

Disruptive Innovation vs. Harvard: Who Will Win? - henrik_w
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130905152238-5048055-disruptive-innovation-vs-harvard-who-will-win

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objclxt
He assumes that you should go to Harvard because you want to get a good job
and leave with the best qualifications. This is not why you should go to
Harvard. Harry Lewis (who has an excellent blog that's well worth reading if
you're into higher ed[0]) has said in the past that students should really be
going to Harvard _to become better people_.

Delivering _education_ at scale is not in itself hard. Coursera, Udacity,
Khan, edX...lots of people are making a very good go at it. Delivering the
personal and social development that comes with a college education - that's
the hard part. That's I have to disagree with Ferreira when he says:

> _Even Harvard could admit five totally different freshman classes every year
> from the United States alone without compromising its standards_

Technically, this is probably true. The majority of people applying to Harvard
are more than qualified on paper (I've interviewed enough of them!). But a
college education is so, so much more than just taking classes and getting
good grades. It is about developing as a person, finding yourself. Doing that
online: that's a very, very hard problem.

The funny thing is that Harvard _already_ is making significant progress in
the six areas Ferreira has identified (...edX, for example, a self governing
body that uses the Harvard brand to further internet learning). The difference
is that many faculty at Harvard understand that college is not, in itself, all
about the lectures and grades.

[0]:[http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com](http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com) \-
Harry Lewis also has some excellent thoughts on why Harvard doesn't, as
Ferreira suggests, offshoot campuses into rich countries.

~~~
netcan
This is the type of thing that come up every time a post-university world is
mentioned. College is so much more than...

It's true but not true in a way that invalidates the arguments that college
will become less important/desired. People spend 1-2 years trying to get into
college programs and then 4 years of their life at college. Parents save for
decades. Students go into debt for it. Governments give it priority in their
budgets. The costs are huge.

The only reason so many people will put so much emphasis on anything is that
it eventually impacts their socio-economic status. Some people take a year off
to travel. This can be good for character development too. It costs far less
in time and money. The reason its not an institution like college is because
it doesn't directly impact socio-economic in the same way.

Especially with old, elite schools this is as much about impacting students'
social identity & skills as it is about their intellectual and technical
skills. Its often best to approach the socio-economic status thing from an
angle. All these things can't be decoupled. If college stops becoming the path
to getting high paying, high status jobs, it will not be worth the cost.

I think the erosion will start farther down the food chain than Harvard
though.

~~~
objclxt
> _If college stops becoming the path to getting high paying, high status
> jobs, it will not be worth the cost_

Oh, definitely. The cost is a huge problem. I think elite universities realise
this - financial aid is, at universities that can afford it, at record high
levels. If you're going to MIT, the Ivy Leagues, etc you're probably not going
to be breaking the bank to pay your fees (...and if you are, it's because you
were rich enough to start with).

But for the majority of people who want to go to college and _don 't_ have
access to generous financial aid then at some point the investment clearly
outweighs the benefits. So like you say, it seems almost certain any impact is
going to be felt at the bottom of the chain, not the top.

------
terabytest
It's probably just me, but I cringe a little bit whenever I read the word
"disruption".

~~~
dylangs1030
It's not just you.

~~~
onedev
Let's not give "Innovation" a free pass here.

Put both words together and you have something worth letting out a nice big
___SIGH_ __for.

------
bayesianhorse
Most people fail to realize that the elite university phenomenon and the
absurd tuition fees are not so much about producing qualified graduates but
about "costly signals" in game theoretic sense.

When "elite" businesses like Goldman Sachs filter for these signals they are
playing a very safe game and it works for them.

They might be able to afford overlooking other candidates. Other businesses
often certainly can't.

I also have to question if this costly signalling game is beneficial for the
society both in human and economic terms.

From the major online course providers I haven't seen a lot of effort
disrupting the game.

~~~
superuser2
This would make sense if elite education was actually costly, but it's not.
Run [http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/](http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/) for a middle-
class family.

~~~
huherto
There is no option for Mexico. It is certainly not in central or south
america.

~~~
dragonwriter
The UN disagrees. [1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme)

~~~
huherto
I am aware of that. That is a classification that the UN statistics division
does for analysis purposes.

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gulfie
My 32 Billion dollar guess is Harvard.

[http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-
list...](http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-
college/articles/2012/11/27/10-colleges-with-largest-financial-endowments)

Harvard students? Faculty? huh? Why would $32 Billion USD care about that?

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kenster07
"No one ultimately cares all that much whether their daughter has a Coke or a
Pepsi, do they? But they would do nearly anything to send her to an elite
university."

Anyone else confused by this comparison in the opener?

~~~
objclxt
...yes. I think it sort of undermines his point. Because people might not care
about drinking Coke or Pepsi, but lots of people would pick a _brand name_
cola above a generic one.

The same with colleges: you could go to Harvard, Yale, Penn, MIT...one of
dozens of highly respected colleges and have a fantastic time. Like Coke and
Pepsi, it's much of a muchness. But the next tier down - the 'generic colas'
of university education, if you will - that's a little different. Not bad, per
se - just different.

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auggierose
In the technical sciences Germany has arguably very competitive universities,
but there is no University fetishism like in the US. Nobody really cares in
Germany about what University you went to. So basically, thats where the
American / UK system will be headed as well.

~~~
slurry
German universities aren't very good at attracting foreign students and they
tend to underperform in international rankings (in large part due to the
previous point). I don't think German universoties are an example anyone wants
to follow.

~~~
Atropos
With regards to attracting international students, the effect of English being
the language of academia cannot be overstated. If you compare Germany with
countries like France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Japan or South-Korea, I would
rather doubt that it attracts significantly less foreign students.

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b1daly
While it does seem likely that a disruption in education is immanent, the
article doesn't ring true. I can't quite put my finger on it but it has
something to do with assuming that the institutions of the elite (businesses,
government, colleges) are driven by meritocratic impulse primarily.

This leaves out elements of human motivation like tribalism, pure status
seeking, creative impulse, absurdism...there is a veritable smorgasbord of
human attributes that defy quantification.

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Pxtl
"Measuring" educational products is functionally impossible. The educational
academic field has been struggling with this for over a century... the body of
knowledge suffers from the same kind of constant churn and controversy and
inability to make any forward progress that you see in management. Fads come
and go and teachers keep going back to the same methods that have always been
used.

While I expect that online universities can make some forward progress since
they're hungrier, I don't think they'll be able to quantify outcomes well
enough to overcome the brand power of the big educational institutions in the
eyes of a skeptical market.

~~~
tinkerdol
>"Measuring" educational products is functionally impossible.

Why? I'd agree it would be difficult, but "impossible?" For instance, I could
imagine creating tests to measure a student's competencies in things such as
engineering, programming, or foreign languages pretty easily. Then once you
measure a student's competence at the beginning and ending of a curriculum,
you have your measurement of the educational product. Not that standardized
testing is the answer, or easy for any subject... but it's an example.

>teachers keep going back to the same methods that have always been used.

Maybe if they either don't care or if they don't see a reason to change. I'm
helping teach a course starting next month, "Technical English" (for non-
native speakers), and am always looking for ways to improve on what I did last
year. In fact, if anyone out there would like to talk to my class about your
job over skype one day, I will integrate that into my curriculum right now.
(You could add "guest lecturer" to your resume as a possible incentive).

