By Evan D. Robertson, Project Associate.
If you’ve spent more than two straight decades in some form of
educational system then there is only one word to describe your
relationship with education: ambivalent. On the one hand, the complete
dominance of your time, constant stress to perform, and general
shenanigans that accompany it begin to wear you out. On the other, there
is something truly magnificent about the process of discovery. Upon my
graduation, there has, admittedly, been a pull to go back to school. I
imagine this is akin to what a prisoner serving a lengthy sentence might
feel when they finally get parole: your new found freedom becomes laced
with a sort of hesitancy because you know nothing else. Thankfully,
there is a new option for the recovering student.
Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
are currently offering online courses. So, why am I writing about two
schools that obviously have the technical capability of offering
instructional courses over the internet? It’s quite simple: the courses
are free. That is, I get the pleasure of being in school without two
critical factors: student debt and stress. The former is quite
important, as my colleague, Jonathan Miller, described in his recent blog Degrees of Snobbery:
ballooning tuition, rising student debt and stagnant median income is
creating pressure on higher education to offer degrees at a reduced
cost. While Stanford and MIT’s foray into open source education is more
guided by their mission to impact global society rather than reduce
higher education’s cost, their actions open the gates to what is
possible to provide students at no or low cost.
After spending a few weeks going over the features of both institutions’
online offerings, I can only describe it as impressive. The variety of
features, replication of social learning, and testing capability far
outweighs my initial preconceptions in regards to the limitations of
online learning –said preconceptions were regrettably colored after
making a student loan payment. Stanford and that other tech school, have
come as close as an institution could get in balancing the social
atmosphere, learning environment, and one-on-one instruction that one
obtains during their postsecondary education. And spending a few days
watching course lectures, doing a few homework problems, and reading
text books (also offered for free or at low cost), I now understand why,
during focus group sessions, every higher education stakeholder voiced
deep-seeded concerns about top tier universities offering free online
instruction.
With Stanford and MIT’s entrance into territory generally reserved for
local community colleges and universities, combined with their
multi-billion dollar endowments, it is quite likely that local community
colleges and universities will be force to adapt. It may soon be the
role of these vital institutions not to teach basic knowledge (the
theory and concepts of how a circuit works, for example), but focus on
applied “sticky” knowledge that is deeply tied to place. Instead of
teaching introductory coursework (now provided online at no cost), local
community colleges and universities must further leverage their ties to
local business communities and help students better connect their basic
knowledge to real-world applications. Such a connection may involve a
business which presents a problem currently faced by the organization,
creating a duel team of students and employees to approach the problem
either cooperatively or redundantly. For now, educators can rest easy:
students are unable to obtain a Stanford or MIT degree upon competition
of online coursework. For now.
