

Get Out While You Can - cwan
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/08/19/miller_essay_on_how_faculty_should_get_out_before_higher_education_collapses

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roobeelee
"...what would happen if most of your school’s peer institutions replaced
expensive tenured faculty with cheap online courses and used the savings to
cut tuition by 50 percent."

Tenured professors at research universities are 90% there to do research, not
to teach. I don't think they're replaceable in that way.

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keiferski
Like _every single article_ on the subject, the author fails to propose an
alternate credential system that will replace college. Will some academics
(like the author) lose their jobs to technology? Probably, but that has little
to do with the credential aspect of a degree.

~~~
tptacek
Outside of The Professions, where is college an effective credential system?
College is clearly not that important in our field. Even at the companies that
most famously do use degrees as selection criteria, the requirement is
trivially circumvented with the right work experience.

~~~
forkandwait
Getting a job as a mid-level manager in government service is _very_ difficult
without a degree, unless you are old enough to grandfather in when things were
different. And even if you do get a job, there will be a noticeable level of
weirdness around you because you didn't finish college.

Note that you don't have to go to a particularly good school -- it is
government service, after all.

I think a similar thing is true -- I would be interested in knowing how many
people at supervisor or above at, say, Netflix (or an oil company) don't have
a degree? I don't know... hopefully other people can share anecdotal evidence
;)

~~~
tptacek
One tricky thing about this is that demographically, most people that end up
in "white collar" jobs do get degrees. But I think that's post-hoc evidence
for the _implied requirement_ of a degree. Those same people might have done
just as well (or even better, considering the 4 years opportunity cost of a
degree) without college.

~~~
forkandwait
I don't think you have any real evidence for whether the association of white-
collar job and degree is post-hoc or not? Do you? Without evidence, it's kind
of a cheap shot.

~~~
tptacek
I don't think we need to cite sources to suggest that white collar jobs tend
to be filled by people above the socioeconomic median, or the fact that the
same demographic cohort overwhelmingly tends to go to college. The middle
class goes to university (a) because it's a default, (b) because it's part of
the middle class lifestyle, and (c) because it's perceived as necessary for a
career. Only 1/3rd of those reasons are about credentials.†

Stipulating the fact that jobs are just statistically going to be filled by
people who _automatically_ got degrees, I don't think it's a stretch (or a
cheap shot) to suggest that the relationship between jobs and school is
tenuous.

Moreover, given the fact that white collar jobs in large companies tend to be
managed conservatively, and the fact that people without degrees are outliers
(because _almost every applicant for any job went to college by default_ ),
some of the "credentialing effect" of a degree is actually just an
observational bias.

† _Note also the preponderance of college attendees who attain degrees that
are almost objectively without credentialing merit, such as the liberal
arts.††_

†† _"Without credentialing merit" being intended as an objective statement and
not as an argument that people shouldn't get liberal arts degrees; I think_
most _degrees are without credentialing merit._

~~~
forkandwait
Let's look at this as a logic problem.

You say college has no causal effect, I say college has a causal effect
(granting that we aren't talking about credentialing degrees, blah, blah).

The best you have done is destroy my argument in favor of causation; however,
this doesn't imply that you are correct for NO causation, just that my
argument doesn't work (maybe correct). To _prove_ no causation you would have
to evaluate _all possible_ arguments for it, and show them _all_ to be wrong.
(good luck)

However, I do have _partial_ evidence _for causality_ based on the association
between college and white collar jobs. I am basing this on the "warrant" that
P(causation| association) >= P(causation) -- if there is association, the
likelihood of causation is higher or the same.

So how about this: neither of us can say for sure whether college helps, but I
have a little bit of faulty evidence and you have no evidence whatsoever.

We are in the same situation as most social scientists -- the evidence for
anything really sucks, and is nowhere like the evidence for hard science
propositions. However, very important policy decisions have to be made based
on this faulty evidence. What most people do is pretend be sure and so
guarantee they act foolishly.

~~~
tptacek
I think you're going through a lot of trouble to formalize an argument I'm not
even contesting. I'm talking about the minimal value of a degree as a
credential outside the Professions; you're arguing with a fictitious third
party who says they have zero importance anywhere.

~~~
forkandwait
>I'm talking about the minimal value of a degree as a credential outside the
Professions; you're arguing with a fictitious third party who says they have
zero importance anywhere.

Umm, wrong. I am arguing with the "minimal value of a degree as a credential
outside the Professions". I have made that clear, by statements to the effect
of "granting the professions are a different case."

I am saying -- I have limited evidence for causality in the effect of a degree
(outside the professions), and you have no evidence for the _absence_ of
causality .

It's all good though...

~~~
tptacek
We're discussing a difference of (small) degree, and your point is that
correlation is _sometimes_ causation?

Ok? Stipulated? Now what?

~~~
forkandwait
No, I am arguing that my lack of a good argument does not imply that the
converse argument is true.

So ... retract your argument that college has no credentialling value in
getting a white collar job (outside of the professions) ;) You have no
evidence.

(Heuristically, I have evidence, but it is poor. But poor is better than
none.)

~~~
tptacek
I gave specific pieces of evidence: sales, technology, trading, marketing.
Rebut.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
How much damage can one bad hire cause?

Not much directly. Even in engineering, entry-level work is usually scutwork,
so they probably won't get the chance to break anything important.

But hiring a flake can cause a lot of damage indirectly. If they lose an
important document or attach the wrong appendix to the marketing proposal, you
could lose a lot of money.

So if you're a big company with complicated procedures and a lot to lose --
what if that lost document is important because of a lawsuit? -- hiring
dependable people trumps almost everything else. Bachelor's degrees are a
great way to certify that someone can show up on time, follow directions, meet
deadlines, and pay attention to one thing for four years at a time.

~~~
tptacek
No it isn't. The diligence bar for obtaining a bachelor's degree is so far
below the diligence bar for maintaining a work presence that they almost don't
bear comparison.

People make this observation all the time, but I'm guessing that even the most
diligent students who make it showed up late to class often enough that they'd
have gotten disciplined had class been a real job.

------
mikeleeorg
I've been meeting with two high school teachers from Silicon Valley who are
enthusiastic about technology - especially "edtech" (education technology) -
while still retaining a critical eye towards them. They are also remarkable
teachers who apply as much science as art to their classrooms. One of them
even crafted an organizational & classroom management system several years ago
and has been training new, willing teachers in that system. Both also have
impressive backgrounds (one is a Harvard grad, in case you care about that
sorta thing) and work at a high school that serves a predominantly low-income,
underprivileged population.

Long story short, these are the educators of the future. They aren't afraid
technology and have evolved their teaching styles to mesh with it well. And
younger teachers who are rising through the ranks now will be even more tech-
savvy and progressive in mindset.

I'm pretty sure James Miller is correct in his article that higher education,
as it is today, will change significantly. It has to. But I don't necessarily
think it will mean a significant drop in demand for college professors.
Perhaps there will be a significant drop in demand for _bad_ college
professors, but not good ones with an evolved teaching style (whatever that
will be).

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twodayslate
I try to learn online but I find it really hard. It is very distracting. I
find a real person teaching me to be much more effective.

------
johngunderman
I disagree with his argument. While it is certainly quite possible that there
will be a collapse in education for the liberal arts, the field of engineering
will need higher education for a long time to come. Of course, many classes
may be taken online, which lessens the necessity. However, I have yet to see
an online lab course. Equipment is expensive, and proper training is
important. I can't imagine that many people would hire an engineer who had no
experience outside of online classes, regardless of whether or not they
obtained a degree.

Beyond the basics of education, graduate studies are something you can't just
"do online" (yet). You may need a lab, need a professor to work with, and you
certainly need funding for whatever you are researching. While education as we
know it is bound to change, I think that the technical side of most
universities is in no immediate danger.

~~~
Astrohacker
> I have yet to see an online lab course. Equipment is expensive, and proper
> training is important...

The students can rent the equipment and acquire training online.

~~~
evilduck
This obviously doesn't work for mining engineering or nuclear engineering
students.

~~~
Astrohacker
They can tour the mine or nuclear reactor, or work there. Colleges and
universities add nothing to this.

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smtf
The pervading opinion I've seen over the years is that University degrees are
mainly arbitrary hurdles for professional jobs. I don't necessarily agree, but
that is besides my point. If people at large really think University is an
extravagant waste then we are now in a position, to do as the op suggests, and
implement the technology to "fix" that "problem". Technology optimizes many
other areas, even ones as deeply entrenched as post secondary education. It's
not as if we will have to throw all the tenure profs. to the wolves either,
someone is going to have to be curator of the online material after all.
Things change, sometimes even in academia.

~~~
lumerein
_It's not as if we will have to throw all the tenure profs. to the wolves
either, someone is going to have to be curator of the online material after
all._

This was precisely my thought in reading through the segment of the article
dramatizing the "mortal threat information technology poses". The author
alludes to artificial intelligence sufficiently capable of replacing a college
professor in 20 years and attempts to tie this "threat" to _today's_ economic
and political climate and his own vague predictions of both 20 years down the
line. It's not as if a professor could be adequately replaced by an AI
tomorrow.

As it currently stands, online or not, a professor with appropriate knowledge
is necessary to prepare and teach a course. It's not as if the job position
vanishes when a course is taught online. As a current student who has taken
five out of two dozen courses online: an effective professor is still key to
teaching material to students, whether the classroom is physical or virtual.

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jespi88
I can't help but be reminded of Mike Rowe's (the host of Dirty Jobs) testimony
before congress. There is going to be a major shift in attitudes towards going
to college when the average Masters student realizes that the starting salary
for skilled labor (i.e. electrician, plumber, etc) is higher than what they
can expect to make. In my humble opinion, college gives the average BA student
a whole slew of soft skills and trivial knowledge that adds little value to a
company straight out of school.

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LiggityLew
I agree with the professor's sentiment. Technology is and will continue to
change education. Non-research professors will decline in demand.

But he sites a common misinterpretation of Moore's Law as his evidence.
Moore's Law doesn't say computing power (or speed) will double every 1 1/2
years, but the number transistors in microprocessors will double. But because
of heat concerns we've had to move to multi-core processors, and the speed has
hit a plateau. People might think "I've got two cores, so I'm twice as fast",
which is completely incorrect.

Computing power is increasing, but there is no evidence that in 20 years it
will increase 2^20.

edit: actually, he's wrong on the 2^20 too. It's every 1 1/2 years, so it's
more like 2^13= 8192 (let's say 10,000) times faster.

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tete
True, but everyone tells people to be realistic and not idealistic. I think
that's one (not the only) reason for things becoming better.

In today's world swimming with the crowd is what works best for most people.
Not because it is better, but because everyone does and therefore don't know
anything else.

However continuing to live without a plan won't really get you anywhere
either, so "works best" isn't completely true.

