Effect of rural college closing

[dismalist]

As for content delivery, it is extremely inefficient to have thousands of humans with very-expensive-to-get PhDs teaching the same World History 101 course in thousands of physical classrooms every semester when Crash Course: World History offers the same information with a far higher production value for free on YouTube.

Uh huh.  Self education only takes you so far.  We'd all be freaking geniuses if all learning took was watching a video or reading a book.  Take a look at the learning losses during Covid after transitioning from face to face to online learning.  The data points to losses between 1/2 year to 2 years based on testing results.  Further, most rural colleges aren't employing high numbers of Ivy League grads.  The real contraction point is falling population and thus falling enrollment.  Closing a satellite campus while financially expedient to the system exacerbates populations shift and most times also destroys the tax base supporting the system.  It's a downward spiral ultimately benefiting neither the system or the taxpayers.

It's not a downward spiral when knowledge becomes less costly to distribute, because knowledge has increasing returns. E.g., monks hand-copying manuscripts in Latin -- which for the most part only clerics could read -- compared to printing presses churning out books in the vernacular. While the required Pearson World History 101 textbook costs $75 and is 600 pages of non-narrative drivel, the student can get the same information in a more comprehensible format for free from Crash Course.

If all a person does in the classroom is recite content, they're going to be replaced by a far less expensive alternative.

Edited to add: I find it amusing that people think outsourcing content creation and distribution is outlandish for universities, but they don't bat an eye at watching a Netflix-distributed TV series made in South Korea -- instead of writing a script, hiring the actors and crew, and contracting with a TV channel themselves.

For knowledge creation, we need damned few universities or independent research institutes. It can be outsourced.

For distribution, we are already near free access. In Economics, Khan academy does a fine job on lower level stuff, and my travels on YouTube have yielded a surprisingly broad and impressive array of fairly advanced stuff. Complementary Statistics and Mathematics is readily available, too.

What is left for the broad mass of colleges and universities to do? Certification! Students don't want to learn so much as to get themselves certified. That can't be done on--line without ensuring against cheating, for widespread cheating would devalue the certificates.

Perhaps most universities and colleges will evolve into syllabus writing organizations and test centers! :-)

[ciao_yall]

As for content delivery, it is extremely inefficient to have thousands of humans with very-expensive-to-get PhDs teaching the same World History 101 course in thousands of physical classrooms every semester when Crash Course: World History offers the same information with a far higher production value for free on YouTube.

Uh huh.  Self education only takes you so far.  We'd all be freaking geniuses if all learning took was watching a video or reading a book.  Take a look at the learning losses during Covid after transitioning from face to face to online learning.  The data points to losses between 1/2 year to 2 years based on testing results.  Further, most rural colleges aren't employing high numbers of Ivy League grads.  The real contraction point is falling population and thus falling enrollment.  Closing a satellite campus while financially expedient to the system exacerbates populations shift and most times also destroys the tax base supporting the system.  It's a downward spiral ultimately benefiting neither the system or the taxpayers.

It's not a downward spiral when knowledge becomes less costly to distribute, because knowledge has increasing returns. E.g., monks hand-copying manuscripts in Latin -- which for the most part only clerics could read -- compared to printing presses churning out books in the vernacular. While the required Pearson World History 101 textbook costs $75 and is 600 pages of non-narrative drivel, the student can get the same information in a more comprehensible format for free from Crash Course.

If all a person does in the classroom is recite content, they're going to be replaced by a far less expensive alternative.

Edited to add: I find it amusing that people think outsourcing content creation and distribution is outlandish for universities, but they don't bat an eye at watching a Netflix-distributed TV series made in South Korea -- instead of writing a script, hiring the actors and crew, and contracting with a TV channel themselves.

For knowledge creation, we need damned few universities or independent research institutes. It can be outsourced.

To... where? Other universities or independent research institutes?

For distribution, we are already near free access. In Economics, Khan academy does a fine job on lower level stuff, and my travels on YouTube have yielded a surprisingly broad and impressive array of fairly advanced stuff. Complementary Statistics and Mathematics is readily available, too.

Remember when MOOCs, the internet, television, books, the printing press, paper-making, and universal literacy were all going to completely make all knowledge completely and seamlessly available to anyone, thus eliminating the need for schools? 

What happened?

What is left for the broad mass of colleges and universities to do? Certification! Students don't want to learn so much as to get themselves certified. That can't be done on--line without ensuring against cheating, for widespread cheating would devalue the certificates.

Perhaps most universities and colleges will evolve into syllabus writing organizations and test centers! :-)

As Clark Kerr famously said, "The three purposes of the university? To provide sex for the students, sports for the alumni, and parking for the faculty."

[dismalist]

Remember when MOOCs, the internet, television, books, the printing press, paper-making, and universal literacy were all going to completely make all knowledge completely and seamlessly available to anyone, thus eliminating the need for schools?

What happened?

No certification.

[ciao_yall]

Remember when MOOCs, the internet, television, books, the printing press, paper-making, and universal literacy were all going to completely make all knowledge completely and seamlessly available to anyone, thus eliminating the need for schools?

What happened?

No certification.

But... badges! You would put electronic badges all over your profile and everyone would know what collection of microskills you had to do whatever task.

[dismalist]

Remember when MOOCs, the internet, television, books, the printing press, paper-making, and universal literacy were all going to completely make all knowledge completely and seamlessly available to anyone, thus eliminating the need for schools?

What happened?

No certification.

But... badges! You would put electronic badges all over your profile and everyone would know what collection of microskills you had to do whatever task.

The "no cheating condition" is easily violated. It cannot be done without controls. Test centers are coming! :-)

[kaysixteen]

Like it or not, we all know that many online diploma programs at actual 'accredited' unis are very subpar, and alumni of such places often have a hard time getting serious professional employment and/or grad/professional school admittance, but at least these places are accredited schools of a sort.   How exactly are students supposed to vet the quality of things like youtube videos, etc?   Most students, as most librarians well know, are very incompetent when it comes to internet search analysis skills...

[dismalist]

Like it or not, we all know that many online diploma programs at actual 'accredited' unis are very subpar, and alumni of such places often have a hard time getting serious professional employment and/or grad/professional school admittance, but at least these places are accredited schools of a sort.   How exactly are students supposed to vet the quality of things like youtube videos, etc?   Most students, as most librarians well know, are very incompetent when it comes to internet search analysis skills...

Yup, the part about accreditation is true. But it is also true that existing accreditors have no incentive to give the Good Housekeeping Seal  of Approval to collections of YouTube videos! What's needed is competition among accreditors. But that's politically driven, not market driven.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Like it or not, we all know that many online diploma programs at actual 'accredited' unis are very subpar, and alumni of such places often have a hard time getting serious professional employment and/or grad/professional school admittance, but at least these places are accredited schools of a sort.   How exactly are students supposed to vet the quality of things like youtube videos, etc?   Most students, as most librarians well know, are very incompetent when it comes to internet search analysis skills...

"Like it or not, we all know that many online diploma programs at actual 'accredited' unissmall colleges are very subpar, and alumni of such places often have a hard time getting serious professional employment and/or grad/professional school admittance, but at least these places are accredited schools of a sort.   How exactly are students supposed to vet the quality of things like youtube videos adjunct professors etc?   Most students, as most librarianspeople well know, are very incompetent when it comes to internet search analysis identifying employable skills..."

Those online courses from larger universities are not competing with MITs of the world.

Yup, the part about accreditation is true. But it is also true that existing accreditors have no incentive to give the Good Housekeeping Seal  of Approval to collections of YouTube videos! What's needed is competition among accreditors. But that's politically driven, not market driven.

Overwhelming majority of the students doesn't know (let alone care) about their school accreditation.
On top of that, "competition among accreditors" sounds very much like competition between rating agencies to rate a particular bond. - hardly a sign of a positive outcome.

[dismalist]

Overwhelming majority of the students doesn't know (let alone care) about their school accreditation.
On top of that, "competition among accreditors" sounds very much like competition between rating agencies to rate a particular bond. - hardly a sign of a positive outcome.

There is no evidence for the first statement. Even all those for-profit colleges that have gone or are going bankrupt were accredited. If there are no non-accredited colleges, it does not pay to look.

The second statement ignores incentives, too: The rating agencies were paid by the bond issuers! We mustn't have the accreditors paid by the accreditees! :-)

The difficulty is devising a substitute for a college's reputation. Harvard and Oxford do not need to be accredited. If there were a variety of accrediting agencies -- competition --  one could have different kinds of standards. E.g., the for profit entrants could have been accredited, or not, by an agency that correlated incoming class attributes with job market success. Nothing like that happened because accreditors are regional cartels of existing institutions.

[ciao_yall]

Like it or not, we all know that many online diploma programs at actual 'accredited' unis are very subpar, and alumni of such places often have a hard time getting serious professional employment and/or grad/professional school admittance, but at least these places are accredited schools of a sort.   How exactly are students supposed to vet the quality of things like youtube videos, etc?   Most students, as most librarians well know, are very incompetent when it comes to internet search analysis skills...

The purpose of accreditation is to allow students to receive Federal Financial Aid, which is paid to the college in the form of tuition, etc. So the incentive for the college is to provide some sort of minimum level of quality, and convince students to take out federal financial aid loans to pass those on to the college.

My former college famously sued our rather corrupt accreditor and won.

[ciao_yall]

Remember when MOOCs, the internet, television, books, the printing press, paper-making, and universal literacy were all going to completely make all knowledge completely and seamlessly available to anyone, thus eliminating the need for schools?

What happened?

No certification.

But... badges! You would put electronic badges all over your profile and everyone would know what collection of microskills you had to do whatever task.

The "no cheating condition" is easily violated. It cannot be done without controls. Test centers are coming! :-)

So they will build a testing center.

And, while they are at it, maybe they can hold classes before the test so testees can learn the material. Testees might even be willing to pay for the classes, since they are there anyway.

They might even put up a cafeteria. A nice one, with a salad bar, for testees to eat and socialize before and after the test.

Testees from out of town might even like an affordable, hostel-like environment where they can stay overnight. Perhaps they might decide to sign up for a series of tests, and attendant classes, for an extended period of time to take advantage of a break in the harvest or something.

A bar and restaurant might open up to provide an alternative to the cafeteria options.

Hmmm...

[dismalist]

Remember when MOOCs, the internet, television, books, the printing press, paper-making, and universal literacy were all going to completely make all knowledge completely and seamlessly available to anyone, thus eliminating the need for schools?

What happened?

No certification.

But... badges! You would put electronic badges all over your profile and everyone would know what collection of microskills you had to do whatever task.

The "no cheating condition" is easily violated. It cannot be done without controls. Test centers are coming! :-)

So they will build a testing center.

And, while they are at it, maybe they can hold classes before the test so testees can learn the material. Testees might even be willing to pay for the classes, since they are there anyway.

They might even put up a cafeteria. A nice one, with a salad bar, for testees to eat and socialize before and after the test.

Testees from out of town might even like an affordable, hostel-like environment where they can stay overnight. Perhaps they might decide to sign up for a series of tests, and attendant classes, for an extended period of time to take advantage of a break in the harvest or something.

A bar and restaurant might open up to provide an alternative to the cafeteria options.

Hmmm...

Testees from out of town might even like an affordable, hostel-like environment where they can stay overnight.

Sure, one night per semester. :-)

Some will opt for the one night and some will opt to attend full - time.

[lightning]

Remember when MOOCs, the internet, television, books, the printing press, paper-making, and universal literacy were all going to completely make all knowledge completely and seamlessly available to anyone, thus eliminating the need for schools?

What happened?

No certification.

But... badges! You would put electronic badges all over your profile and everyone would know what collection of microskills you had to do whatever task.

The "no cheating condition" is easily violated. It cannot be done without controls. Test centers are coming! :-)

So they will build a testing center.

And, while they are at it, maybe they can hold classes before the test so testees can learn the material. Testees might even be willing to pay for the classes, since they are there anyway.

They might even put up a cafeteria. A nice one, with a salad bar, for testees to eat and socialize before and after the test.

Testees from out of town might even like an affordable, hostel-like environment where they can stay overnight. Perhaps they might decide to sign up for a series of tests, and attendant classes, for an extended period of time to take advantage of a break in the harvest or something.

A bar and restaurant might open up to provide an alternative to the cafeteria options.

Hmmm...

Testees from out of town might even like an affordable, hostel-like environment where they can stay overnight.

Sure, one night per semester. :-)

Some will opt for the one night and some will opt to attend full - time.

Dismalist, make sure you live long enough so that when (if) my job becomes a testing center, you can remind me (us) of your 2023 prophecy. In the meantime, my job is swell, but you are free to dance on the grave site that you have dug for us all. Just be sure not to fall in first.

[dismalist]

,,,

Dismalist, make sure you live long enough so that when (if) my job becomes a testing center, you can remind me (us) of your 2023 prophecy. In the meantime, my job is swell, but you are free to dance on the grave site that you have dug for us all. Just be sure not to fall in first.

Hell, I'm retired, enjoying the only true freedom there is. I'm dropping into the real grave soon!

[lightning]

,,,

Dismalist, make sure you live long enough so that when (if) my job becomes a testing center, you can remind me (us) of your 2023 prophecy. In the meantime, my job is swell, but you are free to dance on the grave site that you have dug for us all. Just be sure not to fall in first.

Hell, I'm retired, enjoying the only true freedom there is. I'm dropping into the real grave soon!

I hope not. Please live long and prosper. I mean it!