Thursday, April 29, 2010

Meltdown in Higher Ed.?

Seth Godin:
For 400 years, higher education in the US has been on a roll. From Harvard asking Galileo to be a guest professor in the 1600s to millions tuning in to watch a team of unpaid athletes play another team of unpaid athletes in some college sporting event, the amount of time and money and prestige in the college world has been climbing.

I'm afraid that's about to crash and burn. Here's how I'm looking at it.

Here are his reasons:
1. Most colleges are organized to give an average education to average students.

2. College has gotten expensive far faster than wages have gone up.

3. The definition of 'best' is under siege.

4. The correlation between a typical college degree and success is suspect.

5. Accreditation isn't the solution, it's the problem.
Click over to read his explanations.  

2 comments:

the sife said...

Rampant grade-inflation and the attendant devaluing of a "college degree" is a problem that will have dire consequences for Western Civilization for decades to come.

Anonymous said...

There's nothing to support the tale that Galileo was offered a professorship at Harvard. In Harvard's earlier years, they were interested in preparing men for ministry - not astronomy.