End of the University as we know it?

[IrishJohn]

Check out this article: The End of the University as We Know It - Nathan Harden - The American Interest Magazine

What will be interesting to see is which struggling university decides to copy the model established by the Big 3.

[clep3705]

Maybe for a liberal arts degree, yes. But don't waste your time reading it. The words "laboratory" and "lab" do not appear in the article at all. This model absolutely will not work for training nurses, chemists, physicists or engineers. They need expensive facilities for hands on learning.

While raising some valid points, the author didn't address some of the bigger, broader issues of higher education.

[Pjbarney]

Maybe for a liberal arts degree, yes. But don't waste your time reading it. The words "laboratory" and "lab" do not appear in the article at all. This model absolutely will not work for training nurses, chemists, physicists or engineers. They need expensive facilities for hands on learning.

While raising some valid points, the author didn't address some of the bigger, broader issues of higher education.

There will always be a need for some in-person education, particularly in the medical field. I enjoyed the article. The expanding virtual ed opportunities are good news for me. I am finishing my degree, BSBA, because it is currently the most efficient and economical option, and makes the best use of my previously earned credits. If I could choose a degree out of personal interest, it would be BFA in Art History. Saylor offers art history, but not for credit yet, and intitutions offering this degree (or TESC-transferrable courses) are too expensive for me, and many others. Maybe, by the time I earn my BSBA, an affordable MFA in Art History will be available.

[IrishJohn]

Maybe for a liberal arts degree, yes. But don't waste your time reading it. The words "laboratory" and "lab" do not appear in the article at all. This model absolutely will not work for training nurses, chemists, physicists or engineers. They need expensive facilities for hands on learning.

Well the author was speaking of apparent trends based on these coming changes, not exactly providing a detailed report on how every situation will be handled by schools. I'd say that these changes could encompass most degrees in some fashion. Not just liberal arts degrees, after all one could just as easily complete a BSBA online, but also those others you mention. Introductory courses in nursing, chemistry, physics and engineering certainly could be completed online. Just look at Straighterline for intro biology and chemistry. As for needed labs, I wouldn't be surprised to see schools make deals with private facilities or local community colleges to provide such services for them. These kind of details are being worked on and there will be some "growing pains" as these changes become mainstream but the point of the article seems to me ring true: the old traditional way of going to college is dying as online and nontraditional sources are competing with them with a comparable education at lower cost. I see this as only increasing in the next few years.

[clep3705]

Introductory courses in nursing, chemistry, physics and engineering certainly could be completed online. Just look at Straighterline for intro biology and chemistry.

Although introductory biology and chemistry are offered online, that doesn't mean it is the best way. It is a dilution of education.

You think an introductory course in nursing could be completed online? Are you a nurse? There are schools offering pharmacology online with unproctored exams. Academic integrity is more important in some courses of study than other.

[marianne202]

As a college instructor I agree some coursework wouldn't work being offered online ie: welding or industry / workforce type training, but many can translate into online learning. There are several schools offering online nursing degrees to become a registered nurse. They do have on-site clinical testing, but the rest of the components are totally online. The idea of partnering with outside entities is quite common. I used to work for a school where their nursing students did their clinical lab training at the local hospital that had a full nursing Sim lab. TESC partners with other facilities to offer some of their clinical medical training in their medical / dental degrees. As schools suffer with huge cuts in State funding as well as drops in enrollment we are being forced to find creative ways to keep the doors open and continue to offer a wide variety of courses and program offerings.

I'm afraid schools will be forced to cut low enrollment programs which will hurt specialized programs of study. Some of these may only have one or two schools offering these programs in a given State, so either the industry itself will have to pick up the training, it will have to become totally online or entire industries will disappear because people can't afford to move out of State just to go to school. If there is no local training option those industries won't locate to those communities. This creates a huge economic impact to the community and State. Some thing has to change in the way we have always done things in education if we want to remain competitive and keep supplying the workforce. As the workforce becomes more technology integrated, I totally expect education to follow suit. If a surgery can be performed via robotics with the operating physician half-way around the world we can teach pharmacology and nursing skills via online technology. Some in education predict face to face classes will no longer exist in another 10-20 years, I can totally see that happening.

[ronaldemail1]

There is many courses that require a live classroom or lab environment in order for the students to learn.
There will always be course that will try to provide the same training online. Some will be successful others
will fail.

The main problem is the current education bubble and the national debt which will make collapse many institutions
on a national level. We will see then which colleges will adapt and survive and which colleges will not.

Still I hope that the collapse makes the remaining colleges to properly assess how much they need to charge
based on their needs and market conditions but not on overpricing and scamming the student.

[IrishJohn]

Although introductory biology and chemistry are offered online, that doesn't mean it is the best way. It is a dilution of education.

I think that's a subjective opinion that will not hold up as these changes take effect and more folks are given the option to use alternatives to traditional classes. These course have been offered online now for years and before this Biology 101 and Chemistry 101 could be done by CLEP. Heck, years ago back in the early 1990s my local community college had both of these as online options, with labs being done on-campus. Now you can do both the classwork and labs online.

You think an introductory course in nursing could be completed online? Are you a nurse? There are schools offering pharmacology online with unproctored exams. Academic integrity is more important in some courses of study than other.

I think it may be possible, to what degree I wouldn't know. I imagine there will be some offline source utilized for hands-on instruction and labs that are needed. Given the lack of funding and the need to bring costs down to remain competitive I expect schools will become quite creative in working out the problems. For starters I doubt unproctored exams in pharmacology or anything else will survive for long. IMO this includes ALEKS.

[clep3705]

There are several schools offering online nursing degrees to become a registered nurse. They do have on-site clinical testing, but the rest of the components are totally online.

This isn't accurate. It isn't clinical testing that is done onsite, it is the entire clinical program that is done onsite, which is 800-1000 hours of clinical instruction. Testing is only a very small part. The hands on education and training is examining patients, cleaning poop, inserting catheters and IVs, cleaning even more poop, and dispensing drugs with a supervising nurse present.

People who are already nurses after attending a brick and mortar nursing program can attend a 100% online program to obtain a BSN. That's okay and totally different because they were already registered nurses before enrolling in the online program. The fact remains that acquiring the skills and knowledge to become a registered nurse is predominantly not online.

[Daithi]

I tend to agree with the general argument of the article, and the article itself even states that there are some courses not suited to online training. However, I believe most undergraduate degrees could be done online. Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and even Electronics courses that require labs and special equipment are possible, because most of the lab materials and equipment really aren't that expensive. Even if a student has to spend $1,000 or so for an occasional class that requires equipping their own lab it would still be worth it, especially if the student is majoring in that particular field (e.g. an EE undergrad buying an oscilloscope).

There are also some pretty cheap alternatives to some of the traditionally expensive equipment. For example, take a look at this article on a spectrometer built out of a cellphone. A strong case can be made that a student actually learns more using this type of inexpensive equipment because many students tend to view a traditional spectroscope as a blackbox where some kind of magic occurs that only an engineer can understand, but when they build a simple one themselves they have a much firmer grasp of the underlying concepts.

There may come a point that specialized equipment is required. There may come a point where interaction with patients is required (e.g. for Nurses and PAs). There may come a point where interaction with students is required (e.g. for teachers). So what? It still isn't much different than the B&M environment. If you want to become a teacher, most states require that you earn your Bachelors and then complete a certain amount of hours teaching in a classroom. These classrooms hours aren't done at the B&M college. They are usually done in a grammar school. Same with Nurses and Physician Assistants (PA). They have requirements of a certain amount of hours working with patients, or even require a kind of mini-residency. Yet once again, this is done in a medical facility and not the B&M college.

All that is required for this paradigm shift (yeah, an 80s buzzword) is for just one of the elite colleges to start offering credit for their online courses, or even better, offering a full undergraduate degree. If Stanford, Harvard, or MIT started offering an online BA in Liberal Arts for free, or even for say $10,000 (or even $20,000+), then they would probably have over a hundred thousand students from all over the world signed up to earn that degree --- including me. It wouldn't have the prestige or contacts/networking of their on campus degree, but it would have some prestige (and how much is $10,000 times a hundred thousand?). At this kind of money, one or more of the elite universities is bound to do it.

At first online degrees will probably be limited to just a basic degree, like a BA in Liberal Arts. However, I don't think they will be able to keep the genie in the bottle. Once one starts offering a basic degree then others will start offering other degrees to grab their own share of the online education pie. Before long, even advanced degrees from elite universities will be available online. I can also imagine the elite universities partnering with hospitals, schools, businesses, and States to provide the approved training programs and facilities for nurses, teachers, MBAs, lawyers, etc.

It is just a matter of time, but I'm still impatient.