
Google's Plan to Disrupt the College Degree Is Absolute Genius - jvreagan
https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/google-career-certificates-plan-disrupt-college-degree-university-genius.html
======
pkage
I question the depth of education you can receive from a six-month course set
as opposed to a full four-year undergraduate experience. This feels like the
same kind of marketing you saw from Flatiron School or one of those other
coding bootcamps, but with a larger name attached.

Cynically, I'd say that Google is just trying to increase the number of
qualified individuals to fill grunt-work positions so they can pay each
employee less.

~~~
FpUser
There is not much to question here. If you look at the list the positions
listed are not rocket science type and basics of each can be squeezed into 6
month. Problem is that the result is most likely very narrow skilled
individual with not much future unless of course they keep learning.

~~~
F_J_H
>> _...individual with not much future unless of course they keep learning_

This is now true no matter what level of education. Just need to start
somewhere, and this is a great option for those without access to funds or the
desire to take on the crippling debt increasingly associated with a 4 year
degree.

------
Animats
The current offerings are:

\- Data Analyst

\- Project Manager

\- UX Designer

\- IT Support Specialist

I wonder how specific to Google products those courses are. It sounds like
Google's answer to Microsoft Certified Microsoft Product Fixer certifications.

It's just courses on Coursera for $49/month.

~~~
raverbashing
Oh yes, let my project be managed by someone with a 6 mo course. I'm sure that
will work just fine

~~~
0_gravitas
Six months of onboarding is plenty of time to form someone you'd want to keep
around.

~~~
raverbashing
No.

Not because of the project management side (which ok, can be a long and
specialized career by itself) but by the side of "how do you have someone
manage something they don't know how it works" (which is needed in smaller
projects)

------
EFruit
I don't trust a company like Google to act in its students' and certificate
holders' best interests. It's not hard to imagine that the certifications will
all be tied back to a Google account that they can terminate at any time, at
their discretion. On a more Google-y note, I wouldn't want to get an email in
five years telling me that they're sunsetting their online certificate
verification portal, meaning no one can actually trust my claims as a
certificate holder.

~~~
viraptor
This is only a problem for a specific implementation. You can skip the online
verifier for example by handing out a certificate-signed PDF. Until we see the
actual implementation or plan, there's no need to criticise the potential
ones.

Thought exercise: how do employers verify certificates currently, and how
would they do it if your college shut down? In my experience, it's "they
don't" and "they couldn't". It's both a bit more and less tricky with jobs
that require recognised certification - there will be likely a nationally
issued certification which matches your education one.

~~~
EFruit
I agree, my speculation is just that: speculation. I sincerely hope they can
come up with a generic, decentralized way to verify professional credentials,
as that could bolster certification's viability as a career path.

Elsewhere in tech, Cisco's certifications come with a sort of verification
code which you can punch in to their site to check (in addition to the paper
trail from Pearson and the physical certificate they mail you). If it weren't
such a long-running part of their business, I'd be equally skeptical about
them maintaining the certification infrastructure, as it's wildly tangential
to the business of building networking equipment. As to the question of what a
potential employer would do if Cisco (or Google, or a college, or a bootcamp)
did shut it down their verification systems? I couldn't say, I've never hired
anyone, nor have I had HR breathing down my neck to check off position
requirements.

------
gostsamo
Is there such a term as "edmill"? A process of mass producing cheap labor for
low-paid positions. This post just smells of hype and marketing for something
like that.

~~~
dredmorbius
Short answer: Yes, highly-focused skills-centric but narrow education has a
long history.

Longer answer:

It's useful to keep in mind the (usually) unstated goals of educational
systems:

\- Produce a technically-skilled, but politically pliable, working class.

\- Produce a managerially competent, but not revolutionary, management and
professional class.

\- Persist existing power structures, whatever their form; political,
cultural, corporate, religious, technical, epistemic.

The fundamental division in education has long been between _liberal
education_ and _technical education_ , and can be traced to the emergence of
the modern university in the 11th century (Bologna, 1088, Oxford, 1096), if
not to the Romans and Greeks distinguishing the _ars liberalis_ , and _artes
mechanicae_ , the latter also called the "servile" or "mechanical" arts. This
later expands to basic literacy skills ("'readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic",
the "three Rs"), and _basic skills_ vs. _higher-order thinking skills_ , on
which there is much long-standing debate and contention.

Expansion and reform were limited by numerous factors, including a monopoly by
law in England establishing Cambridge and Oxford as England's only permitted
universities _until 1827_.
([https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/medieval-
universit...](https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/medieval-university-
monopoly))

In the industrial era, Prussian and Humboldtian education reforms instituted
universal compulsory scientific and technical (rather than religious)
education, largely at state expense, from Kindergarten, and including a
university system for advanced education. With increasing demand for basically
literate workers under factory and clerical work as well as technically-
skilled workers in heavy industry, chemical, agricultural, transport,
communications, information, government, and military sectors, the basic
outlines of this system were widely adopted in industrialised countries
through the 19th and 20th centuries.

The first technical, polytechnic, and engineering universities emerged in the
19th century. M.I.T. as a leading exemplar, though not the first, was founded
in 1861. It was preceded by others, with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
(RPI) possibly the earliest in 1821. Notably, technical schools were among the
first to offer specifically-focused courses of study, persisting to this day
in the numbered M.I.T. catologue, where lower-numbered offerings are generally
more fundamental and earliest-established, modulo some subsequent subdivision.

Major expansions occurred through and following major wars, including the US
Civil Way (founding of M.I.T.), and the first and second World Wars, as well
as the post-war / Cold War era, notably Vannevar Bush's "Science, The Endless
Frontier"
([https://nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm](https://nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm))

The Academic Major system began emerging in the early 19th century, though it
would not really reach recognisable form (or be named) until after 1875. It
replaced a general liberal education university system _without_ formal major
emphasis.

The post-1960 public research university is exemplified through projects such
as the California Master Plan for Higher Education, 1960, strongly driven by
governor Pat Brown and University of California president Clark Kerr. That
effort was itself a reaction to an earlier technological monopoly, that of the
railroads. Similar expansions occurred elsewhere, see the Robbins Report
(1963) for the UK, or a set of Chinese initiatives since the 1990s: the Double
First Class University Plan, Project 211, Project 985, or the C9 League.

In the US (and strongly similarly in much of the industrialised world), a de
facto if not explicit hierarchy of prestigious highly-selective top-tier
universities (largely private though with some public institutions), other
highly selective schools (many state university systems). These are followed
by less selective institutions, many formerly state colleges, "normal schools"
(teachers' colleges), and numerous smaller private schools, and some
polytechnics and ag & tech schools. Community colleges ("junior colleges") may
feed 4-year programmes or directly train workforce, and are generally not
selective (all applicants are accepted). Public and private vocational
schools, as well as company-specific credentialing programmes (CCIE, RHCE,
MCSA, OCP, Java SE, etc.) provide a range of skills training and
certification, some basic, some advanced technical, some continuing
professional education.

The various roles of education as teaching basic skills, higher skills, and
cultural indoctrination, were commented on by John Stuart Mill ~1860s Britain,
as noted by Hans Jensen, subject to various forms of control and coercion,
largely via funding or lack thereof:

 _First, the universities were given the task of providing an unceasing supply
of ideologically correct candidates for vital positions in government, church,
and business. The state was able to make the faculties of the "venerable
institutions" of higher education, or rather indoctrination, assume this duty
because it controlled appointments and held the purse from which "emoluments"
flowed into the coffers of academics...._

 _The state devised a second educational strategy in order to prevent such a
calamity from occurring. According to Mill, the "elementary schools for
children of the working classes" were given the task of ensuring that the poor
would continue to accept docilely their dismal station in life. It was very
easy for the state to force the public schools to assume this role. It did so
simply by failing malignantly to allocate sufficient funds for the operations
of what Mill identified contemptuously as "places called schools"..._

Hans E. Jensen, "John Stuart Mill's Theories of Wealth and Income
Distribution". Review of Social Economy. Pages 491-507. Published online: 05
Nov 2010.
([http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00346760110081599](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00346760110081599))

(A more complete cite and discussion here:
[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6x7u6a/on_the_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6x7u6a/on_the_role_of_universities_and_primary_education/))

A list of Wikipedia articles addressing much of this history and development:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_in_continuous_operation)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artes_mechanicae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artes_mechanicae)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocational_education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocational_education)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_skills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_skills)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_three_Rs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_three_Rs)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-
order_thinking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_thinking)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards-
based_education_refo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards-
based_education_reform_in_the_United_States)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldtian_model_of_higher_ed...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldtian_model_of_higher_education)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_technology#United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_technology#United_States)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Tec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rensselaer_Polytechnic_Institu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rensselaer_Polytechnic_Institute)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-
grant_university](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-grant_university)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_major](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_major)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Hig...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Higher_Education)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_Report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_Report)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_First_Class_University_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_First_Class_University_Plan)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_certification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_certification)

~~~
gostsamo
Huh, I've struck a nerve there. :)

A question is where we should draw the line between education never being able
to teach everything that one needs and education being only a way to utilize
people. I would put it where a skill let's you acquire additional knowledge
and capabilities, such like reading, math, logic, and the like. In that sense,
MIT and teaching someone how to use excel for project reports go in different
categories.

This is an opinion only though. The debate is rather large and it has many
nuances.

~~~
dredmorbius
Yeah, I've been kicking these ideas around for a while.

There are a few directions we could take this. Some freaks (myself) find them
all fascinating.

There's the development of modern business comms and procedures, notably at
railroads and DuPont Chemical. Joanne Yates has written a history. These
became codified in business practices training.

Standardisation itself has been a tremendous advance, much of it lead by a
Republican, Herbert Hoover, as Commerce Secretary.

The establishment of common practices, methods, and skills is itself a
powerful asset for companies. Armies of workers skilled in typing, filing,
programming languages, operating systems, productivity software, and more,
make the underlying companies' products and services more valuable.

The classification of skills on a hierarchy is its own mess --- from basic to
complex. Breaking apart the Seven Liberal Arts into their sub-groupings of the
trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric --- think of these as input, precessing, and
output), and quadrivium (maths, geometry, music, and astronomy --- quantity,
quantity in space, quantity in time, and quantity in space and time), reveals
some of this. I've been considering similar fundamental divisions of technical
mechanisms to fundamental dynamics or elements.

Or the classical professions: medicine, law, theology, business. Later
engineering and technology in its own right.

There's the durability or ephemerality of knowledge, skills, and equipment.
I've been in tech long enough to have some sense of what does and does not
endure, possibly even why. _Future Sock_ spoke to this 50 years ago.

Then there is the nature, history, and function of education, as institution,
as sevice, as profession, its roles in society, culture, business, industry,
politics, and military. The impacts of the wars of the 19th & 20th centuries
really cannot be overstated. There are many tensions, and many covert or
latent functions (a wonderful concept from sociologist Robert K. Melton).

------
adventured
A comprehensive implementation of something akin to the German vocational
training system is what the US needs.

It has been discussed across the political spectrum. The US needs to finally
take concerted action toward this, with big investment behind it.

It was widely floated as an approach a few years ago by Benioff (and countless
others) and the government made some basic motions in that direction:

[https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/trump-wants-to-
create-5-mi...](https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/trump-wants-to-
create-5-million-apprenticeships-in-5-years-because-marc-benioff-.html)

It's not nearly enough. The government has to go a lot bigger to make a dent
in a job market the size of the US.

------
WarOnPrivacy
The author seems to exist in a permanent state of enthusiasm, for mega corps
and their corpy things.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=Justin+Bariso](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=Justin+Bariso)

Just an observation.

~~~
soco
Well just any move made by FAANG will raise waves of enthusiasm and loud
"genius!!!" shouting... regardless what the move was about.

------
goatherders
College in the USA is an economic plague on young people. This most certainly
can't be as bad.

~~~
thehappypm
Except that’s completely untrue. College degrees are well worth the investment
— the earning potential increases of having a college degree vastly dwarf
tuition costs. When people are young, debt is a problem, but those same people
continue to see (exponential) income growth over the course of their careers
and eventually beat the debt, and then some. Folks without degrees struggle
with income growth.

~~~
hamandcheese
This is just... not true? At least not among anyone I’ve ever known who didn’t
go to school for CS, law, or med school.

~~~
thehappypm
study backing me up:
[https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2019/06/despit...](https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2019/06/despite-
rising-costs-college-is-still-a-good-investment.html)

------
Jimmc414
The author doesn't seem to understand how supply and demand work. Unless
there's about to be a massive increase in the availability of these jobs, this
is going to create a bubble that will reduce these salaries and lower the
skill level in these positions.

~~~
robjan
It doesn't push down salaries but does increase the signal to noise ratio when
it comes to hiring and therefore the cost of talent acquisition.

In influx of bootcamps in my area caused something similar with Software
Engineers. We didn't want to automatically exclude people from these
institutions but we ended up having to.

~~~
Jimmc414
If you had not excluded them do you believe it would have pushed down
salaries?

------
judge2020
I took the IT Support Specialist in early 2019 and it only took 1 week of
dedicated video watching and test-taking to do (I did this so that I wouldn't
need to pay the Coursera membership fee) (but that was because I already had a
strong background in IT support/troubleshooting, software development,
cybersecurity, and was intermediate in networking). I feel like the course is
solid for explaining the concepts that it talks about, but I can't attest to
how well it works for people with very little experience in IT.

~~~
grugagag
You solidified your knowledge with your prior experience. Without practice one
may potentially get good scores on tests but can't magically skip the
practice. Learning takes time

------
SpicyLemonZest
What I've been wondering is, if these kinds of programs succeed, how do we
ensure a smooth transition to the new career paths at the high school level? I
worry that we're going to enter (or maybe have already entered!) a long period
of bifurcation, where most schools continue to teach kids they'd better go to
college even as college increasingly sets them up for failure.

------
hizxy
Race to the bottom.

------
wyxuan
Great idea as the article notes, subpar execution.

I took a similar format course offered by IBM in data science on Coursera, and
my goodness, I found a lot of pure junk work in the peer review process.
Either that, or it was straight up copy and pasted from somewhere else online.

Online classes might definitely work, but they need more iterations to make it
work.

------
robomartin
I see a lot of negativity in this thread. What’s wrong with Google giving a
bunch of people a taste and the opportunity to grow?

I prefer to believe in the ability of people to reach beyond their station in
life. Sometimes all they need is inspiration. If Google can provide that it’s
great.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
The concern is whether Google actually is giving them an opportunity to grow.
As was mentioned downthread, most existing training certificate programs offer
no real growth and exist only to create a stagnant job pool in service of the
commercial interests of the company issuing them. I'm optimistic that this
program will be different, but I understand why someone who distrusts Google
might be concerned.

~~~
robomartin
Strictly speaking, neither Google nor any other single entity is responsible
for giving anyone any opportunity of any kind; to work, learn, grow, etc. That
they do is is very cool.

From my experience, the best people at anything (it doesn't have to be coding,
anything in life) are those who caught a glimpse of something that resonated
with them and, from that point forward, could not let it go.

In other words, from my perspective, the opportunity to grow is created by the
person, not by external actors.

Here's a simple example: How often the children of very rich people end-up
being complete losers? They don't lack resources at all. They don't lack
opportunity at all. What they lack is hunger, exposure, discipline, struggle
and that something that creates that spark that inspires so many to excel.

This is why I said that what Google is doing is great. You don't need to put
people through a full CS curriculum for them to be useful and, more
importantly, to change their lives. What they do with the experience and
insight after that is up to them.

------
blackflame7000
Half the classes they make you take at universities are worthless anyways.
They're just there to keep you 4 years and get more money. A CS major doesn't
need to learn about Greek Mythology.

~~~
twblalock
Universities are not intended to be vocational schools or trade schools.
That's why electives are required to graduate. That's why CS programs teach
theory more than practice.

It's always worth being a well-rounded person. The most successful software
engineers I know are not the most technically proficient. They are the ones
who understand how their customers and their employees and their managers view
the world, and they can use that understanding to prioritize the engineering
work that will have the most impact. They are good at explaining what they are
doing in terms that non-engineers understand, they can take requirements from
non-engineers and turn them into realistic engineering requirements, and they
can talk to corporate executives without seeming like Comic Book Guy from the
Simpsons. These are all good skills to have, and none of them are taught in CS
class.

~~~
F_J_H
Agreed, but how much debt should one take on to learn these other skills?
(Scott Galloway has been talking about this a lot lately - university degree
cost inflation, which has skyrocketed without a commensurate increase in the
quality of the product/service.)

There are other ways to pick up these skills, which are much more cost
effective.

~~~
twblalock
That argument also applies to CS skills. There are lots of successful self-
taught programmers out there.

Boot camps are the software equivalent of vocational/trade schools and they
are looked down on for a reason.

------
0x008
Yay more gate-keeping!

------
bassman9000
A new chapter in the SV Neofeudalism saga. More dependency on large
corporations, on yet another aspect of life.

