Changing the Economics of Education -- John Hennessy and Salman Khan at 2012 All Things Digitall

 

Excerpt:

Is there anything to be done about the rising price of higher education? That was the question posed to John Hennessy, president of Stanford University, and Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, a nonprofit online-learning organization. They sat down with The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg to discuss how technology might be part of the solution.

Here are edited excerpts of their conversation.

 

Addendum on 6/7/12:

  • D10: Stanford, Khan Academy, and the future of higher ed — from techhive.com by Jason Snell
    Excerpt:
    Though the crushing cost of college education wasn’t a major topic of Khan and Hennessy’s conversation with D10 co-host Walt Mossberg, it’s certainly a major cause of anxiety for parents. But most of the time, the conversation dwelled on the simple issue that technology is going to radically transform education—and right now everyone’s trying to figure out how to manage that change. “There’s a tsunami coming,” Hennessy said. “I don’t know how it’s going to break, but my goal is to try to surf it, not just stand there.” At its simplest form, technology needs to find ways to make education more efficient. That means serving more students, but also teaching them more effectively.

 

Harvard, MIT to partner in $60 million initiative to offer free online classes to all — from Boston.com by Mary Carmichael and Johanna Kaiser, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent

Excerpt:

CAMBRIDGE — Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said today they will team up to launch a $60 million initiative to offer free, online, college-level courses under a joint superbrand known as edX.

The announcement instantly makes the entity a preeminent player in the burgeoning worldwide online education sector, which has seen several major start-ups — including some affiliated with top-tier universities — in recent months.

Also see:

  • MIT and Harvard announce edX — from mit.edu
    Joint partnership builds on MITx and Harvard distance learning; aims to benefit campus-based education and beyond.
  • EdX: A platform for more MOOCs and an opportunity for more research about teaching and learning online — from InsideHigherEd.com by Audrey Watters
    Excerpt:
    At a joint press conference today, Harvard University President Drew Faust and MIT President Susan Hockfield announced a new nonprofit partnership, edX, that would offer free open online courses. If the “X” sounds familiar when paired with MIT, it’s because the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled its plans for MITx late last year, its online learning initiative that would allow anyone with an Internet connection to take an online class from the university and receive a certificate upon successful completion. The first class, 6.002x Circuits and Electronics, is currently underway.
  • EdX: The Future of Online Education is Now
  • Harvard and MIT launch edX to offer free online classes — from CNN.com by James O’Toole
    NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Always wanted to take a Harvard class? Soon you’ll be able to do so from the comfort of your own home.
  • Massive Courses, Massive Data — from InsideHigherEd.com by Steve Kolowich
    Harvard joins MT in platform to offer massive online courses

From DSC: First, some articles that caused these reflections


Discounting heads — from insidehighered.com by Kevin Kiley

Excerpt:

Despite spending nearly 43 percent of their gross tuition revenue from first-time, full-time freshmen on institutional aid for those students, many private colleges and universities had a harder time enrolling students last year, with almost half seeing no growth or a decline in enrollment for 2011, according to survey results released today by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

From DSC:
It seems to me that it’s highly-possible that the higher ed bubble has started to pop — at least at private colleges and universities. So why doesn’t change occur? See the next article for several reasons.

Failure to change — from insidehighered.com by Robert J. Sternberg

Excerpts:

Universities teach about the importance of societal and organizational change, but often have trouble changing themselves in any but the most superficial ways. As a psychology professor interested in both individual and organizational modifiability, I have studied organizations, including universities, and why it is so difficult for them to change. Meaningful organizational change requires five elements, and unless all five of them are present, the organization — whether a department, school, college, or university — remains static.

Change is not always for the better, of course. But a college or university that is static will inevitably fall behind more dynamic, positively changing institutions. And like any institution that fails to compete, it is on the path to stagnation or death. A dynamic institution will change and, if the change proves to be in the wrong direction, will redirect itself until it finds a sustainable path.

From DSC:
As a relevant aside, it’s not just the “younger folk” who are struggling with student loans either:

Student loans saddle both kinds of seniors: graduates and grandparents — from the Washington Post by Michelle Singletary

Excerpt:

Using data from Equifax credit reports, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that people 50 and older are carrying nearly $135 billion in student-loan debt. Those 60 or older have student-loan balances of more than $36 billion.

 


It’s these types of dynamics and trends that are catalysts for what I call:


“Learning from the Living Room”
Though 2-5 years away, signs point to it coming to fruition
(my prediction is that this movement will really gain traction when Apple’s Connected/Smart TV hits the market and as more people get fed up with the current, unresponsive accredidation monopolies within higher ed). Some example/recent articles:

  • The Evolution of the Digital Living Room — from digitalvideospace.blogspot.com by Chuck Parker
    Excerpt:

    Apple with its iPad, Apple TV and iCloud for movies and TV shows has delivered a seamless ecosystem to the consumer’s digital living room for owning and watching content from multiple devices in the home. The rest of the industry (SmartTVs, connected devices, Android tablets) struggles to create a similar experience when they are a single-brand ecosystem and fail miserably when there are devices from multiple manufacturers in the household.
    .
  • Google and Microsoft’s new battleground: Your living room — from ComputerWorld by Preston Gralla
    The upshot will have surprising implications for IT
    .
  • Why the future of Shazam is TV, not music — from readwriteweb.com by Richard MacManus
    Excerpt:

    Shazam is in the midst of a major pivot. Currently it earns most of its revenue off advertising from the music app. But within two years, the company told ReadWriteWeb, TV will provide the majority of Shazam’s revenue. Just how big an opportunity is TV for Shazam? According to statistics from the company, it is already outpacing both Facebook and Twitter in second screen user engagement.

“The Forthcoming Walmart of Education” …which is already happening, but far more significant changes will come in the next 1-5 years as people look for more affordable alternatives. A graphic I created back in 2008 states what I see developing and will be a piece of the higher ed landscape in the future:
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Besides the items mentioned above (i.e. changes in price and delivery mechanisms),
what might some of these innovations look like? Here are some ideas/articles/examples:


  • Be more responsive to real-world/market needs
    Example:
    12 college majors we hope to see soon
    — from bestcollegesonline.com
    While some college majors have been around for decades or even centuries, others are relatively new and some are still waiting on the horizon to be added to college programs around the world as new technologies and demands shape the needs of modern students. While a host of degree programs have been added over the past 10 or 20 years, many related to computers and other forms of technology, many more will be needed in the future to keep up with a world that is rapidly changing.
    .
  • Introduce more innovations and be willing to experiment with different models
    Examples besides MITx, Udemy, U of People, iTunes U, YouTube Edu, etc.:
    ANGELS, a new European research project, a gateway to the future.

    ANGELS project (Augmented Reality Network Generating Learning on Safety), is the training system that will revolutionize education and learning on safety and health at work, particularly in the hospital facilities. This tool aims at innovating in terms of training on health and safety at work with the use of augmented reality (computer system that can superimpose 3D image on a real image to combine real and virtual). ANGELS introduces 4 key innovations: A practice adapted to an innovative new technology, a realistic assessment in tune with the XXIst century in the area of education and training, a large field of application in the health care facilities and the creation of a starter kit for public and private organizations, training centers and academic centers.
    .
  • …and bring the prices WAAAY down!!!

 

 

 

Rethinking higher education business models — from americanprogress.org by Robert Sheets, Stephen Crawford, Louis Soares

Excerpt:

The theory ofdisruptive innovation—the notion that certain innovation can improve a product or service in such a way that it creates new markets that displace existing ones—was developed and advanced by Christensen in the 1990s. According to Christensen, who has studied the evolution of many industries, disruptive innovation occurs when sophisticated technologies are used to create more simplified and more accessible solutions to customers’ problems—solutions that are often less high performing than previous technologies but whose price and convenience attract whole new categories of consumers. The first generations of transistor radios, desktop computers, and MP3 players are examples. These new solutions—innovations to existing technologies deployed through new business models—gradually improved to the point where they displaced the previously dominant solutions. Christensen’s key point, however, is that new technologies like these cannot achieve their transformative potential without compatible changes in their industry’s business models and value networks, which in turn may require shifts in the standards and regulatory environment.

From DSC:
Given the current rumblings of massive changes that are about to take place (if they haven’t already) within the higher education landscape, each person within higher education that has key strategic and leadership responsibilities should be required to read the two books mentioned below. I assert this because these world-class researchers and authors have discovered and documented phenomenon that is affecting all of higher education at this point in time. Understanding the concepts in these books will help your college or university not only survive — but thrive — in the future.

  • The Innovator’s Dilemma — by Clayton M. Christensen
    Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Christensen is also co-founder of Innosight, a management consultancy; Rose Park Advisors, an investment firm; and Innosight Institute, a non-profit think tank. He is the author or coauthor of five books including the New York Times bestsellers The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Solution and most recently, Disrupting Class.
    .
  • Disrupting class, expanded edition: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns — by Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, Michael B. Horn.

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Also:

From DSC:
That article reminds me of a posting on my archived site from 4/11/09:

Let’s reallocate funds towards course development, and then let’s leverage those learning materials throughout the world!

 

Reallocate funds to course development, and bring costs WAAAAYYYY down and ACCESS WAAAYYY  UP!

For students: Bring costs waaaayyyyy down and access waaayyy up!
Plus, no more defaulted loans, students could experience richer content, students wouldn’t have to wait as much on financial aid decisions. There would be fewer financial aid headaches; and the resources devoted to figuring out & processing financial aid could be reduced. The issue will be how an institution can differentiate itself in such a new world…but that issue will have to be dealt with in the future anyway.

2011 Year in Review: Global Changes in Tuition Fee Policies and Student Financial Assistance.

Excerpt:

All around the world, the pace of change in higher education is accelerating. In the face of continued increases in participation, demographic change and – in the west at least – profound fiscal crises, higher education institutions are increasingly being required to raise funds from students as opposed to relying on transfers from governments. Indeed, the pace of policy change is coming so quickly that it is difficult to keep track of all the relevant developments in different parts of the world.

In this, the second edition of Year in Review: Tuition Fees and Student Assistance, we outline the major changes related to higher education affordability around the world in 2011. In order to keep our sample manageable, we have kept our inquiries to a selection of 40 countries that collectively best represent the global situation:

The G-40 consists of: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea (Republic of), Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam.

Marcucci, Pamela and Usher, Alex (2012). 2011 Year in Review:
Global Changes in Tuition Fee Policies and Student Financial Assistance.
Toronto: Higher Education Strategy Associates.

 

Student-loan debt tops $1 trillion — from WSJ.com by Josh Mitchell and Maya Jackson-Randall

Excerpt:

The amount Americans owe on student loans is far higher than earlier estimates and could lead some consumers to postpone buying homes, potentially slowing the housing recovery, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Total student debt outstanding appears to have surpassed $1 trillion late last year, said officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency created in the wake of the financial crisis. That would be roughly 16% higher than an estimate earlier this year by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

From DSC:
Phrases/words that come to my mind include (which many readers of this blog and my archived website will instantly recognize:

  • Reinventing ourselves
  • Staying relevant /addressing our customers’ needs
  • Innovation
  • Strategy
  • Leadership
  • Vision
  • The business side of higher ed / new business models
  • Game-changing environment
  • Disruption
  • Dangers of the status quo
  • Student-related
  • Future of higher education
  • The Walmart of Education
  • Learning from the Living Room

Addendum on 3/23/12:

 

Wait, isn’t this the old normal? — from InsideHigherEd.com by Kevin Kiley
Big tuition hikes at elite private institutions contradict the notion that colleges are focusing on reining in sticker price to make education affordable.
Excerpt:

The justification for the large increases at publics has been the need to maintain quality in the face of state appropriations cuts, an excuse private universities don’t have. For many privates, other revenue sources, including endowment returns and private giving, are back to where they were before the recession. And almost half the presidents of private doctoral universities surveyed recently by Inside Higher Ed said their institutions could make additional spending cuts without hurting quality, meaning there is little imperative for increases.

For this reason, the presidents of several private institutions have taken some measures to control costs. “Somewhere out there is a line, on the other side of which we become unaffordable. We haven’t crossed it yet, but we know we’re getting closer to it,” McCardell said. Total cost of attendance at some liberal arts colleges, including tuition, room, and board, is more than $50,000 a year.

Also see:
  • No diploma, no GED, no aid — from by Libby A. Nelson
    Excerpt:
    .
    WASHINGTON — Students who wanted to attend college, but didn’t have a high school diploma or GED, used to be able to get federal grants and loans through a back door: either take a basic skills test to prove their “ability to benefit” from a college education, or successfully complete six credits.
    .
    This year’s federal budget, in an effort to trim spending on Pell Grants, shut off both routes. As of July 1, newly enrolled students are required to have a high school diploma or GED in order to receive federal financial aid. College administrators say they worry the new policy will shut out older students seeking training to find a new job, immigrants, and students in states where money for basic adult education has been cut in budget crises.
    .
    Either those students will turn to riskier private loans, they say, or — more likely — they’ll just give up on pursuing higher education.

 

Staying Relevant

Below are the concluding paragraphs of Introducing Bennett Hypothesis 2.0 [by Andrew Gillen, Center for College Affordability and Productivity, with emphasis below from DSC)

Original Bennett Hypothesis + a couple refinements + Bowen’s Rule = Bennett Hypothesis 2.0.

The original Bennett Hypothesis held that increases in financial aid will lead to higher tuition, but the empirical evidence testing the hypothesis is inconclusive. The next generation of the concept, Bennett Hypothesis 2.0, adds three refinements.

1.  All Aid is Not Created Equal
2.  Selectivity, Tuition Caps, and Price Discrimination are Important
3.  Don’t Ignore the Dynamic Story

These three refinements not only help explain the mixed empirical evidence, but also provide a better understanding of the relationship between financial aid and tuition. While the first two refinements weaken the link between the two (lessening our concern about Bennett Hypothesis 2.0), the third refinement strengthens the link, implying that we should almost always be concerned about financial aid leading to higher tuition.

Given the current structure of the higher education system, Bennett Hypothesis 2.0 implies that the government will always be fighting a losing battle to increase access to college or improve college affordability since “additional government [financial aid] funds keep providing revenues that, under the current incentive system, increase costs.”54  As higher financial aid pushes costs higher, it inevitably puts upward pressure on tuition. Higher tuition, of course, reduces college affordability, leading to calls for more financial aid, setting the vicious cycle in motion all over again.

Bennett Hypothesis 2.0 exacerbates rather than causes out of control spending by colleges, the ultimate cause of which is Bowen’s Rule. Nevertheless, that is no excuse for ill-designed financial aid programs to pour fuel the fire.  As Bennett noted:

“Federal student aid policies do not cause college price inflation, but there is little doubt that they help make it possible.”55

Those words remain just as true today as they were a quarter century ago.

From DSC:
This report seems to show that the current system is only serving to expand the higher ed bubble even further; surely a pop will be heard in the future (if it hasn’t already at some individual colleges and universities).  Such a financial aid system seems to be causing one of the elements of the perfect storm — the cost of higher ed — to mount its waves to an even higher level.  (Keep in mind I created the image below in September 2010, but many of these forces are still with us today.)

The perfect storm in higher ed

 

From DSC:
Reflecting on Survival Factor [from Inside Higher Ed by Kaustuv Basu]:

Let researchers research, and teachers teach — but not both.  Teaching is an art as well as a science — and learning is messy.  It takes a long time and a great deal of effort to become an effective professor (and more “hats” are being required all the time).  On the flip side, there are skills required in research that may not be related to knowing how to be an effective professor.

The problem is — at least in many cases — that students are not served when researchers try to teach as well as do their research.  These researchers  were most likely recruited because of their ability to research — not due to their ability to teach.  I realize that there could be a subset that can do both teaching and researching.  But my experience at Northwestern was that the good researchers were not the effective teachers…and I’ll bet that’s still the case today.  Why?  Because there simply isn’t enough time and energy for most people to perform both roles well.

With the price of an education continuing to increase, is this a system we want to continue?  Are these researchers trying to improve their teaching?  Are they rewarded for their teaching efforts and growth?  If not, are the students being served here? In any other industry, would this type of situation continue to exist?

As we move towards a more team-based approach to creating and delivering education, we may want to seriously consider breaking up the roles of researcher and professor — and doing so for good. 


An infographic series on the current crisis facing higher education — from educationnews.org

  • Video
  • Infographic Part I
    A breakdown re: how an economic bubble forms, expands, and bursts; a comparison of the higher ed bubble to the housing bubble, and a look at the first major contributor to college’s bubble behavior: the rising cost of tuition.
  • Infographic part II:
    Analysis of the second and third big factors in blowing up the higher ed bubble: the student loans crisis, and the unforgiving post-graduation job market.

 

 

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2012/01/Top-Publishers-2011-PW.jpg

Data via Wischenbart; Graphic via Publishers Weekly

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Also see:

Has the higher-ed revolution begun? — from mindingthecampus.com by Charlotte Allen

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

It’s happening, almost overnight: what could be the collapse of the near-monopoly that traditional brick-and-mortar colleges and universities currently enjoy as respected credentialing institutions whose degrees and grades mean something to employers.

The most dramatic development, just a few days ago, was the decision of robotics-expert Sebastian Thrun to resign from his position as a tenured professor of computer science at Stanford in order to start an online university he calls Udacity that he hopes will reach hundreds of thousands of students who either can’t afford Stanford’s $40,000-a-year tuition or who can’t travel thousands of miles to one of the bricks-and-mortar classes he used to teach.

Besides threatening to up-end universities’ traditional control of educational credentials, Thrun may also drastically change the shape of for-profit education. Udacity is being operated by Know Labs, a Thrun-founded for-profit enterprise funded by the venture-capital firm Charles River Ventures. Know Labs’ ultimate aim, according to Thrun, is to offer high-quality online courses that will be either free or cheap (the company is in the process of developing a business model). Thrun has estimated, for example, that if he and Norvik had charged only $1 apiece to all 160,000 enrollees in their artificial-intelligence course last fall, they could have easily recouped their costs. By contrast, the majority of existing for-profit colleges charge relatively high tuition that has made those institutions highly dependent upon their students’ federal grants and loans. It’s unlikely that anyone would have to borrow in order to take an Udacity course.

Also see:

Free courses, elite colleges — from InsideHigherEd.com by Steve Kolowich

Excerpt:

Robert Garland, a professor of classics at Colgate University, is not accustomed to discussing Greek religion with the lifeless lens of his MacBook’s built-in video camera. But that was how Garland spent Wednesday afternoon: in his home study, recording lectures on his laptop in 20-minute chunks.

Garland, a novice to online teaching, says it is difficult to think of these solitary sessions as lectures. “I think of them more as chats,” he says.

Garland’s gear is lo-fi: just the laptop, which he owns, and a microphone mailed to him by Udemy, the company that roped him into this.

Obama wants lower college costs, higher dropout age — from edweek.org by Alyson Klein

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SOTU_Blog.jpg

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

President Obama gave college affordability a prominent place in his domestic agenda during his annual State of the Union address, calling directly on universities to hold down costs in order to make higher education more accessible to the middle class. He outlined a set of proposals that include threatening universities with a loss of federal money if they are unable to tamp down tuition.

“Let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down,” Obama said in his hour-long address. He didn’t offer specifics, however, and the blueprint document the White House sent out to accompany the speech didn’t get specific either. But advocates expect him to lay out more concrete details in the coming days.

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State higher education spending sees big decline — from HuffingtonPost.com by Christine Armario

Excerpt:

MIAMI — State funding for higher education has declined because of a slow recovery from the recession and the end of federal stimulus money, according to a study released Monday.

Overall, spending declined by some $6 billion, or nearly 8 percent, over the past year, according to the annual Grapevine study by the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University. The reduction was slightly lower, at 4 percent, when money lost from the end of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act was not taken into account.

The funding reductions, seen across nearly every state, have resulted in larger class sizes and fewer course offerings at many universities and come as enrollment continues to rise.

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Beware: Alternative certification is coming — from The Chronicle by Richard Vedder

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

As college costs rise, however, people are asking: Aren’t there cheaper ways of certifying competence and skills to employers? Employers like the current system, because the huge (often over $100,000) cost of demonstrating competency is borne by the student, not by them. Employers seemingly have little incentive to look for alternative certification. That is why reformers like me cannot get employer organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to take alternative certification seriously. But if companies can find good employees with high-school diplomas who have demonstrated necessary skills and competency via some cheaper (to society) means, they might be able to hire workers more cheaply than before–paying wages that are high by high-school-graduate standards, but low relative to college-graduate norms. Employers can capture the huge savings of reduced certification costs. And students avoid huge debt, get four years more time in the labor force, and do not face the risks of not getting through college. Since millions of college grads have jobs which really do not use skills developed in college anyhow, alternative certification is more attractive than ever.

Addendums on 1/26:

  • President Obama: ‘Higher education can’t be a luxury – it is an economic imperative’ — from annarbor.com by Ryan Stanton
  • Survey finds that dwindling financial aid contributes to fewer college options — from the NYT by Daniel Slotnik
    Excerpt:
    College freshmen entering school last fall were less likely to attend their first choice of college, a function of both competition and cost, than at any other time since 1974, and fewer received financial aid through grants or scholarships, according to an annual survey of nearly 204,000 high school students.
  • Pressure remains for higher education: Moody’s — from Reuters
    The financial conditions of many U.S. colleges and universities will likely not improve much this year, as states continue cutting funding for public schools, students become more price sensitive, and areas for other revenue remain stretched, a lead rating agency said on Monday.  “During the past year, public and political scrutiny of colleges and universities, both not-for-profit and for-profit, has escalated and we expect that the sector will remain under the microscope in 2012 and beyond,” said Moody’s Investors Services in a report outlining why it is maintaining a “mixed outlook for U.S. not-for-profit private and public colleges and universities, mirroring our 2011 outlook.”

Stormy waters ahead as ‘disruptive forces’ sweep the old guard — from timeshighereducation.co.uk by Sarah Cunnane
Online education will turn the academy inside out, argue US authors. 

Excerpt:

Graduation rates in the US have fallen, and states have slashed funding for higher education. As a result, public universities have raised tuition fees, and many are struggling to stay afloat during the recession. But two authors working in the US higher education sector claim that the academy has a bigger battle on the horizon: the “disruptive innovation” ushered in by online education.

This disruption, they say, will force down costs, lure prospective students away from traditional “core” universities, transform the way academics work, and spell the end for the traditional scholarly calendar based around face-to-face teaching.

Clayton M. Christensen, the Kim B. Clark professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and Henry J. Eyring, advancement vice-president at Brigham Young University-Idaho, outline their ideas in The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out.

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The perfect storm in higher ed

 

Also see:

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