
Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/coronavirus-college-professors.html
======
gbronner
This is looking more and more like an extinction event for academia.

Elite institutions can charge whatever they want for their brand name and
selectivity, and for the environment of other equally motivated high potential
students.

Other schools combine a school with a resort/cruise ship experience. Insofar
as the school is no better than a bunch of videos, and the resort is mostly
shut down, so long as employers don't care, it will be hard to justify
spending 10x on a residential experience.

With live teaching going the way of life musicians 100 years ago, we can
expect similar effects- fewer better teachers, and better access to them.

~~~
dredmorbius
I'm leaning more strongly to "major impact / selection event / paradigm shift"
than extinction. Education generally, and universities specifically, are
highly durable institutions which have undergone massive changes over time,
whilst retaining recognizable elements from their origins. Specific
universities are remarkably durable, with the oldest (Bologna, Oxford,
Salamanca, Cambridge) dating to the 11th and 12th centuries (Bologna will be
1,000 years old in 2088, within the lifetime of some now reading this).
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in_continuous_operation))

Curricula, degrees conferred, methods, organisation, associated attached sport
and medical industries, and defence and research programmes ... are largely
newer. Starting with the Humboldtian reforms in Germany in the early 19th
century, much of what we now think of as the modern universiy started taking
shape
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldtian_model_of_higher_ed...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldtian_model_of_higher_education))

In-place instruction of both explicit and tacit knowledge, remains the most
effective method attained. Mediated education, whether through old low-tech
such as books, or high, such VR headsets, may have their affordances, but
simply cannot match the full immersion of simultaneous group presence. More so
for tacit knowledge in which simply ingesting words is not sufficient, where
hands-on experience is required, and equipment, facilities, and materials
needed.

There are several fundamental functions of the universiy which seem unlikely
to vanish. Education; credentialling; open research; establishing curricula
and pedagogy; relations with culture, industry, and government, document
archival, basic research; keeping aging academics off the streets; and serving
as transition institutions four young adults entering the world, all remain.
No doubt individual campuses or systems will collapse, and many revered
traditions will be abandoned, at least temporarily.

How this is accomplished given a few months, or years, or decades, of endemic
disease, is a challenge. The institution's seen worse.

~~~
an_opabinia
> Education generally, and universities specifically, are highly durable
> institutions which have undergone massive changes over time

It's as though, if you concentrate a lot of smart and well-meaning people in
one place, they make a great institution!

Maybe not any particular university, but the idea of elite, sequestered
scholarship itself has long outlived neoliberal capitalism.

It was never about money. Moneyed interests expounding on the future of the
academy are always dead wrong.

~~~
Kinrany
Finding other smart and well-meaning people and coordinating with them to meet
at the same place is not trivial though.

------
acwan93
Scott Galloway of NYU called it, and has been increasingly louder about it.

Like he says, it seems like this is the turning point for many middle-tier
universities. Once you start viewing colleges as brands and luxury goods,
especially the Stanfords and Harvards, it becomes clear there’s a massive
revenue shortfall for them.

>This fall, I’m scheduled to teach MKTG-GB.2365 (Brand Strategy) in KMC 2-60
Tuesday nights at 6-9pm. It’s not going to happen. The room would normally be
filled with 170 full- and part-time MBAs looking to garner the skills to build
economic security for themselves and their families, and improve the world.
Mostly the former. However, a room full of 170 NYT subscribers, sitting elbow
to elbow, spells one thing — recurrence. So, while Liberty University will
likely welcome kids back to campus, I speculate we, and anybody else that does
not have their head up their a __, will
not.[https://www.profgalloway.com/post-corona-higher-
ed](https://www.profgalloway.com/post-corona-higher-ed)

------
davesque
As a full-time resident of Boulder, CO (college town), this seems like an
impossible situation. I can well imagine that the university here is under
heavy pressure from local government to hold classes in the fall. This is
because going a semester without all the students/faculty will be disastrous
for the town's economy. On the other hand, the increase in coronavirus cases
will also be disastrous. I don't have an answer. But, as a person who recently
bought their first home in the area, I'm pretty bummed at the prospect of the
local economy collapsing.

~~~
kleinsch
We’re moving to Boulder next month. With houses starting at $800K and larger
houses going for $1.5M+, it seems like the local economy must be driven as
much by the tech companies that flocked to Boulder bc of the school as by the
school itself.

~~~
davesque
I've lived here for about 30 years and I really doubt Boulder would last long
without the university. And when I said "home", I meant condo, not house. The
average tech employee in Boulder is still a long way away from house ownership
in town. The real estate prices are not primarily explained by the tech scene.

------
vgchh
For universities to fully crumble and education to become significantly
cheaper, in addition to all the advancements that have occurred in last
decade, I believe we need a credible way to certify students online. Imagine
if someone sitting in Tibet or slums of Bombay could prove to Googles of the
world that he/she (and not some hired help) successfully completed a highly
ranked test online, it could be transformative. If online testing could vouch
for a person in the same way that universities do, it could open the doors to
world-class opportunities for the entire world, cheaply.

~~~
wongarsu
Online tests are wide open to cheating if they aren't taken in person. Hybrids
exist (take online test in a testing center, e.g. AWS certifications), but
aren't all that useful for the slums of Bombay.

And in a way Google is already doing this in person with their interview
process: they ask obscure questions aimed at knowlege gained in a computer
science degree (or by good test preparation).

~~~
vsskanth
taking tests in a testing center is actually pretty viable and scales well.
This is primarily how all those international students from developing
countries write GRE, TOEFL and end up coming to study in the US.

------
gruglife
I’m an adjunct prof at a middle tier college. We have a couple classes planned
to be in person for fall. I highly doubt it. Plus a majority of the student
body is foreign and can’t even travel to the USA. Essentially I’m sayin RIP to
middle of the road universities. Guess I need to start looking for another
side hustle.

------
outoftheabyss
I’m doing a distance data science degree at a fraction of the cost and I would
imagine I’m getting much more out of it than this September intake will.
There’s been a revolution in remote working, will education follow?

~~~
blackrock
I hope the education is free. Because without the human presence, paying
$250,000 USD for a university education sounds like a ripoff.

~~~
chrisseaton
Is anyone genuinely paying a quarter of a million dollars for a degree? That
seems extreme even for a non-scholarship medical doctorate degree, let alone a
simple data-science degree.

~~~
DreadY2K
I'm a current college student, and my school costs about $80k per year,
counting tuition, room & board, supplies, etc., before financial aid. That
would be $320k for 4 years, well over a quarter of a million.

I'm personally getting a significant amount of financial aid, so that it will
end up costing much less than that for me, but I know people who are paying
full price.

EDIT: I'm an undergrad at a 4-year university.

~~~
chrisseaton
Obviously I believe you if you're saying that, but I've heard that nobody
really pays these full sticker-prices and everyone's really getting some kind
of aid unless they're literally a billionaire - is that not the case?

~~~
drfuchs
Typically, in the Ivy League / Stanford, a one-child family with annual income
of over $150k to $200k (depending on the school) will pay full tuition.
Really. And incomes of less than $65k-ish get you a free ride. Details vary.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
This happened with my family. It was especially bad because earning $150k
total for a household near an expensive urban area leads to purchasing power
basically the same as a family with $65k household income in suburbia or small
towns. Without adjusting parents income for cost of living (factors the kids
in question have no control over), it’s totally unfair.

This has a lot to do with “last place aversion” - the people making $150k near
SF having to pay full price for their kid (who probably worked their ass off)
to barely scrape into Stanford are (rightly or wrongly) going to be totally
NIMBY / selfish in terms of voting and policy when it comes to the $65k
families from far away whose kids can pay much less than half for Stanford,
say.

~~~
mikem170
I usually think of the opposite affect, someone making double money in San
Fransisco pays the same price for what they order on amazon as someone working
and living in a cheaper market. Also cars, airline tickets, vacations, etc.
Cuts both ways, I guess.

My two cents: I'd blame San Fransisco, they are the ones with the weird
housing market and shouldn't make others subsidize things around their propped
up property prices.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
I don’t think you’re right about that. Groceries, supplies, movie tickets,
restaurants, fuel, transit, medical & dental resources, rent, and so on are
all much more expensive in the city. The fraction of things you get on Amazon
or through other means that allows paying a low competitive nationwide price
is pretty tiny and doesn’t really offer any meaningful advantage to city
dwellers.

But on the flipside, state and federal taxes collected from city dwellers do
heavily subsidize much more expensive infrastructure and operations costs in
suburban and rural areas.

So rural residents get safe roads, remote snow removal, remote power lines,
heavy freight supply shipping, equal prices for US mail shipping, school
systems and so on, despite not having their own tax base capable of actually
sustaining all the costs.

Basically, middle class and upper middle class urban workers subsidize pretty
much everybody else. Any richer and you have access to tax avoidance resources
and lobbying, and poorer and you consume much more in government resources
than you pay in, especially in rural areas.

~~~
snazz
> I don’t think you’re right about that. Groceries, supplies, movie tickets,
> restaurants, fuel, transit, medical & dental resources, rent, and so on are
> all much more expensive in the city. The fraction of things you get on
> Amazon or through other means that allows paying a low competitive
> nationwide price is pretty tiny and doesn’t really offer any meaningful
> advantage to city dwellers.

It's primarily the discretionary, high-tech, and expensive items that are
cheaper in a high-cost-of-living place. Want to buy an iPhone or a Tesla or an
expensive camera or something like that? Those are all less expensive relative
to your income in high-CoL places. Plus, interest rates from savings accounts
and many retirement accounts are the same nationwide, meaning that having more
total money is advantageous.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Inflation is faster in some urban centers though, so fixed interest rates are
disproportionately bad for those urban dwellers. While that interest rate
might grow your larger starting pile of money faster than it grows someone’s
money in rural Nebraska, the gains are eroded more quickly so they don’t
translate to purchasing power.

In those cities, your money has to grow fast or the loss of purchasing power
is huge.

So I wouldn’t say nationwide interest rates are definitely an advantage for
people with bigger starting piles of money in urban areas. It’s complicated.

------
sumoboy
So many of these teachers have become unqualified to teach remote classes
since they can't adapt to virtual engagement to help students succeed. They
don't answer emails, don't chat, leaving students lost. You get more from a
youtube video in many cases. Remote teaching has made these teachers lazy IMO.

~~~
jasonv
I agree, based on this:

My high-school aged son was taking two in-person community college classes
this last semester.

When the SIP hit, his Spanish class just "ended". Nothing online, nothing from
his teacher, it was just over. His math teacher worked diligently to keep
things going, and I could see the adaptations the math teacher attempted to
evolve his efforts with the unexpected conditions.

If the CC is only online in the fall, we'll find something else for him. I
don't think v1.0 of online CC is worth spending my money on, based on the v0.9
beta.

~~~
oarsinsync
I’m not sure it’s fair to characterise a change in circumstances as severe as
what we’ve just been through, and the results of remote work, as a v0.9 beta.
MVP feels fairer, and even that feels like a stretch for a lot of places.

~~~
jasonv
Possibly -- but where a CC has a lot of adjunct profs, not staff, I'm not sure
they're going to solve a lot of their issues over the summer.

Perhaps at a University, where tenured staff.. and those in the tenure-track,
are likely to take the changed circumstances as a mandate to adjust and adapt.

One consideration we've had is signing him up for classes, and making a
determination pretty quickly about how online-instruction ready the
instructors he ends up with are. If we can drop enrollment for no, or little,
$ outlay, we may give it a shot.

But our alternative -- returning to a tutor we used some time ago -- could be
a more secure option, unless he's booked full. Which could be the case.

------
1996
College currently sell an "experience" with clubs, restaurants, football
teams, fraternities, housing, a nice campus with trees and lakes, etc. This
isn't free. It has pushed up the price of education.

If education turns remote, I would expect prices to fall (and layoffs for the
administrative staff), unless a similar experience part can be replicated
online (which I strongly doubt)

This is the exact opposite of work vs remote work: if WFH becomes the default,
I would expect wages to rise, as the most "experience" provided in the
workplace (with nice offices, nice chairs, window view, in a nice campus with
amenities like catering etc) will be footed by the employee in a WFH setting

~~~
nradov
If working from home becomes the default then wages will fall because
employers will be able to select employees who live anywhere. Working in a
physical office constrains the labor supply to workers who live nearby (or are
able to relocate).

~~~
ativzzz
It will fall for people living in high cost areas like SF and NYC, but it will
rise for people living in low and mid cost areas like Dallas or Cleveland
because now companies in SF can easily hire the best developers in Dallas
cheaper than average developers in SF by paying them more than the average
Dallas rates.

------
mtgp1000
This is good. I think the commoditization of college had profound negative
effects on society. Historic trust in the academic system was abused in order
to, at best, sell degrees to people who were unqualified for them, and at
worst, to indoctrinate two generations of children (anything outside of STEM
is heavily politically slanted - it's the long march through the institutions
that the infamous Weather Underground spoke of).

If intelligence (and general ability) is truly normally distributed then you
cannot award degrees to the majority of the population without lowering
historic standards.

~~~
analbumcover
You make a lot of good points here. What is expected of students in University
these days is a joke compared to historical standards. Ironic given the more
demanding job market expectations.

------
gumby
I suspect there will evolve a hybrid model:

\- a small number of elite institutions will offer largely the same product
they do today, possibly in lower volume but even higher price. Some lectures
will be online, combined with in person recitation, lab etc.

\- these same institutions’ lectures will be available online, perhaps for
free or paid. Why get a lecture from state U when you can get the MIT lecture?

\- local third parties will offer the recitation, lab etc. Perhaps you’ll go
to a completely independent one, perhaps you’ll attend one that has licensed
the GAtech name or has some sort of reciprocity deal in order to proctor exams
and such.

\- the networking value of school attendance will vanish except at the elite
places.

\- a few professors, the ones actually presenting the lecture, will earn a
living wage, or perhaps even a significant wage. Everybody else student-facing
in this ecosystem will earn adjunct/ post doc barely-living wage.

\- even the recitations could be conducted online, perhaps by third parties in
India who can explain the material just as well or better than someone local.
You could be getting 1:1 instruction his way.

------
dicomdan
Let the students network and collaborate with each other. Classes and office
hours can be done online. Value of universities is primarily in peer
interactions.

------
sys_64738
Online classes simply don't have the value that in person classes have. Extend
that to degrees and that's the stigma you have to deal with when trying to get
a job. Telling an employer you got your degree remotely V the in class person,
who are you gonna hire?

~~~
unishark
> Online classes simply don't have the value that in person classes have.

I certainly agree with this (people aren't that stupid). But schools like
Stanford and USC have been doing online MS programs for decades. As far as I
know they are are just as valuable to your resume as an in-person MS from the
same school.

The value is in the fact that your average student simply doesn't have the
self-motivation to do fully-online classes (we certainly have been seeing this
problem in the last few months). This is why they primarily have been for
working professions part-time in the past, that's a group and mode of learning
where people actually get it done.

~~~
pyuser583
I’ve benefited immensely from online education, but it’s not a substitute for
an in person liberal arts education.

------
ghaff
Not everyone is in a position to do it. And I don't know what the position of
universities in deferring will be at this point. And obviously gap year
options that are constructive/interesting are way limited at the moment.

But I'd have to seriously consider if it makes sense to enter a university as
a freshman in September. Especially given a non-trivial possibility of things
blowing up mid-semester with all sorts of attendant costs.

Obviously a really really tough decision. And this will probably result in a
lot of students not entering or completing college which, despite some of the
common wisdom in tech, will probably lead to some pretty severe downgrades to
lifetime career opportunities and income to many.

------
jake_morrison
I have two daughters in college.

My older daughter just graduated in mathematics / machine learning from UCLA.
Online classes were mostly ok, though there were some comical situations where
the professor taught the whole class with his microphone on mute.

Her exams were really rough, though. The math professors were unwilling to
make any accommodation for the virus. While in quarantine with demonstrations
and national guard soldiers literally across the street, she was taking exams.
Everyone had 24 hours to take the exams, so they made them extra hard. They
graded on a curve, because taking that away would be sacrilegious. So you have
a choice, either spend as much of 24 hours as possible on the test, cheat
(like some groups of students did), or get a bad grade. And then she had three
exams in the same 24 hour period. The goal of testing should be to ensure that
you know the material, not this competition shit.

My younger daughter is studying at USC. She came back to Taiwan last semester,
so she hasn't needed to deal with the virus. Online classes have been pretty
chaotic, though. Watching async videos has actually been a plus, but the
mandatory discussion sections at 3 AM have been rough. It would be nice if
they would just open one up in Asia timezone. Especially because students from
China are now blocked from going back to the US.

USC was planning to have everyone come back on campus next semester, but just
canceled because their opening plan was rejected by LA government. I am happy
that she will be safe.

Universities are really worried about their business model, and are willing to
have people die to preserve it.

------
_Understated_
I find it odd that even now, after all that's happened in recent months, and
with the reserves of cash that some of the elite establishments (in the US at
least) are not taking advantage of online degrees.

To give you an example. I am planning on starting a degree in October. I'm 45.
It will be through the Open University. It will cost about £6000 to complete
the degree.

I looked at a ton of Universities in the UK and their online offerings are
abysmal. there are some in Europe that look ok but the US ones are in the
$30k+ price range...

If I thought that Yale, Harvard etc. would do an online degree for a fraction
of what an actual degree currently costs in person, I would jump at the
chance... who wouldn't want that on their CV?

With the resources they have they could easily extend their degree programme
to the rest of the world via online learning. Same lecturers, same material.

Instead, they're sitting on their hands while their entire foundation burns...

I agree with one of the other comments that this could be the beginning of the
end for the bricks and mortar universities

~~~
Google234
A big part of the brand/prestige of Yale and Harvard is the exclusivity.

~~~
_Understated_
Valid point but there are hundreds of other institutions that don't have that
exclusivity that have very little to offer when it comes to online learning.

From what I can see, the OU is miles ahead.

------
generationP
> What [the students] might not expect: a lack of professors in the classroom.

Maybe they might not expect it, but will they mind it?

------
hiidrew
I’ve thought about this quite a bit, really interesting what will happen to
higher-ed.

I’m currently a graduate student at a public research uni, which I imagine are
the type of uni’s that may struggle (cause it’s not like ivy tech or other
elite schools, may struggle to tract people if they start competing online
only).

Another interesting factor are the increasing amount of bootcamps like Lambda
and others offering technical education for the low. I wonder if companies
like those will try to expand to other less technical subjects.

Think future higher-ed will be up to the experience and faculty, also makes
you kind of worry about these public research institutions if tuition starts
drying up.

------
jgalt212
Full professorships, irrespective of institution eliteness, are a tough job to
get. If I were the provost, I'd just sack the folks who refuse to show up to
work this fail. Most of them would be very easy replace (certainly if you
value teaching skills over research skills).

Furthermore, the health risk to professors is much lower than it is to primary
school teachers. 20 year olds can wear* masks for 45-90 minutes at a clip, 2nd
graders won't be able to do that for six hours straight.

* or legally forced to, as they are adults.

~~~
nr2x
As recent weeks have shown 20 year olds will be going to bars and parties and
seeding new waves of infections. The vast majority of people in their age
group have negligible mortality risk, and high incentives to socialize after
being stuck at home with parents for months on end. The faculty on the other
hand are in the demographic where COVID is a death sentence.

~~~
jlokier
And when they don't die, it can ruin their academic & intellectual lives by
making them long-term ill & disabled, including neurologically. Some of the
lingering symptoms are nasty.

------
ckdarby
This is the con of universities. The only way to justify the tuition is face-
to-face teaching and to have access to all those amenities.

Once you remove those students would be asking for price reduction.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/D6RKy](https://archive.is/D6RKy)

------
qserasera
Administrative bloat and lax student standards should be geared up for older
students and retraining during structural changes happening in the economy
(right fucking now)

Sadly administrators have no skills to retrain people.

------
tw1912112
Recently I read a post about education that was quite resonating. Universities
have historically been "hard to enter, but easy to exit", meaning it's really
difficult to get in but about the only thing that matter is getting in and no
one really cares what your grades are if you are from Stanford/Harvard et.al.

On the flip side, med school or west point are less about getting in but more
about exit value. It's not really that important as to whether you got in but
whether you graduated from West Point. West Point / Navy Seals can essentially
double the class size without losing any credibility. I think higher education
is going in similar direction.

