Traditional students rebelling against online education

[LongRoad]

> Yes, find me 5 successful politicians who got their bachelors online though?

I can do better than that

I can show you 5 students who dropped out of in-person classes at Harvard University, University of Chicago, University of Texas, Reed College and yet became billionaires

Mark Zuckerberg
Bill Gates
Lawrence Ellison
Michael Dell
Steve Jobs

see ? in-person classes and connections and the ability to exchange ideas with professors and other students in person is highly overrated

moral of story: if our goal is to get rich and be successful we should all drop out

During WWII many allied planes were shot down. Would additional armor help? If so, where do you put it? Data was gathered on returning B-29 bombers about where the bullet holes were. Lots more bullets were going into the fuselage than the engine platforms. Wings? Fuel systems? They all got more bullet holes than the engine platform, so we don't need to armor the platform. (That was the position of the Defense Department.)

Or do we? Abraham Wald made the point that these were the planes that SURVIVED (survivorship bias). They made it home. They followed Dr. Wald's advice to put more armor on the engine platforms. Many pilots owe their lives to Dr. Wald.

So a few folks dropped out of college and did well. Success bias? I suspect lots more people would be less successful without traditional colleges.

[PrettyFlyforaChiGuy]

The students may partly be against this shift as they are so highly motivated and eager to learn in the first place, and Natshar's point about the professors having a new online education paradigm suddenly hoisted upon them and fumbling with it makes a whole lot of sense to me. Many of the B&M programs probably will need to consult more closely with educators who have trained in providing online education. Traditional students may associate online learning with inferior quality...possibly due to the quality of instruction that they're receiving right now, or their preconceived notions about online learning in general.

I think the broader point that will be examined more closely soon is that online learning opportunities have really democratized education. That's fantastic, but people looking at online learning providers with near-100% admission rates would likely assume that the students who attend are "unable to get into anywhere else." People on this forum would know better and could provide very compelling arguments in favor of alternative learning, but we're also staring down the long-standing reality of ease-of-access and supply versus perceived quality and demand.

The students who are able to be admitted into highly selective universities--with the exception of slots set aside for legacy admits and the like--are generally of a similar traditionally "high intellectual standard" and/or demonstrate significant leadership qualities. This goes beyond having sky-high standardized test scores (whole other topic, but these really seem to just correlate most closely with the test-taker's socioeconomic status and access to test prep services) since when applying within the range where you'll start to find the Ivies, perfect GPAs, SATs, a slew of 5's across AP/IB courses aren't enough to be truly competitive; they're essentially the baseline. The applicants must truly demonstrate exceptional qualities to stand a chance, but even then admission can be written off as largely a statistical fluke, since the rejected applicants are just as qualified.

So, even though I know it was partly tongue-in-cheek, when people point to the success of famous drop-outs, they often neglect to mention that these individuals were already gifted enough to be admitted to these top programs in the first place, or that they had a marketable business idea, or the contacts to pursue it. They were already some of the brightest we had to offer anyway.

[Life Long Learning]

I bet there are no millionaires in this forum, 

You would lose that bet.

[natshar]

I bet there are no millionaires in this forum, 

You would lose that bet.

I'm almost a millionaire. Just subtract $999,999

[graduatesoon]

About 20 years ago, I attended a graduation at a small, an extremely expensive college. One of the student speakers told of how, when she was very young, her father, a farmer, told her that if she wanted to go to college, she'd have to pay for it. The family simply couldn't afford it. She spoke of how she had to work as part of the financial aid, and all of the things she missed because of it. Further, she said that students SHOULDN'T have to work as part of the financial aid because of the school experiences that they missed, and the connections that couldn't be formed.  I rolled my eyes.

President Richard Nixon (Tricky Dick) went to Duke Law as a work / study scholarship and liked to tell about wearing the little white coat and serving meals and busing tables for the frat boys in the fraternity and then sitting in class with them. Then sitting in the freezing cold with an overcoat while he hard butt studied in the little shed he rented. His experience with that social distancing experience was his own trigger event.

Working in the library and hiding in the stacks and missing the parties. I can imagine her poor farmer father sitting in the audience wondering where he went wrong.

I'm still plodding along and grateful for this forum.

[Life Long Learning]

Stoic is confusing success vs education. 
 
I spend $5,000-$10,000 per week doing Executive Education because I can.   My peers in these EE programs are very successful. Some with no college at all.  I have only met one who was an Ivy grad.  They come from all walks of life.  
 

[rachel83az]

$5-10k/week is a lot of money! Are you funding these endeavors yourself or is an employer funding them?

[Life Long Learning]

$5-10k/week is a lot of money! Are you funding these endeavors yourself or is an employer funding them?

Some I am personally funding and some the GI Bill (only in about 12 universities are they GI Bill approved).   Even in the latter I personally fund air travel, hotels, etc. 

My bucket list is 15k to do one at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School (another, not GI Bill approved, but gets you alumni status).  My Navy Officer buddy just did it before the shutdown.  He also out of pocket.

[Life Long Learning]

$5-10k/week is a lot of money! Are you funding these endeavors yourself or is an employer funding them?

The Executive Education students are almost always more successful in these EE programs than the professor with the ivy type Ph.D.  That’s why I am addicted to them.   A Harvard professor told me on a break that he has a hard time recruiting Harvard professors to teach EE as many are intimated.  It’s not a bunch of 19-year olds that they can teach propaganda too (my words not his).  The professors have education but lack real experience.  Every EE student is there because they ARE successful regardless of education level.  I know tons of PAC-12, John Hopkins, and Ivy League type’s grads that are not successful.  The odds are better…..yes!

[Stoic]

> Yes, find me 5 successful politicians who got their bachelors online though?

I can do better than that

I can show you 5 students who dropped out of in-person classes at Harvard University, University of Chicago, University of Texas, Reed College and yet became billionaires

Mark Zuckerberg
Bill Gates
Lawrence Ellison
Michael Dell
Steve Jobs

see ? in-person classes and connections and the ability to exchange ideas with professors and other students in person is highly overrated

moral of story: if our goal is to get rich and be successful we should all drop out

No, in this case they dropped out because they all got into tech and had to focus on their work.  They also got into tech at breakthrough points.

Bill Gates for example was already a bright mind who was hand picked to attend that selective college he dropped out from. Bill Gates wasn't out there trying to get Straighterline credits to eventually drop out of University of Phoenix and then go into a coding bootcamp, he was and still is a genius and his mind works at a very high level.

All of these people were. They would've been successful with or without college. We can't say the same for 99% of the population that lacks structure and the proper habits.

---

Stoic is confusing success vs education. 
 
I spend $5,000-$10,000 per week doing Executive Education because I can.   My peers in these EE programs are very successful. Some with no college at all.  I have only met one who was an Ivy grad.  They come from all walks of life.  
 

I'm not confusing anything. Maybe you are?

I'm not sure what's confusing you about the fact that there's a difference in attending a top program IN PERSON at a young age and getting a BS degree where you post BS on Blackboard to get grades from someone who you have never met and have no connection to via an online program?

There's a huge difference in bigger tutored in person by someone like Ken Gemes and dealing with a professor from TESC in philosophy which you don't even know how she looks like. Nevermind taking a Straighterline course in Philosophy or whatever.

But whatever, keep thinking that is not any different.

Also, wildly successful people don't take executive certificates or whatever that it is. That's for workers,  as a matter fact super rich people don't even have LinkedIN or care for it. Do you think a wildly successful rich entrepreneur from Italy is right now on his or her LinkedIn page fixing their certificate structure? No, they are having fun and living life.

I took out all of my certificates from my social media profiles, they are worthless. Including the very expensive ones I took in the past.  I'm not trying to create issues here. I'm just stating that in my opinion these young people who are attending top schools and have goals, have a reason to rebel if that's what they want to do, because there's a difference between online and brick and mortar as much as everyone here argues back at me about it.