Comments about ‘Universities will be relevant’

When I hear someone say that Universities need to be more relevant, I get apprehensive.

People who say the same things about math education use this as an excuse to dumb it down.

Let higher education be higher education.

Libruls will be irrelevant, too.

I share the same fear that "adapting" and being "relevant" to often seem to be code for dumbing down.

Relevancy is not just limited to teaching methods and the socialization of students. Perhaps the real question is whether the traditional four year degree track still makes sense.

Are universities meeting the needs of todays students by using a model that was developed in the last century? Why does a full-time student need four full years to obtain a degree? Why not three or five? Are young people foregoing a college degree because there are better ways to prepare for success in life?

It is amazing that in 2009 a highly educated man has just concluded what this uneducated man concluded a decade ago. For the most part brick and mortar higher education institutions will be irrelevant in the near future. It is a simple supply and demand evaluation.

I see the best minds on the planet teaching any and all who want to learn for a fraction of the money they spend for tuition today. Because the technology will allow for a large volume of students, these top level educators will receive many time more compensation than they are now receiving . Everyone wins except the cash cow universities and football freaks.

The clear benefit is that an educated society is a productive society. Society cannot be productive by slamming the educational doors to everyone who doesn't have a few hundred grand laying around the house.

Ironically, this new aged education will slam the doors shut to the less qualified educators due to the fact that one can have the best for less.

Are you saying there aren't already enough options for young people.

There are 6 month and 1 year certificates. 2 year associate degrees, 4 year bachelor degrees and degrees above that.

There are trade schools, there are needful jobs that need doing that require no degree.

What exactly is missing from the way we already do things?

you need to go back to class junior

While I certainly agree that access to information and education is extremely important and that it is very exciting to see the access to both increase there are things that I think (as a person from a proud working class family that got the chance to go to college) traditional university does and provides that cannot simply be replaced through technology. I think the role of Universities will change but I think they are far from having their doors slammed shut.

What does it mean to "meet the needs of students"? On one level, the basic need of survival requires job skills. Nobody disagrees. But these are not an end in themselves. The university provides space for people to think together, to imagine, to envision, to create new insights. Students "need" more than job skills. They also need lives.

I am a university graduate. Were I to take a class now, I would likely do it online. The extra freedom this affords is appealing. However I don't see this as the best option for my kids, I want them to have the experience of attending a University in person.

We have radio, television, movies, DVD players, cell phones which have tv shows.

Its not going to be a one size fits all solution.

Spoken like a true ostrich.

The only things Prof. Wiley got wrong are the extent and velocity of the coming irrelevance.

Anyone with their head out of the sand knows universities are already pampered, overpriced irrelevant institutions that impose a hedonistic communitarian socialist orthodoxy on youth, with the same zeal and many of the tactics of the Taliban.

As this fact becomes more and more apparent during the coming economic meltdown, taxpayers will be less and less willing to support that intransigent irrelevance and will demand serious changes, if not an outright scrapping of the university system.

About time!

I didn't appreciate the comment that online college is somehow easier than attending a bricks and mortar institution. I earned an online master's degree from Minnesota State University - Mankato and I venture a guess that my mettle was tested more than the typical traditional student. You see, I suffered three herniated disks in my back one semester into my program. I completed the degree lying flat on my back - unable to even stand up because of the pain. But I did it and I completed a rigorous program delivered online. I couldn't have done that the traditional way.

Plus, online learning can be more difficult than face-to-face instruction. You have to work independently, be self-starting, and do your work without having someone there to hold your hand. Someone who hasn't earned an online degree should try it before they criticise it. My hat is off to all those who took on the challenge of earning a degree online. You are all winners in my book.

Maybe you should inform yourself better about what online education is and how it works before passing judgements and making statements that are, at best, ignorant?

The availability of learning is greater today than it has ever been and I agree with Wiley's wisdom. The school system was created by the Titans of Industry to make sure their employees were doing what they "should" do.

It's time we realize a piece of paper (diploma) doesn't hold the perceived value our society thinks it does; granted, doctors, chemists, and a few others need specific core training for their professions but the majority can learn from online universities or free resources like Ted Talks www.ted.com or even www.youtube.com where you can learn anything in this world.

I'm sure most teachers won't agree because they expect tenure or the chance to monopolize on their overpriced lecture material but this is where the 21st century has brought us and the traditional way of thinking is no longer necessary or relevant.

As the president of a 100% online institution I can tell you that online education is not "easier" than campus based education. In many ways, it is more difficult because it requires more self discipline on the part of the student.

Our courses use the same textbooks and same formats as the brick and mortars. The curriculum is the same. Many of the faculty are the same. Our accreditation body (DETC) has the same approval from the US Dept of Ed as the Brick and Mortar's accrediting bodies.

To back up Professor Wiley's comments, I would suggest that people pick up Clayton Christensen's "Disrupting Class".

Ultimately, education is changing and technology will enable us to do amazing things. I don't believe the traditional campus will disappear, but institutions that don't embrace this change will.

Technology is radically transforming public education as well. Can you believe that students now request podcasts of lectures? Online Powerpoints of the lectures as well? I estimate that I have answered over 1,000 student and parent e-mails this year. That is many hours of additional work, often from my home.

I believe that summer school can be deliverd without the cost of air conditioning all of the public schools. Some (not all) subjects can be delivered hrough technology. But it is very demanding on the teacher. E-mails are much harder and more time-consuming to deal with than a question in class.

Bricks and mortar out of style? Yes, they are too costly. But teachers/professors are and still will be needed.

I'm not sure it this is more shocking, or saddening, to hear that a college professor is just coming to the realization of what industry has been telling educational systems for decades.

It has always been beyond me why our educational community seems to think that a bunch of professional educators, who for the most part have never worked in business or industry, are well qualified to train others in these professions.

So, Professor Wiley's observations are really a Duhh! That said, it is good that he is standing up and yelling this. It needs to be heard.

"CEO will appreciate the rigors of earning a degree in Logan, which can mean enduring some tough winter conditions. That builds a different sort of mettle, we'd submit, than earning an online degree tapping away on a laptop without changing out of one's pajamas."

So the CEO would appreciate that a 19 year old lived on campus in a dorm on scholarships with no commute and no outside job, and not appreciate a 35 year old single parent with two kids and a full time job who got their degree working after the kids were in bed?

Not the type of CEO I'd want to work for.

I believe in eyeball to eyeball contact in the teaching enterprise, but I'll tell you this - today's student wants online education, and that is the future of education.

Online content allows those who teach in the classroom to take their courses to a higher level. I teach statistics and economics. I started posting my lectures on youtube (youtube.com/statisticsfun). My students take notes differently in class and I spend less time on the mechanics of statistics. I spend more time on applications and theory. I believe the online content has allowed me to take my class to a higher level.

Those that do not change become irrelevant. Universities are not known for their ability to change and adapt.