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As institutes of higher learning struggle with lower enrolment, budget cuts and having to increase tuition fees, is it any wonder that once again technology is outpacing traditional universities when it comes to learning? MOOC’s or Massive Open On-line Courses are offering potential students a cheaper faster way to do things. Traditional universities are slow on the uptake and run a real risk of being left behind.
There was a time when degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford or Cambridge were a guarantee of success in whatever field of endeavour one chose. The Old Boy’s Network that came with membership in fraternities and sororities at Ivy League schools is losing its value. When you consider that the global economy is still recovering from its recent meltdown, the big salaries and cushy jobs that a degree from Harvard got you doesn’t exist anymore
The rising cost of tuition is not helping matters either. Student debt in the U.S. totals $1.2 trillion dollars. Let’s take a quick look at why online learning seems to be the next big thing.
It takes less time to get a degree, you can earn a great deal more credits and graduations rates seem to be a lot higher and cheaper! You can hold down a job while you’re earning your degree. This means that you are experiencing life in the real world while getting the piece of paper you need.
As a teacher I really value the face to face classroom time I have with my students and as they are people with multiple barriers that personal relationship is the key to learning for them. However, this on-line course has been a major time saver and allowed me to still do my day job. Education should always be evolving in order to not only keep pace with things like technology, but also allow us to be creative in the way we teach and learn. No two people learn in the same way and so our teaching methods need to be flexible enough to meet the needs of both traditional learners and people with special needs.
Traditional Universities need to be proactive when it comes to on-line learning. They need to question their future. Lecturing, cramming and Exams aren't working any more.
Almost every university has a sports program, football being the big earner and these programs are expensive to run. Also part of the allure of College life is the culture that goes along with it. Supporting your team, being a member of the debating team,
At the same time the big Universities won’t be able to support any sports programs if their tuition rates are so high that people can’t afford to go there.
San Jose State University is one of the universities that combine’s online learning with their regular curriculum with some interesting results. They discovered that of the students that had enrolled in an entry level Algebra course; only 18% passed the online course while 30% passed the classroom course.
From an economic standpoint, online learning is far less lucrative, but traditional universities need to incorporate online learning or be left behind. Princeton University talks of very high costs, in which universities are investing in glossy graduate centres, new libraries and accommodation to attract students.
I think that traditional universities need to learn a lesson from other industries that have had to either change with the times or have perished. A good example is the publishing industry. For decades the big publishing houses had a monopoly on the industry. It was every writer’s goal to get picked up by one of the big guys like Ballantine and receive a healthy advance. All you had to do was write a really good book and they took care of the book signings and talk show appearances. Because of self-publishing and e-books those days are over. Traditional publishing companies did not heed the warnings and are now almost extinct. Once aspiring authors realized that even if they get signed they would still be responsible for their own marketing then self-publishing became the way to go. If you decide to go with publishing an eBook, then companies like Amazon can make it very lucrative. You may still have to pay for an editor but they provide everything you need to upload your book directly to their sight and the split is 60/40 in your favour and depending on what you price your book at it can be very lucrative. Currently eBook sales account for about 30% of the market. Most authors prefer to do both traditional paper and eBooks. The point is that the publishing industry failed to recognize that technology was a viable option and suffered because of it. The same goes for Post-Secondary Education. Many top Universities are offering blended curriculum's. Even Yale and Harvard are embracing the idea by introducing MOOC’s and Edx YouTube lectures. That leaves the holdouts like Oxford and Cambridge still relying on their impeccable reputations and legacies among higher learning’s elite which could very well be their undoing.
When a university education is accessible and affordable for all it can only bring long term benefits to companies and industries that are struggling to retain the best and the brightest. There could be a kid in the mountain jungles of Cambodia with an internet connection right now who could prove to be the next Bill Gates or Steven Hawking.
Once again I find myself torn as to the benefits of on-line learning and other technologies when it comes to my classroom and the people I teach. Many of my students have learning disabilities and so they really only respond to one on one interaction. Through repetition, a great deal of patience on both the part of the teacher and student, people who have been labelled slow or unresponsive can not only learn but achieve far beyond what anyone has ever given them credit for. That being said, for us teachers to keep winning hearts and minds of those that have fallen through the cracks we need more people to pursue education as a career and that can only be accomplished if post-secondary education continues to evolve by embracing new technology. Graduates should not be burdened with insurmountable student loan debt by the time they graduate. Teaching has always been one of the under appreciated professions, but let’s face it some of the greatest minds that the world has to offer are all products of a teacher somewhere. The question Universities should be asking is not whether we can afford to adopt new strategies at the risk of losing our reputations, but rather can we afford to lose the next generation of future educators.
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