

The College For-Profits Should Fear - blatherard
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/the_college_forprofits_should031640.php

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herdrick
The key paragraph:

 _"WGU’s answer to the status quo is to offer a degree that is based on
competency rather than time. By gathering information from employers, industry
experts, and academics, Western Governors formulates a detailed, institution-
wide sense of what every graduate of a given degree program needs to know.
Then they work backward from there, defining what every student who has taken
a given course needs to know. As they go, they design assessments—tests—of all
those competencies. “Essentially,” says Kevin Kinser, a professor of education
at the State University of New York at Albany, “they’re creating a bar exam
for each point along the way that leads to a degree.”"_

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SkyMarshal
The one they should really worry about is Khan Academy:

1\. Free

2\. Gamification of learning (aka certification)

3\. Social web integrated into learning (a network to see your certifications)

4\. Inverting the traditional model - do your homework in class watch
vids/read at night at home.

KA is on the way toward replacing traditional degrees the same way
Stackoverflow and Github are replacing traditional resumes.

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rimantas
Really? I guess I am in minotrity, but after watching a few lessons on KA I I
left with impression that quality of teaching is quite poor. Educational
videos may be one part of education, but they cannot replace all. Teachers are
there to stay for a long long time and it has nothing todo with technology.

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tomjen3
I don't know about the quality of the other subjects (since I don't know
enough about them to judge him) but I do know that his economy lectures were
pretty good.

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wiredfool
A halfway engaged HS physics teacher would do far better than the videos I
sampled on basic kinematics and newtons laws.

The stuff there is just _begging_ for in person demos.

From what I've seen, KA is better than nothing, or a really indifferent
teacher. But If you have a better than average teacher, they're going to far
surpass KA.

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michaelchisari
Reminds me of the quote, "Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer,
deserves to be."

I love the quote, but of course, I am concerned that in our push to move to
computer-based learning, we push out the teachers who _can't_ be replaced by a
computer.

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nazgulnarsil
The 30% profit margin University of Phoenix makes is a signal to other
investors to enter the field and innovate! This is a feature not a bug of
markets. Non-profit just means they are maximizing more opaque measures of
success. Of course the accreditation barriers to entry are still quite
innovation stifling.

also, I'd be shocked if WGU doesn't come under fire for 'disparate impact',
otherwise known as racism at some point.

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mathgladiator
how does racism play into this?

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Sorry, talking about the history of standardized testing will get me
downvoted. Guess how I know.

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buff-a
FTA: _Those fixed standards enable a world of variation. At Western Governors,
students aren’t asked to sit in a class any longer than it takes for them to
demonstrate that they have mastered the material. In fact, they aren’t asked
to sit in a “class” at all._

This article seems to suggest that at other US universities, you actually have
to show up to classes to pass them? Is that actually the case????

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sixtofour
(Response to above, and most of its responses.)

I understand that you can not show up and pass a class, but why in the world
would you spend all that money and time on a physical university if you aren't
going to go to class? Why not just read a book and get a job?

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eric-hu
Sadly, because of what a degree means. This goes doubly so for a degree from a
"big name".

I strongly disagree with this sentiment, but I can't deny that a majority of
people I meet will be impressed with someone who went to MIT, Yale or Harvard.
Likewise, I think a majority of people (albeit a lesser-majority) will have
reservations about someone with "only" a high school education.

In most industries, you won't find people saying "show me what you can do"
before you show them you have a degree. The tech industry is far more
egalitarian in this sense, which is awesome.

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mechnik
WGU consists of 4 colleges: Teachers', Business, IT, and Health Professions.
All well and good but I wish quality online programs were also offered in
Math, Natural Sciences, Biological Sciences, Computer Science, Writing,
Humanities, etc... In my view a good College of Arts and Sciences is what
makes University good. A great Engineering program would be awesome too.

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vishaldpatel
Seneca College in Toronto has a similar thing going for its Computer
Programming diploma. Or at least, this was the case when I went there:

1) You can take an exam for a class at the beginning of the semester if you
think you know the material. There is a cost of this exam, but if you pass,
then you save money on taking the whole class... and time too.

2) You must complete every single assignment to pass a given class. Your
assignments must work 100%. You'll be graded on style.

3) Every class was offered every semester - even during the summer semester.
And there was a section for most classes at night.

There's just one issue: I thought universities were supposed to teach you how
to learn, while community colleges were meant for specific job-related skills.

Shouldn't doctors, lawyers, nurses, computer programmers etc... all be getting
their job-specific diplomas, just like the mechanics and the electricians? And
shouldn't 'degrees' be more research oriented anyway? Why are degrees more
valued when whats needed in most cases is someone with a specific skill? Do
people with degrees really think that people with diplomas are incapable of
learning? Do employers feel this way?

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barry-cotter
Re: your last paragraph

Degrees are less about learning than making sure you will do a certain amount
of work for at least two years and more usually four, even if the work is
dumb. So it signals intelligence and conscientiousness.

Having a degree tells people you're at least capable of being a member of the
middle class. You're intelligent and biddable enough. Elite university
graduates also got some implicit training in the social norms of the upper
classes, and by virtue of the intense competition to get in you can be sure
anyone who graduated from them is smart. More accurately, anyone they
accepted, the dropout rate for top tier US universities is very low (except
for Caltech).

And yes, people with degrees do think people without are dumber, and employers
likewise, because its true. And alternative certifications for different modes
of training/types of knowledge fall prey to the same problems. Having
separate, respected educational systems, rather than one for the real people
and one for the losers requires relatively low social mobility, or at least
hard social mobility.

Seneca College sounds real cool.

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gte910h
> the dropout rate for top tier US universities is very low

The dropout rate for non-engineering schools is pretty low. Engineering
schools are all over the map. Caltech is a bit silly to compare to larger
schools due to the fact Caltech enrolls <1k undergrads.

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aaronbrethorst
single page:
[http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2...](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/the_college_forprofits_should031640.php?page=all&print=true)

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amalag
I took a bachelors from WGU because I dropped out of college many years ago
and went out of the country. I came back and just wanted one to say I had a
bachelors. I can say I practically learned nothing from WGU and the coursework
was incredibly easy. This is for the IT degree. To be fair to them, most
courses were IT certifications. So the real problem was the IT certifications
were useless, I mean really, what use is Security+ and related certs. Anyway
that is my opinion. I did some IT admin work first, then got more into
programming with Ruby on Rails. Probably my path is a bit atypical.

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TomOfTTB
As someone who has interviewed candidates from physical universities with IT
degrees I can say the same is probably true of them. I see candidates all the
time who can recite the OSI Model by heart but can't figure out a Windows XP
system isn't connecting to the network because it doesn't have an IP Address.

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jeremyarussell
I found this article really interesting, Read all the way through it on my
phone and made sure to come online to comment.

I have to find myself agreeing that the competency based off of actual
employers is one of the best way to get stuff done. And now if KA can get
actual teachers and setup actual accreditation systems then all these for-
profit groups will be under even more pressure. As people that want these
services to thrive I feel the best way for us to allow this to happen is to
help them market their schools. Blog posts etc etc that link to the site will
hopefully make a google search for "online college" send WGU and Khan to the
top.

I for one may be signing up. (I already attend Khan to learn about linear
algebra.) Having a business degree from WGU would round out my current
repertoire rather nicely I think.

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gte910h
WGU seems to be looked at askance from some googling by positions seeking MBAs

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qrgnote
IS WGU the only college of this kind?

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GBond
Some time ago I toyed with the idea of getting a grad degree for "resume
dressing" purposes optimized for price/prestige/convenience. I was pleasantly
surprised that there quite a few options after you get over the signal vs.
noise problem: finding legit, accredited schools in the sea of diploma mills
who spends a ton on marketing on spam (just google "online degree").

The best place I've found to do research on accredited programs (both
undergrad & grad) school that cater to adult students is
<http://www.degreeinfo.com/forum.php>. It is the home of a community of people
who are good at hacking the diploma game and share their info readily. Folks
there tend to favor schools that are in the spirit of this school in the OP
article (price/prestige/convenience) but there is quite a good range of
schools discussed (for example Duke U.'s MBA program tends to be reviewed
favorably as is Delaware for undergrad). There even intrepid individuals there
who had foregone the traditional 4 year, "physical seat" undergrad for 2 years
of working part-time and distance learning (can be with CLEP exams and the
right program).

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qrgnote
Nice Link!

I've had experience with Baker College <http://www.baker.edu/> in the past,
Online Degree... but it was a time-based / attendance base system... WGU
"Competence" based accredited degrees seems pretty bad-ass...

