From the Chronicle of Higher Education in May 2009:

With tuitions, fees, and room and board at dozens of colleges now reaching $50,000 a year, the ability to sustain private higher education for all but the very well-heeled is questionable. According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, over the past 25 years, average college tuition and fees have risen by 440 percent — more than four times the rate of inflation and almost twice the rate of medical care. Patrick M. Callan, the center’s president, has warned that low-income students will find college unaffordable.

From the Washington Examiner in June 2010:

Post-bubble, perhaps students — and employers, not to mention parents and lenders — will focus instead on education that fosters economic value. And that is likely to press colleges to focus more on providing useful majors.

My question is whether traditional academic institutions will be able to keep up with the times, or whether — as Anya Kamenetz suggests in her new book, “DIY U” — the real pioneering will be in online education and the work of “edupunks” who are more interested in finding new ways of teaching and learning than in protecting existing interests.

And then there is Peter Thiel’s interview with the National Review in January 2011:

You know, we’ve looked at the math on this, and I estimate that 70 to 80 percent of the colleges in the U.S. are not generating a positive return on investment. Even at the top universities, it may be positive in some sense — but the counterfactual question is, how well would their students have done had they not gone to college? Are they really just selecting for talented people who would have done well anyway? Or are you actually educating them? That’s the kind of question that isn’t analyzed very carefully. My suspicion is that they’re just good at identifying talented people rather than adding value.

Thiel goes on to talk about the Thiel Fellowship, a program where young, talented people are given $100,000 over two years to start a company.

The main goal is to identify very talented people who could do a lot better without college than with college. As a society, we should not be waiting for them to get a college degree and be burdened down with enormous debt to the point where they can no longer take any risk. As a society, we do not take enough risk. And high debt is very inimical to risk-taking, which is an extremely important component of progress.

The Thiel Fellowship started small, announcing the acceptance of just 20 applicants in May 2011. It’s enough to create a buzz and get people asking a big question: Is college worth the cost?

A few decades ago, higher education was an essential toolbox that graduates would rely upon their entire career. Problems were predictable and could be solved by selecting the correct screwdriver or socket
wrench.

Today’s society demands flexibility. We change jobs and have to learn new skills. College toolboxes become obsolete in a hurry. We know that higher education needs to change. But how?

I don’t think online classes are the solution — they are more of the same, albeit cheaper. Instead of buying your tools at Home Depot, you’re picking up the same set off Amazon.

Colleges need to challenge students in new ways. One approach is to assign a real problem. Rather than being told what they should know, students can determine what they need to learn en route to a solution.

For example, let’s say you’re teaching a course on plant photosynthesis. Instead of a lecture, you could ask your students to author a children’s book on the topic. Explaining something complex in simple terms requires a clear understanding of the concepts, and hopefully your students will dive in headfirst. The idea is to spend more time guiding self-directed learning and less time forcing preset curriculum into their heads.

Higher education should be rigorous, diverse, and above all, fun. We should give students the capacity to build their own tools so they can adapt to the career and problems they face in an uncertain world.