When Your Gen Ed Curriculum Disappears

[spork]

What will your employer do when demand for gen ed courses disappears?

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/08/21/new-online-ed-start-aims-community-college-market-university

[ciao_yall]

What will your employer do when demand for gen ed courses disappears?

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/08/21/new-online-ed-start-aims-community-college-market-university

Same thing they did when MOOCs took over the world and put us out of business.

[spork]

What will your employer do when demand for gen ed courses disappears?

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/08/21/new-online-ed-start-aims-community-college-market-university

Same thing they did when MOOCs took over the world and put us out of business.

Is your employer desperately seeking transfer students to bolster enrollment? Mine is. Last year I had my first advisee who matriculated with 90 transfer credits. One year to complete a major and out the door with a diploma. Yet the financial models from the business office are still predicated on the vast majority of students being residential full-time undergrads enrolled for eight semesters.

Gen ed courses are interchangeable commodities. Demand for them will be increasingly price elastic.

[marshwiggle]

What will your employer do when demand for gen ed courses disappears?

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/08/21/new-online-ed-start-aims-community-college-market-university

Same thing they did when MOOCs took over the world and put us out of business.

Is your employer desperately seeking transfer students to bolster enrollment? Mine is. Last year I had my first advisee who matriculated with 90 transfer credits. One year to complete a major and out the door with a diploma. Yet the financial models from the business office are still predicated on the vast majority of students being residential full-time undergrads enrolled for eight semesters.

Gen ed courses are interchangeable commodities. Demand for them will be increasingly price elastic.

And so eventually, institutions will stop requiring them, since they are money losers.

[downer]

It's part of a general trend to dilute gen ed. Some parts of gen ed could persist, others will fade away.

What will happen to departments that rely on gen ed? Some will build other parts of their offerings, such as Master's programs or new inventive majors. Others will just stagnate, and won't hire any new FT faculty for a couple of decades, or will merge with other departments.

[secundem_artem]

Today is move in day for all the little fresh persons at Artem U.  Four year residential colleges serve one purpose that MOOCs and other online ventures cannot fill.  If you're a parent, a four year residential school means YOUR IDIOT KID WILL LEAVE HOME.

I never know what to make of gen ed requirements.  I did my undergrad outside the US where gen ed was not a part of a typical undergraduate education.  The closest I ever got to a gen ed course was Psychology 101.  My friends in engineering had even fewer choices.  And yet our interests beyond our fairly narrow curricula was pretty wide - music, fine art, poetry, theater.

Most gen ed curricula seem to be founded on the bias that us science types need some edumacatin'.  So, history, English and poetry class for everyone!  I know engineers who are very active in theater.  I have yet to meet an English major who understood much beyond simple arithmetic.

If we want to keep gen ed, ideally we need to know what we want it to accomplish and ensure that happens.  As it sits, all too often it's just a list of distribution requirements that (in the words of my students) must be "gotten out of the way".

[spork]

[. . . ]

Most gen ed curricula seem to be founded on the bias that us science types need some edumacatin'.  So, history, English and poetry class for everyone!  I know engineers who are very active in theater.  I have yet to meet an English major who understood much beyond simple arithmetic.

Funny you should mention this. I lived in a residence that contained 30-35 undergrads at any one time. The vast majority were in engineering or science fields. Many were accomplished musicians, writers, etc. One went on to become a Zen monk. This was an elite school though. No one majored in "business" or "education."

If we want to keep gen ed, ideally we need to know what we want it to accomplish and ensure that happens.  As it sits, all too often it's just a list of distribution requirements that (in the words of my students) must be "gotten out of the way".

For many institutions, the list of distribution requirements is really just a facade for two things: 1) "my department has to have a gen ed requirement so that there is demand for courses offered by my department sufficient to maintain the current number of faculty lines," and 2) "to be financially viable we need students to be full-time and pay tuition for eight semesters."

[mythbuster]

     This is already happening here at NE Swampy U. Between dual enrollment, AP, and transfers from the local community college; the enrollment in the "gen ed" courses has plummeted. Students already have those squared away, often before graduating from high school.
       It totally screws over the science majors, as you can't then space out all those science courses, with some art, or history, or anything else. And there is NO room to ever change majors because then you would go "over hours"! Many of our departments that rely on gen-ed to pad the load, (history, philosophy etc), are in full blown panic.
     I did my undergrad at a place where there really were NOT designated "gen ed" courses, but rather used the distribution model. It was just- go take X number of courses from the following departments. Most of the humanities courses didn't really have pre-reqs, so you got to take cool upper level courses on topics you cared about. Hence my love now of early Christian architecture, for example.
    Also, the students and parents here at NE Swampy are not like the students at Artem U. They need to live at home to help with child or elder care, or are holding down a full time job at the same time. Their parents don't even understand the idea of residential college as a place to gain emotional maturity, as it's all just a luxury to them.
   So maybe this online product will be better than the dual enrollment courses my student now arrive with. That would a pretty low bar to top.

[polly_mer]

     This is already happening here at NE Swampy U. Between dual enrollment, AP, and transfers from the local community college; the enrollment in the "gen ed" courses has plummeted. Students already have those squared away, often before graduating from high school.

In 2018, IHE reported a record number of AP tests being taken with almost 38% of the 2017 HS cohort taking at least one AP course.

A study of University of Texas students indicated that 61% of students entering in 2015 had some college credit with a median number of credits of 18.

"In the 2015-16 academic year, 49 percent of all students who completed a bachelor's degree at a four-year institution had been enrolled at a two-year public institution at some point in the previous 10 years."

"Federal data on the year-round student population show that 38 percent of undergraduates attended public two-year colleges in 2016–17."

The student model of people arriving at college campuses at age 18, averaging 15 credits per term for 8 consecutive terms, and graduating at age 22 from the one institution they attended describes very few students outside of elite institutions.  A concise, readable article from the Washington Post outlines the student population changes and asks why policy is not changing to reflect the students enrolled rather than the inaccurate model of the typical student

[apl68]

Today is move in day for all the little fresh persons at Artem U.  Four year residential colleges serve one purpose that MOOCs and other online ventures cannot fill.  If you're a parent, a four year residential school means YOUR IDIOT KID WILL LEAVE HOME.

I never know what to make of gen ed requirements.  I did my undergrad outside the US where gen ed was not a part of a typical undergraduate education.  The closest I ever got to a gen ed course was Psychology 101.  My friends in engineering had even fewer choices.  And yet our interests beyond our fairly narrow curricula was pretty wide - music, fine art, poetry, theater.

Most gen ed curricula seem to be founded on the bias that us science types need some edumacatin'.  So, history, English and poetry class for everyone!  I know engineers who are very active in theater.  I have yet to meet an English major who understood much beyond simple arithmetic.

If we want to keep gen ed, ideally we need to know what we want it to accomplish and ensure that happens.  As it sits, all too often it's just a list of distribution requirements that (in the words of my students) must be "gotten out of the way".

Well, I can remember having the desire to just get stuff out of the way.  I've mentioned elsewhere that I tested out of my undergrad school's gen ed math and science requirements.  It wasn't that I had no interest in math or science (I like to suppose I have a better lay understanding of them than the English majors you've apparently met).  I was just more interested in other things, and wanted to get some of the gen ed stuff out of the way so as to move on with that. 

I can think of other classes not directly related to my major in history that I couldn't get out of taking.  And I'm glad I did have to take them.  They were educational and horizon-broadening.  I still regret not devoting at least a little time to math and science during my undergrad when I had the chance. 

Youths today have such an extremely instrumental view of higher education.  If it gets so that they never have to study anything not narrowly focused on their area of vocational interest, it seems like they'll be the poorer for it.