Evolution of Higher Education

[BormonReborn]

I work in higher education, but that was not my career choice... it just fell in my lap 5 years ago and I have been running with it ever since. I work in Institutional Research at a community college, which for those that don't know touches all aspects of an institution. It was a bit of a culture shock for me since my background was in software development.

Here are few changes and trends that I have been following and some of them concern me.

Distance Education:

More and more courses and programs are being taught online. I have even taught a few courses this way. However, there is always this question of the quality of the education. Is online learning as good as in class learning? I am really hip to the concept of "hybrid" learning where some of it is online and some of it is in class.

Classroom Technology:

This is sort of an extension of the age old argument of "calculators in the classroom". How much technology is appropriate in a classroom? This world is moving at an alarming speed with technology... so it makes sense that education keep up, however at what point is the technology a crutch? Are students losing the fundamental understanding concept because they have mastered the tools that are supposed to make tasks easier.

Education Accountability:

With the rising costs of education, the federal government has tried to make institutions more accountable for their students. It is not enough for a school to educate a student, but the student must be able to get a job with that education so they can justify the costs. On the surface this sounds like a good idea... however how can the school be accountable for a students drive to succeed?.... how can the school be responsible for economic downturns? Should schools reduce the programs they offer because there is no guarantee of a job being available afterwards?

[Cuellar]

Definitely an interesting topic. One other thing in the educational accountability is that not all education is created equal. I see folks getting MBAs from University of Phoenix and I can't but wonder that their job prospects are not improving. Same with a lot of lower end universities, which generally cause their students to rack up insane levels of debt yet the job prospects are non existent (or not better for having received the education).

On distance education I really think it depends on the student. Some people are visual learners, some auditory, others by doing. Their level of focus and commitment can make a huge difference as well, and if they don't fail students who don't understand, it is a disservice to everyone.

On classroom tech, somewhat of a tangent, if you think about the increase in efficiency in our economy over the last 100 years... and compare it to education, where there has been a nominal improvement in efficiency (and everyone bitches about student-teacher ratios), it really isn't sustainable without dramatically increasing technology usage in teaching. Maybe the end state will be having babysitters in class rooms, with the best teachers on the planet doing some sort of video conference teaching session/lecture for most of the class (like large courses are taught in colleges). Maybe robots will take over... who knows.

[TerraPrime]

There is already a thread on the state of higher education in the U.S. Please utilize that one.

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/117602-the-state-of-higher-education-in-the-united-states/

I will merge this into the existing thread later.