crop up, and they need to be able to identify them.”

Want to retire and then hit the books? 10 great college towns for retirees [Kiesnoski]

On 12/31/2018, in higher education, history, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, library / librarians, lifelong learning, Michigan, United States, universities, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Want to retire and then hit the books? 10 great college towns for retirees — from cnbc.com by Kenneth Kiesnoski

Excerpt:

Kalamazoo, Michigan
University: Western Michigan University

There’s plenty to do in Kalamazoo, such as visits to Bell’s Brewery, the Kalamazoo Air Zoo, the Gilmore Car Museum and the W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. The city of some 75,000 is also home to four campuses of Western Michigan University. Budget-wise, Kalamazoo is easy on retiree pocketbooks; GoBankingRates found that Michigan residents pay 10.3 percent less, on average, for common living expenses than other Americans.

Also see:

WMU a leader in offering learning by virtual reality — from wmich.edu by Deanna Puca

Excerpt:

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Travel the world for history class and actually see the culture. Practice surgery or accurately design a 3D car.

Western Michigan University offers significant opportunities in the areas of teaching, learning and research at one of the largest virtual reality laboratories at an institution of higher education.

The VR Lab at WMU Libraries was started to explore this revolutionary technology as a collaborative effort of the Office of Information Technology and Waldo Library. Opening the door to broad collaborative possibilities and feeding the curiosities of varied audiences, users have experienced both the entertainment and educational side of VR content in the lab’s first year.

“Libraries are in a huge state of change with technology,” says Lou Ann Morgan, senior marketing specialist for University Libraries.

5 questions we should be asking about automation and jobs — from hbr.org by Jed Kolko

Excerpts:

Will workers whose jobs are automated be able to transition to new jobs?*
Who will bear the burden of automation?
How will automation affect the supply of labor?
How will automation affect wages, and how will wages affect automation?
How will automation change job searching?

From DSC:
For those Economics profs and students out there, I’m posted this with you in mind; also highly applicable and relevant to MBA programs.

* I would add a few follow-up questions to question #1 above:

To which jobs should they transition to?
Who can help identify the jobs that might be safe for 5-10 years?
If you have a family to feed, how are you going to be able to reinvent yourself quickly and as efficiently/flexibly as possible? (Yes…constant, online-based learning comes to my mind as well, as campus-based education is great, but very time-consuming.)

Also see:

We Still Don’t Know Much About the Jobs the AI Economy Will Make — or Take — from medium.com by Rachel Metz with MIT Technology Review
Experts think companies need to invest in workers the way they do for other core aspects of their business they’re looking to future-proof

One big problem that could have lasting effects, she thinks, is a mismatch between the skills companies need in new employees and those that employees have or know that they can readily acquire. To fix this, she said, companies need to start investing in their workers the way they do their supply chains.

Per LinkedIn:

Putting robots to work is becoming more and more popular, particularly in Europe. According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Slovakian workers face a 62% median probability that their job will be automated “in the near future.” Workers in Eastern Europe face the biggest likelihood of having their jobs overtaken by machines, with the textile, agriculture and manufacturing industries seen as the most vulnerable. • Here’s what people are saying.

Robot Ready: Human+ Skills for the Future of Work — from economicmodeling.com

Key Findings

In Robot-Ready, we examine several striking insights:

1. Human skills—like leadership, communication, and problem solving—are among the most in-demand skills in the labor market.

2. Human skills are applied differently across career fields. To be effective, liberal arts grads must adapt their skills to the job at hand.

3. Liberal art grads should add technical skills. There is considerable demand for workers who complement their human skills with basic technical skills like data analysis and digital fluency.

4. Human+ skills are at work in a variety of fields. Human skills help liberal arts grads thrive in many career areas, including marketing, public relations, technology, and sales.

The re-education of Economics 101 [Nelson]

On 12/18/2018, in colleges, community colleges, economics, higher education, ideas, liberal arts, UK, universities, by Daniel Christian

The re-education of Economics 101 — from qz.com by Eshe Nelson

Excerpt:

CORE’s online textbook, The Economy, has rewritten the first year of an undergraduate economics degree. Its goal is to make economics a study of the real world and to embrace topics that are typically thought to be too complicated for the simplified equations and theories taught in most introductory classes. The creators of CORE, which stands for Curriculum Open access Resources in Economics, wanted to address the complaints of students who said they’d studied economics to understand issues like poverty, inequality, sustainability, and technological innovation but instead faced years of abstract economic theory and mathematical equations. These students didn’t want to become econometricians. They wanted to solve problems using economics to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality, measure the true impact of automation, and achieve sustainable growth.

Those complaints became too loud to ignore following the financial crisis a decade ago. When the global economy went into free fall, economists suffered a severe loss of credibility. They were vilified for not anticipating the financial crisis and further berated for their inability to offer credible ways to speed up the weak recovery, which dragged on almost to the present day. While most countries’ economies have now recovered, the reputation of the economics profession has not. Its failures not only enraged people who had lost their jobs and their livelihoods, it infuriated students all over the world as well. They felt they weren’t properly equipped to understand what had happened.

This is one of the reasons that some of today’s foremost problems—inequality, climate change, and financial crises—are either missing or oversimplified in economics teaching, they argue. Economists lost their way, they say. The desire for mathematical perfection and scientific precision was partly to blame. But so was a desire to influence public policy and cement the credibility of economics as a relatively new science. “The result of this education is that we, as the next generation of economic experts, are grossly underprepared to use effectively or responsibly the power we are given,” write the authors.

Also see:

EDUCAUSE 2019 Top 10 IT Issues

On 11/06/2018, in colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, data related items, digital learning, higher education, IT in HE, leadership, liberal arts, platforms, student-related, universities, by Daniel Christian

See the PowerPoint presentation at the bottom of this page
in the “Resources & Downloads” section.

Is higher ed shooting itself in the foot? [Christian]

On 08/22/2018, in 21st century, adult learning, business, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, face-to-face, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, informal learning, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, pace of change, platforms, real-world assignments, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, training / L&D, trends, universities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

15 more companies that no longer require a degree — apply now — from glassdoor.com

Excerpt:

With college tuition soaring nationwide, many Americans don’t have the time or money to earn a college degree. However, that doesn’t mean your job prospects are diminished. Increasingly, there are many companies offering well-paying jobs to those with non-traditional education or a high-school diploma.
…
Google and Ernest & Young are just two of the champion companies who realize that book smarts don’t necessarily equal strong work ethic, grit and talent. Whether you have your GED and are looking for a new opportunity or charting your own path beyond the traditional four-year college route, here are 15 companies that have said they do not require a college diploma for some of their top jobs.

From DSC:
Several years ago when gas prices were sky high, I couldn’t help but think that some industries — though they were able to grab some significant profits in the short term — were actually shooting themselves in the foot for the longer term. Sure enough, as time went by, people started looking for less expensive alternatives. For example, they started buying more hybrid vehicles, more electric cars, and the sales of smaller cars and lighter trucks increased. The average fuel economy of vehicles went up (example). The goal was to reduce or outright eliminate the number of trips to the gas station that people were required to make.

These days…I wonder if the same kind of thing is happening — or about to happen — with traditional institutions of higher education*? Are we shooting ourselves in the foot?

Traditional institutions of higher education better find ways to adapt, and to change their game (so to speak), before the alternatives to those organizations gain some major steam. There is danger in the status quo. Count on it. The saying, “Adapt or die” has now come to apply to higher ed as well.

Faculty, staff, and administrators within higher ed are beginning to experience what the corporate world has been experiencing for decades.

Faculty can’t just teach what they want to teach. They can’t just develop courses that they are interested in. The demand for courses that aren’t attractive career-wise will likely continue to decrease. Sure, it can be argued that many of those same courses — especially from the liberal arts colleges — are still valuable…and I would agree with some of those arguments. But the burden of proof continues to be shifted to the shoulders of those proposing such curricula.

Also, the costs of obtaining a degree needs to come down or:

The gorillas of debt on peoples’ backs will become a negative word of mouth that will be hard to compete against or adequately address as time goes by
The angst towards higher ed will continue to build
People will bolt for those promising alternatives to traditional higher ed where the graduates (badge earners, or whatever they’re going to be called) of those programs are hired and shown to be effective employees
I hope that this isn’t the case and that it’s not too late to change…but history will likely show that higher ed shot itself in the foot. The warning signs were all over the place.

The current trends are paving the way for a next generation learning platform that will serve someone from cradle to grave.

* I realize that many in higher ed would immediately dispute that their organizations are out to grab short term profits, that they don’t operate like a business, that they don’t operate under the same motivations as the corporate world, etc. And I can see some of these folks’ points, no doubt. I may even agree with some of the folks who represent organizations who freely share information with other organizations and have motivations other than making tons of money. But for those folks who staunchly hold to the belief that higher ed isn’t a business at all — well, for me, that’s taking things way too far. I do not agree with that perspective at all. One has to have their eyes (and minds) closed to cling to that perspective anymore. Just don’t ask those folks to tell you how much their presidents make (along with other higher-level members of their administrations), the salaries of the top football coaches, or how many millions of dollars many universities’ receive for their television contracts and/or their ticket sales, or how much revenue research universities bring in from patents and so on and so forth.

Addendum on 8/24, per University Ventures e-newsletter

2. Facebook Goes Back to College (emphasis DSC)
TechCrunch report on how digital giants are buying into Last-Mile Training by partnering with Pathstream to deliver necessary digital skills to community college students.
Most good first jobs specifically require one or more technologies like Facebook or Unity — technologies that colleges and universities aren’t teaching. If Pathstream is able to realize its vision of integrating industry-relevant software training into degree programs in a big way, colleges and universities have a shot at maintaining their stranglehold as the sole pathway to successful careers. If Pathstream’s impact is more limited, watch for millions of students to sidestep traditional colleges, and enroll in emerging faster and cheaper alternative pathways to good first jobs — alternative pathways that will almost certainly integrate the kind of last-mile training being pioneered by Pathstream.

America’s colleges and universities could learn a thing or two from Leo, because they continue to resist teaching students the practical things they’ll need to know as soon as they graduate; for instance, to get jobs that will allow them to make student loan payments. Digital skills head this list, specifically experience with the high-powered software they’ll be required to use every day in entry-level positions.

But talk to a college president or provost about the importance of Marketo, HubSpot, Pardot, Tableau, Adobe and Autodesk for their graduates, and they’re at a loss for how to integrate last-mile training into their degree programs in order prepare students to work on these essential software platforms.

Enter a new company, Pathstream, which just announced a partnership with tech leader Unity and previously partnered with Facebook. Pathstream supports the delivery of career-critical software skill training in VR/AR and digital marketing at colleges and universities.

Addendum on 8/24, per University Ventures e-newsletter
3. Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College
Inside Higher Education Q&A on upcoming book A New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College.
Last-mile training is the inevitable by-product of two crises, one generally understood, the other less so. The crisis everyone understands is affordability and unsustainable levels of student loan debt. The other crisis is employability. Nearly half of all college graduates are underemployed in their first job. And we know that underemployment is pernicious and lasting. According to the recent report from Strada’s Institute for the Future of Work, two-thirds of underemployed graduates remain underemployed five years later, and half remain underemployed a decade later. So today’s students no longer buy that tired college line that “we prepare you for your fifth job, not your first job.” They know that if they don’t get a good first job, they’re probably not going to get a good fifth job. As a result, today’s students are laser-focused on getting a good first job in a growing sector of the economy.

“The scary amount that college will cost in the future” DC: This line of thinking — and trend — needs to come to an end.

On 05/18/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, higher education, ideas, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, liberal arts, library / librarians, lifelong learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, parents/guardians, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, smart classrooms, society, streams of content, student-related, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, United States, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

The scary amount that college will cost in the future — from cnbc.com by Annie Nova

Excerpt:

Think college is expensive now? Then new parents will probably want to take a seat for this news.

In 2036, just 18 years from now, four years at a private university will be around $303,000, up from $167,000 today.

To get a degree at a public university you’ll need about $184,000, compared with $101,000 now.

These forecasts were provided by Wealthfront, an automated investment platform that offers college saving options. It uses Department of Education data on the current cost of schools along with expected annual inflation to come up with its projections.

Excerpted graphic:

From DSC:
We had better be at the end of the line of thinking that says these tuition hikes can continue. It’s not ok. More and more people will be shut out by this kind of societal gatekeeper. The ever-increasing cost of obtaining a degree has become a matter of social justice for me. Other solutions are needed. The 800 pound gorilla of debt that’s already being loaded onto more and more of our graduates will impact them for years…even for decades in many of our graduates’ cases.

It’s my hope that a variety of technologies will make learning more affordable, yet still provide a high quality of education. In fact, I’m hopeful that the personalization/customization of learning will take some major steps forward in the very near future. We will still need and want solid teachers, professors, and trainers, but I’m hopeful that those folks will be aided by the heavy lifting that will be done by some powerful tools/technologies that will be aimed at helping people learn and grow…providing lifelong learners with more choice, more control.

I love the physical campus as much as anyone, and I hope that all students can have that experience if they want it. But I’ve seen and worked with the high costs of building and maintaining physical spaces — maintaining our learning spaces, dorms, libraries, gyms, etc. is very expensive.

I see streams of content becoming more prevalent in the future — especially for lifelong learners who need to reinvent themselves in order to stay marketable. We will be able to subscribe and unsubscribe to curated streams of content that we want to learn more about. For example, today, that could involve RSS feeds and Feedly (to aggregate those feeds). I see us using micro-learning to help us encode information and then practice recalling it (i.e., spaced practice), to help us stop or lessen the forgetting curves we all experience, to help us sort information into things we know and things that we need more assistance on (while providing links to resources that will help us obtain better mastery of the subject(s)).

DC: Might Alexa be a tool to periodically schedule & provide practice tests & distributed practice on content?

On 03/03/2018, in A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, assistive technologies, bots, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, curriculum, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, formal learning, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, internet, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning theories, liberal arts, lifelong learning, microlearning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, student-related, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, universities, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
After seeing the article entitled, “Scientists Are Turning Alexa into an Automated Lab Helper,” I began to wonder…might Alexa be a tool to periodically schedule & provide practice tests & distributed practice on content? In the future, will there be “learning bots” that a learner can employ to do such self-testing and/or distributed practice?

From page 45 of the PDF available here:

Learning Ecosystems

The WMU-Cooley Law School reduces tuition by 21% — excellent!

A model for other CS departments to follow? [Kuang]

Want to retire and then hit the books? 10 great college towns for retirees [Kiesnoski]

The re-education of Economics 101 [Nelson]

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