I’m joining the party rather late, but thanks for pointing me towards this post.

I think there’s a lot of value in having a conversation about the future of higher level academic and professional education – and the possibilities for organising these outside of traditional institutions. We’re starting to host conversations about this around School of Everything – for example:

http://schoolofeverything.com/forum/think/masters-everything

I guess my question in response to your post is, how large a face-to-face element do you envisage in your alternative to university? I think that relates, also, to the question of whether education can adequately be described in terms of information transfer. Steve Talbott makes the case against this pretty powerfully:

http://www.netfuture.org/1998/Oct1598_78.html#2

It might be worth thinking about the social role of university. One thing it gives you is a group of peers, some of whom you stay in contact or cross paths with for years afterwards. What other side-benefits are there which turn out to be important reasons people go to university? (The student lifestyle…? The virtual bar on non-graduates in many desirable areas of employment?)

I think it’s extremely likely that we will see a trend towards disaggregation of the set of roles currently packaged together by universities. I also hold out a hope (though I don’t take it for granted) that one side effect of this disaggregation might be the creation of new spaces of reflection and scholarship, closer to the heart of what the university has historically been about. (This possibility is suggested by some of Ivan Illich’s late writings on the history of bookish reading.)

Just a few thoughts – but I’d love to carry on the discussion – and I hope the School of Everything forums might provide a space to bring together people from various directions who are asking similar questions.

Some would argue that a degree shows businesses that students can commit to a four year program. To me, commitment to a broken system is no virtue. I want the people with passion, not thoughtless “work ethic,” who will work their asses off for me and love it, but only if I provide them with challenging and interesting tasks. I want people with enough vision to realize the new opportunities and who are willing to disregard tradition and take advantage.

Now, I’m not entirely opposed to the university system. I have had great classes with great teachers who offered me an experience that couldn’t be had anywhere else. One of my best was an International Studies teacher. After taking his class, I was totally ready to be an INTL major, until I signed up for a few other classes and found that they were uninspired and irrelevant. One of the problems with the university system is that it insists we get a major in a given field, which means that inevitably we’ll end up having to slog through at least a few worthless classes. Find some way to make sure that each class I and others take is an experience I can’t get anywhere else, and I’ll back universities again.

For now, I’m an economics major. If I were an employer and saw that, it would mean less than shit to me. Everything taught in an econ class can be read in a textbook. So, what do I do? I don’t ever go to econ classes; instead I read the book for a couple hours before tests (my parents, the school and the state are paying for it, so it passes the cost benefit analysis test). The rest of the time I spend going to unique and inspiring classes like the one I talked about (for free), discussing things like this with my friends (for free), or reading and learning on my own (for free).

One, the live lecture is overrated. There’s no reason for a professor at my university to give a lecture on topics that are (a) available in textbooks and (b) available via excellent video lectures from institutions like MIT and Stanford. Now, you might say, “But then the students get to ask questions!” Properly networked ebooks and video lectures, however, DO allow them to do that.

Two, discussion are particularly underutilized in the hard sciences. These fields indeed are plagued by a stodgy atmosphere of consumptatory learning. Never have I had a discussion section for a math/science course dedicated to discussing new applications, pondering new directions of research, or inventing paradigms from which to approach the material. Again, networked education could help address the problem by offering forums for discussion.

I think what I tried to hint at while breaking down the types of education I see as relevant now is that there are a few basic types. The “hard sciences” I assume you’re alluding to above, such as math, physics, and chemistry would fit under my technical education classification. I do not believe you are limited to just the university setting to teach these areas.

Furthermore, I’m not quite sure that you’re arguing against the premise of my piece: a digital, networked education takes a far different form than an analog, linear one. While I do understand a traditional university education serves to teach “cultural literacy” (although Latin and Greek sadly speak nothing of Eastern culture) and bring them up to speed on the cutting edge, I see no reason that both of these end goals cannot now be achieved more effectively and efficiently off the campus. In fact, I would argue that students can learn at a far greater pace on their own and in collaboration with their peers, than in the classroom.

Probably, most of the reason why journalism school is useless is because journalism as a field doesn’t care about it’s own history, unlike any serious academic field.

In most subjects, a university education serves two purposes, to teach students how to think and become culturally literate (that’s the reason everyone used to learn Latin and Greek and read Cicero), and to bring them up to speed in the cutting edge by putting bright young students in the same room as researchers on the frontier. (Try doing research on differential equations if you haven’t learned calculus).

A third, as a perk, might be to prove to employers that the student isn’t an idiot.

So while journalism education might be dying, I doubt any students in harder fields feel the same way.