
The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age - pbui
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/university-like-cd-streaming-age/613291/
======
turbinerneiter
Ya'll use University wrong.

The classes, etc. ... whatever!

During my time at Uni, I:

* designed a demonstrator car frame to show off a bunch of new manufacturing techniques, which was actually built in the end

* was part of a team who tested a new type of fiber optical vibration sensor on a sounding rocket

* worked with a PhD student on developing a sensor to measure water flow through a tank to validate his simulations

* wrote code that is now orbiting earth on board of a CubeSat we built with a team of ~100 students

We had groups who built race cars, a group who won ~all of the Hyperloop
challenges, a group which builds rockets (seriously they have a lab in the
basement of the cantina - the only rocket powered cantina in the world), a
group that designs, builds and flies their own soaring planes (no-one died ...
yet) - and that's just the ones I considered cool. All of this groups get
access to top notch workshop and lab equipment and some of these groups are so
present at their respective chairs that they end up driving a serious amount
of the research happening there.

University is a place where teachers and students who are interested in a
field meet to learn and research together. Modern Uni has often forgotten
that, but if the students treat it as such it works in this way. We have to
tell students how they can get positive experiences out of the current system
- by trying to do so, they will change the system from within.

I honestly regret wasting my first couple of semesters before I learned about
all of this stuff.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
Your specific experience is great, and I'm glad for you.

The point here, however, is what University is for all people, not just for
individual cases like yours where things align nicely, and where maybe your
own character and personality (and some of your professors and class mates)
helped you get a meaningful experience out of it.

My personal opinion is that the article is mostly right about what doesn't
make sense for Universities in 2020. Many things are wrong, including
providing access to it for ALL valuable students irrespective of income or
wealth.

~~~
funcDropShadow
> The point here, however, is what University is for all people

Traditionally, that was not true and still is not true in places like Germany.
A university is the place where you can get the highest education of a field,
or ideally where you study a field on your own. Both requires a lot of
prerequisites that not everybody fulfills. I am talking about knowledge,
ability to learn although something is not flashy, and the will to endure. And
it should be like that, otherwise you loose the ability to train the brightest
people of a society. For everybody else, there are applied universities, dual
study programs, and well established and respected vocational training
programs, here in Germany.

Replacing universities with a netflix-esque experience may seem attractive to
students, but is doomed to fail to train students. The question how much
teachers should adapt to the wishes to their students is as old as learning
itself. In the end the students have to trust, that a teacher knows which
material to cover to teach students the desired skills, facts, and abilities.
For an example of that, search your trusted video-streaming platform for the
film Karate Kid. ;-)

~~~
blablabla123
> Replacing universities with a netflix-esque experience may seem attractive
> to students, but is doomed to fail to train students

To be honest, for very mathematical subjects the lectures are almost useless.
Exercises and practicing is what gives insights, determines the grades and
tells which part of the lecture is actually important.

I'd be curious how it is in other subjects, like literature or history. But I
assume without writing texts, one doesn't get very far there either.

~~~
maxmunzel
I used to think this way, but learning how to take math lectures really
changed my university experience. To my first semester me:

1\. Go to the lectures, sit upfront (where you are definitely not going to use
your phone or fall asleep)

2\. Get the book or script that corresponds to your lecture. Almost all math
lectures follow some sort of book. If unsure, ask your professor.

Just reading ahead for half an hour prior to the lecture will make _such_ a
difference, as you won’t be lost and can focus more on contexts than on
definitions.

3\. Feel free to ask questions. If you know where you are (see 2.) it’s much
easier to know what’s wrong. Professors are human and sometimes forget to give
some theorem they are using. It’s really easy (and frankly surreal at first)
to be that guy that points out errors to the professor (in a respectful way!).

If your shy or you have the feeling, that the problem is indeed on your end –
take notes of things that are unclear and ask them after the lecture.
Professors usually love to talk about their subject!

4\. Last but not least: Keep calm and carry on. It’s completely normal to feel
overwhelmed at first ;)

~~~
blablabla123
Sure, it's possible to prepare ahead and also afterwards. But this is so time-
consuming, I mean after all everybody has to decide that for themselves but
IMHO Pareto-optimizing that means not visiting most lectures. At least that's
how I studied and it worked out really well. But I agree with you one can seek
a lot of value from it, but that doesn't limit itself to 1.5 hours sitting
there and listening. But rather being really concentrated for 1.5 hours, and
spending time before and after.

------
dougmwne
I was having another one of those moments yesterday where I was questioning
the value of higher education while reading a HN thread about teaching
yourself CS. There was a healthy debate about whether the typical CS
curriculum helps a modern software engineer at all. Some thought the degree
was stuck back in the 70's. Others thought there was value, but had trouble
articulating it. It seems that when the information received was divorced from
the credential, the value dropped precipitously. And this is a hard sciences
degree with many "universal truths" to teach. Things get even more squishy
when you get into the humanities which are much more idea, opinion and
discussion based.

As the linked article points out, employers often look for the degree, but do
not believe it is much of an indicator of quality and don't expect new grads
to walk in the door with the needed skills. As a former recruiter I think that
sentiment is pretty spot on. I don't think I ever asked a candidate about the
details of their education. It was just never relevant in comparison to their
experience.

So that leaves the on campus experience, which I personally think is amazing.
It's like living at a country club for 4 years, crossed with a huge expansion
in your world from living at home and going to high school. The new ideas from
the classes are just a small part of the new ideas you get exposed to from
other students and campus events. Plus with the increasing independence, it's
a great gentle introduction to adulthood. Unfortunately all that is not
available during the pandemic.

So the content of the classes is in question, the value of the credential is
in question, the cost is ballooning and the on campus experience is on an
uncertain hiatus. If ever there was a time to disrupt higher ed, that time is
now.

~~~
mikece
One of the benefits of a college setting would be the gathering together of
young intelligent people and exposing them not only to new ideas but how to
evaluate, value, and compare ideas for their relative worth. I wonder how much
open and free debate of ideas even exists anymore, having given way to the
inculcation and indoctrination of "correct ideas." I have long believed that
the best way to eradicate racism is to allow racists and anti-racists to have
open Lincoln-Douglas style debates on college campuses: allow racists to
explain their ideas and positions and the tenability of their position will be
exposed for the naked fear and hatred that it is. While not quite as crucial
as the previous idea, debates of ideas, languages, operating systems, etc can
and should happen as part of a CS curriculum. Regardless of the field we end
up in, the need to be able to state one's position and defend it against a
counter-proposal is something common to all fields (not just law).

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
The “debate” on racism was lost a long time ago. I would hope it’s well
understood it’s a net negative for society. I don’t think debating it over and
over again as if there’s merit to racist ideas is remotely a good idea.

It’s like letting the flat earthers continue to teach science classes even
though we know the earth is round.

~~~
mikece
"having a debate" != "teaching a class"

> The "debate" on racism was lost a long time ago.

When is the last time you asked someone who is a strident racist to explain
their ideas in the form of a full essay or 30 minute presentation? Have you
ever seen this done without the implicit or explicit assertion that the target
of their animus is a lesser human or perhaps not human at all? Anyone with two
brain cells to rub together -- including and ESPECIALLY impressionable young
people raised in racist environments -- can see the absurdity of such an
argument. The very act of exposing the ideas to open discussion and forcing
the proponent to defend them with logic and reason is what ultimately undoes
them. Will some still recalcitrantly cling to such ideas? Sure, but that but
by that point it will be clear to anyone paying attention it's not for a
reasonable purpose.

~~~
MisterBastahrd
We have Youtube, and you can go there and watch Bill Buckley make all the same
stupid assumptions racists do and have them demolished by James Baldwin.

The problem with modern debates is that they are not honest representations of
the subject matter. They are exercises in tactical bullshit, meant to be
rapid-fire, points-winning pseudo-arguments instead of constructive,
intellectual discussions of the subject matter.

------
m000
> as employers embrace new skills-based certifications, many students may
> question the value of the traditional four-year degree

Of course employers will embrace skills-based certifications, as they
essentially offload the cost of any specialized training to the employee.
Until now, it was not uncommon for the employer to pay (directly or
indirectly) for the additional training.

But I'm not sure if getting a specialization certification without having a
solid background on the topic is a good idea. It will be like the hordes of
self-taught plugin programmers that made the Wordpress platform a liability to
run.

In the end, the problem is not the value of the four-year university degree.
The problem is its price. Pretending that the price can't be lowered, so we
have to investigate alternative modes of higher education, is both untruthful
and undemocratic.

~~~
jfengel
It may well be impossible to walk back what has happened to universities.
Large institutions move slowly. There are too many stakeholders. Even when
they can change, it's inevitable that forces will resist the change, resulting
in half-measures.

So it may well be more expeditious to start over. There are many other models,
and if nothing else, whatever success those models have will provide more
capacity. That may also draw away students and force them to lower prices.

It still won't be easy. The price rise is driven in part by a mythos about the
value of the four-year degree. People will continue to see education in any
alternative as "lesser". And it doesn't have to be "lesser". I am a big fan of
the work being done at Signum University, which has been working for years to
establish an online model that's more than just a MOOC. It's actually closer
to what a liberal arts education was supposed to be, the thing that gave four-
year universities such prestige for producing well-rounded students. They
don't teach computer science; they teach literature. And that means teaching
dialogue, discussion, and insight, rather than being a glorified vo-tech
school with a bunch of humanities thrown in. I'd love to see CS education move
to a place where it taught how to craft software rather than teaching us to be
mechanics.

Even when that happens it will be seen as "lesser" for a long time. We use the
four-year school as a marker that the student can at least jump through the
hoops, speak and write at least marginally competently, and can do the
mechanical, testable aspects of the job. It doesn't actually do that very
well, but people think it does, and don't believe anything else can.

~~~
stinkytaco
> So it may well be more expeditious to start over. There are many other
> models, and if nothing else, whatever success those models have will provide
> more capacity. That may also draw away students and force them to lower
> prices.

Don't you think the process of starting over is already underway? We've ha
alternate training and evaluation methods (certifications, MOOCs, and
vocational schools) for a long time. What do you mean by "start over" in this
context?

~~~
jfengel
What I mean is something that receives more of the cachet of universities. As
you say, we've had MOOCs and similar for a long time, but you're still going
to have a hard time being employed with just that, especially for the best-
paying jobs. They connote somebody who can do mechanical work but without
creativity or communications skills.

My suggestion would be to promote those "soft" skills without the overhead of
overhead of buildings, a football team, dining halls, etc. You can discuss
literature, history, writing, etc. online almost as well as you can do it in
person. Those are the things that differentiate a prestigious 4-year degree
from a vo-tech or 2-year degree, and it's the prestige that has ultimately
driven people's willingness to pay so much for university. (Well, that and
some dishonesty and poorly-thought-out policy when it comes to student loans.)

------
thechao
Looking back on my education 20 years later... obviously the math degree gave
me the skill set to take advantage of the opportunities handed to me. (It’s
how I got back into grad school & out with a PhD in just 4 years; it let me
work with Mike Abrash.) but the skills I learned in school that have helped me
as a person were from the courses that weren’t “certificatable”: literary
analysis, my beloved history, the philosophy I always hated.

I worry in a certificate-driven education that we’ll leave those things
behind.

On the other hand, the person I know with the best grasp of history,
philosophy, and literary analysis barely graduated from high school and did a
4 year stint in the Navy: apparently, being stuck on a ship for years gives
you ample opportunity for self-study. Maybe what we need is just boredom,
opportunity, & books, and not more schooling?

~~~
Touche
Yeah, the #1 thing I got out of college was critical thinking. History and
philosophy are where I learned that. Would it have come without college?
Maybe, and certainly yes for some. I do worry about a learn-one-task education
system and what that means for society at large.

~~~
randomdata
With the degree attainment rate at only 30% in the US, a share that is similar
in many countries around the world, the "learn-one-task education system" is
what society at large is already accustomed to.

~~~
Touche
Is this an argument against my concern? I can't tell. I think poor education
is a major issue in our (world) society and makes people more vulnerable to
things like disinformation which is rampant today.

------
michaelt
University right now is a bundle deal.

* You get lectures and assignments.

* You get schedules and deadlines that discourage procrastination, if you're the sort of person who leaves things until the last minute.

* You (hopefully) get detailed feedback on assignments from a real human.

* You get big manicured lawns and marble pillars.

* You get health insurance.

* You get in-person small-group discussions (at least in some subjects) of advanced topics.

* You get a bunch of people of your age and social background, all uprooted from home and looking to make new friends at the same time.

* You get subsidised gyms and sports clubs and interest clubs.

* You get to network and meet people.

* You get buildings full of academics with office hours where you can basically just walk in and they'll explain almost anything to you.

* You get parties full of drunk young people, of all genders, some looking for relationships, others for casual sex.

* You get access to journals and databases and software that usually costs $$$$$ (and computer labs with it all already set up)

* You get a weird 'future middle class' social status where you can drink and party and not get a job and go into debt - yet be treated as someone successful.

* You get a easily understood explanation for that gap in your resume.

* You get internship opportunities - where you can get your foot in the door at big employers, while being paid and taught how they do things.

* You get loans for your living costs, despite having no income or credit history.

* You get access to a library with more (serious, intellectual) books than you could read in a lifetime.

* You get to leave home, but with training wheels if you're not ready to cook and clean and laundry and pay bills all at once.

* You get supply control, from 'weed out classes' and limited numbers of student places.

* You get in-person exams that are at least moderately difficult to cheat on.

* And yes, you (hopefully) get a credential at the end of it. Maybe even with a good 'brand'.

Online courses can certainly deliver lectures at a much lower price than the
ruinous cost of US universities. But I think part of the reason the likes of
Coursera aren't on their way to replacing conventional colleges is because
they're missing so much else from the bundle.

~~~
linuxftw
Great list. You missed an important one: Being selected for admission to
validate your worth.

The entire HS experience (in the US) is formulated around this validation.
Simply being chosen is a reward in itself.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Yes and no. Yes, getting admitted puts you above the other high school grads.
No, it doesn't put you anywhere compared to the college grads. "Admitted to X
University" on a resume is a question mark, not an exclamation point.

------
everdrive
It's hard not to be pedantic here. CDs still have their place, and a lot of
streaming is terrible; either there are advertisements, or DRM, or fidelity
costs, or limited libraries due to licensing problems. etc.

I think the metaphor still goes the same way: the old fashioned way may not be
perfect, but there is some real value there that is not necessarily replaced
by steaming online courses.

~~~
zucker42
All the problems with streaming you mentioned are completely artificial. They
are not actual technological problems with streaming.

~~~
everdrive
They're not artificial, they're inherent to the business model. So I agree
that the limitations I mentioned don't have anything to do with streaming
technology, they crop up time and time again because of some of the
limitations apparently required by a streaming business model.

And so in that sense I think it remains a useful metaphor. What sort of
business models will be profitable when it comes to streaming courses online?
Will they always put the student and learning first, or will the viable
business model for these impose limitations, or push things in the wrong
direction.

------
teuobk
The further in time I am removed from my university years, the more convinced
I become that the social interaction was the true root of the experience's
value. To quote Stephen Leacock's 1920 take on university life:

"The real thing for the student is the life and environment that surrounds
him. All that he really learns he learns, in a sense, by the active operation
of his own intellect and not as the passive recipient of lectures. And for
this active operation what he needs most is the continued and intimate contact
with his fellows. Students must live together and eat together, talk and smoke
together. Experience shows that that is how their minds really grow.

[...]

If I were founding a university -- and I say it with all the seriousness of
which I am capable, I would found first a smoking room; then when I had a
little more money in hand I would found a dormitory, then after that, or more
properly with that, a decent reading room and a library. After that, if I
still had money over that I couldn't use, I would hire a professor and get
some textbooks."

Source: [https://news.library.mcgill.ca/stephen-leacocks-the-need-
for...](https://news.library.mcgill.ca/stephen-leacocks-the-need-for-
dormitories-at-mcgill-1920/)

~~~
DreamScatter
Excellent, I would be interested in your university.

------
neutronicus
> This transition is likely to appear first in technical degree programs,
> where it is relatively easy for students to certify their skills online

This is dangerously false. The world isn't software engineering.

Engineering disciplines are in many ways _fundamentally about_ learning to use
expensive, special-purpose equipment to design, monitor and control expensive,
special-purpose, _reliability-critical_ infrastructure. Sometimes, as in the
case of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences (the topic of my
undergrad degree), access to this equipment and training is regulated and
restricted by the host nation-state.

Perhaps some disciplines (Mechanical, maybe Civil) are democratized enough
that something like a Hackerspace membership could complement an online degree
program, but for others (Aerospace, NERS, Biomedical) I just don't see how you
train people and verify competence without a centralized campus and training
equipment.

Also, it may not be a good assumption that Software Engineering will remain as
democratized as it does today. Web Development, sure, that's in some sense
inherently by-and-for consumer devices. But things like IaaS, Machine
Learning, and physics / engineering simulation (this last is what I now the
most about) increasingly occur on specialized hardware that's at best
inconvenient and at worst impossible to learn on a typical consumer device.

Changes in consumer devices themselves are aso in some sense de-democratizing
tech learning. My wife has worked in the higher education space in operations,
and still does a lot of UX research there as well, and in her experience the
technical competence of students with business-standard tech platforms (mainly
e-mail, but also things like spreadsheets and word processing) is regressing,
and COVID-19 is exposing how poorly current university infrastructure serves
students whose only device is a smart phone (common among students from lower-
income backgrounds).

We may have benefitted from a blip in history where a) B2B tech vendors were
unusually successful at selling their budget B2B products to consumers and b)
the performance requirements of a consumer product segment (i.e. games) drove
the hardware innovations underlying a high-growth B2B market (ML on GPGPU)

------
jkhdigital
Not the right analogy, but the article is mostly on point--higher education is
in the process of being "unbundled".

> I need no convincing of the value of campus life and in-classroom education.
> I recognize that online platforms can’t perfectly replace what we deliver on
> campus. But they can fulfill key pieces of our core mission and reach many
> more students, of all ages and economic backgrounds, at a far lower cost.

> Our industry has been so stable for so long that we’ve conflated our model
> with our mission.

The author then rhetorically asks what the mission actually is, and answers
with

> As educators, we strive to create opportunities for as many students as
> possible to discover and develop their talents, and to use those talents to
> make a difference in the world.

which sounds good and all but seems pretty far removed from the sausage that
is actually being made on college campuses. I, for one, am looking forward to
see what new models arise over the next couple decades and I hope my child has
a wider variety of options than I did.

~~~
dleslie
Is it even the mission, or has it ever been? Universities aren't so much about
identifying and fostering talent as they are about molding the manner in which
individuals approach the world, while giving them the tools necessary to
navigate and succeed.

And yes, campus life is part of that. It is similar in purpose to Rumspringa:
the freshly-minted independent adults are given a taste of freedom in a
controlled manner, while surrounded by reminders of the path they are on.

------
dleslie
I still buy CDs and rip them to MP3s.

They work when cellular data isn't available, they have excellent sound
quality, they're easy to organize, and there's no vendor lock-in who's spying
on my listening habits.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Do you have the option to use something better than MP3?

How's the 'loudness war' going with modern CDs?

~~~
dleslie
I previously used FLAC but I like taking my whole library with me. HQ MP3 is
good enough for me.

The loudness war is something of a myth. I normalize my audio, so I don't
really notice. As for the absence of dynamic range, I don't really care. I
don't listen to classical.

~~~
eindiran
I don't think the loudness war is a myth:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war)

But it appears to have significantly abated, due to normalization by streaming
services and changing opinions of sound engineers over the last decade.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
> changing opinions of sound engineers over the last decade

Don't sound engineers oppose the loudness war? My understanding is that they'd
far rather be doing work they could be proud of, but they get orders to ramp
up the volume.

You're right that it absolutely isn't a myth.

------
iamben
University was a chance for me to grow up. I was a young 18. I got to leave
home, meet a bunch of people, have some fun. I grew up a lot (kinda, ha) over
three years and was ready to work when I was done. I also got a degree (which
was far cheaper back then).

The paper degree never really opened any doors for me - meeting people
probably did, growing up definitely did. 95% of the work I got/did that
followed was because I taught myself PHP (and WML, LOL) for my dissertation
project. If I'd knuckled down, I could have learned that in a few weeks
without the degree.

With all this in mind, how long before enterprising firms come up with a learn
and work option? I'm sure with a bit of thought you could make money off a
hundred or smart 18 year olds. Give them a campus environment, free meals and
board, some pocket money - then 12 hours (or whatever) of lectures a week, and
the rest of the time they actually work for you doing practical things,
putting in to practice what they're learning (or just doing a bunch of stuff
that immerses them in a real life company). After a year or 18 months, they
have something for a CV, contacts, they've got to grow up a bit, real life
experience... Plus no student debt etc. I'd guess the company(ies?) involved
could also have their pick of the smartest ones. Everyone wins.

------
mumblemumble
> Our industry has been so stable for so long that we’ve conflated our model
> with our mission.

This had already become apparent to me long before online education took off.
Back when I called up the local university to ask if I could enroll in a few
classes, _a la carte_ , in order to flesh out my knowledge of some subjects
that my alma mater's program didn't cover. They informed me that those classes
were considered advanced, and therefore were only offered to students enrolled
in the college's degree program.

In other words, the only way they would let me take those one or two classes
would be as part of a package deal for earning a second bachelor's degree,
majoring in the same area of study as the one I already had.

The only way I can make sense of a policy like that is if you think of the
fundamental model of higher education as being essentially unchanged from what
it was in the medieval period: A sort of atomic package that's a rite of
passage that gains you access to a certain stratum of society as much as it is
an education. Under that model, no, maybe it didn't make sense to take just
one class, any more than it makes sense to walk into a jeweler's and ask them
to chisel a chunk off of a diamond ring and sell it to you. But, nowadays,
that way of thinking about education is deeply anachronistic.

And classist, too. Failing to meet the needs of people who can't afford to
just drop everything and become a full-time student with anything more helpful
than, "Well, maybe you can dig a 500m deep financial hole, jump into it, and
we'll meet you at the bottom," is simply a travesty.

------
knolax
Every time I see articles like this I can only assume the writer either
majored in CS or in a humanities major that doesn't involve any physical work.
If you study any sort of science or engineering you will find that even the
simplest equipment used in lab classes cost hundreds, if not thousands, of
dollars. Cost aside, you simply can not trust an undergrad to run a centrifuge
without in-person training.

People also highly over-estimate the cost and speed of self teaching.
Personally, I learned more in my introductory Mechanical Engineering courses
freshman year than I did in all my attempts at self-teaching. This of course
doesn't even include the subjects I did not even know about before. There is
an overhead cost per subject to self-teaching, and I've yet to see anyone
self-teach themselves the number of subjects that a typical undergrad
education involves.

College is also the first time someone finds themselves in the company of
enough competent people to, say, do an engineering or CS group assignment that
doesn't involve major hand holding.

~~~
djsumdog
There are also things I learned in CS (BigO notation, building algorithms from
scratch, working in groups) that I don't think I would have picked up easily
on my own (or know that it was important to learn). But it's still theory I
use all the time when I design and build things at scale.

There was a lot I didn't learn in University and that I picked up while
working, because I kept my skills up.

I know people who graduated from University who only knew Java and never did
anything outside of the curriculum. I know other students who played with
hardware, hooked up sensors, did assignments in different languages each
semester (if the professor allowed it) and went out of their way to learn as
much as they could.

You get out of any education what you put into it.

I do think in-person education is really important though, even in things like
Comp Sci. I do think it should be affordable. I went to a small school in a
small town and IIRC, my tuition was <$3k per semester (not including books,
food and housing of course). It was the early 2000s and I had roommates who
worked grocery stores and print shops, and were able to either pay for school
with those jobs or pay off their loans within a year or so.

During that same time, I met people from other schools with $20k in debt (and
that's considered very low today!).

No education should cost $100k. That's truly insane.

------
enriquto
> The University Is Like a CD in the Streaming Age

And that is a good thing! A great deal of the most interesting music is not
available on streaming. Thanks to CDs (and the people who pirate them) we can
still have access to unique recordings.

------
fullshark
Top universities can still keep their most valuable asset: a piece of paper
with their name on it, scarce. They likely will and be fine. Those degrees
will still open many doors.

The lower tier universities that charged tens of thousands of dollars to offer
a minor leg up for your resume among the pile of resumes when applying for a
job though are in big trouble. Ultimately colleges will more clearly shift
their value proposition from "here is where you learn key material" to "here
is where you learn to be an adult" and survive I think. Most kids out of high
school are idiots and need some sort of structure to latch onto as they leave
adolescence / the nest.

------
mikece
How much of a role do the certification bodies (the groups who decide who can
grant a bachelor's degree) play the cost of college tuition? I'm a big fan of
the classical quadrivium, trivium, and Great Books model of education; why
couldn't one complete all of the studies at home, spend six to twelve months
in an intensive course of examination and debate to validate the level of
education (which could be done online) and receive a bachelor of arts in "the
humanities" (or bachelor of letters or whatever one wants to call it)? I think
we would have a much more powerful crop of critical and logical thinkers if
education were handled thus.

------
mymythisisthis
Universities will survive. They do change. Originally U's didn't pay profs,
but only gave them a stage to recruit students to tutor. Their money was made
from tutoring. Many kids in U's were 14 or 15 years old until the 18th
century. Tests, standardized tests, and multiple choice tests didn't always
exists.

This might be a low point, but in 50 years I see them having great power.
Democracy will once again shift from geographical ridings to a 'guild system'.
For example there might be a senate seat that can only be held by a licensed
doctor, and only licensed doctors can vote for who will be in that seat.

------
II2II
Societies tend to see the most progress when a greater number of people gather
together. While we may find a way to accomplish that through online
instruction, our current attempts to do so have been spotty at best.

One of the reasons brought up for online education is likely one of the things
that hinders it: the idea of being able to study where ever and whenever you
want. As liberating as that may sound, it keeps people apart in both space and
time. Granted, social factors probably play a greater role. For some reason,
people don't seem to form the same types of connections with each other in the
digital world.

------
cs702
Students at elite schools do NOT attend "to learn facts." Most such students
are smart enough to learn anything they want to learn on their own.

Elite universities like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, etc. are
attended mainly (a) to interact socially with and learn in-person from other
individuals who are smarter, more talented, more knowledgeable, and/or more
connected in diverse ways, (b) to join a kind of 'exclusive networking club'
with lifetime membership benefits, (c) to learn the rituals and norms of this
club, and (d) to get a credential that also confers lifetime benefits.

------
athenot
In this analogy, here's the vintage vinyl version (for those who can
understand French): the College de France, free since 1530. Adding some irony
to the metaphor, their courses are available online via streaming.

[https://www.college-de-france.fr](https://www.college-de-france.fr)

No they don't give out degrees but it's one option among many of open
knowledge sharing.

------
non-entity
I've done a good bit of research into online programs and there seems to be,
with a few exceptions, online CS programs and online Liberal Arts programs. Of
those the only "useful" degree is CS and the quality of the programs vary
greatly.

For the most part this makes sense, a lot of cool or useful degrees arent
really possible to deliver a quality program online because of expensive
equipment for labs that arent available to consumers (be that for price or
other reasons).

On an interesting note, I'm disappointed there arent more math programs. It's
a moderately useful degree with wide applicability and doesnt have much of the
way of physical constraints. The only issues I can imagine are ones that are
common to online degrees in general. Yet only a few school have one.

> Indeed, that unbundling is already happening. Employers such as Google,
> Apple, IBM, and Ernst & Young have stopped requiring traditional university
> degrees, even for some of their most highly skilled positions

So... developers and tangential professions right? Self taught developers and
those with non-traditional educations are hardly new. I doubt these companies
are willing to waive for many "highly skilled positions".

I think I read some time ago about Elon Musk claiming he was removing degree
requirements from job listings[0] and yet if I search for engineering
positions at Telsa many require a masters degree in an engineering discipline.
Everytime i hear something about how usless degrees are and how much better
other options are, I assume they dont know anything about the world outside
software.

[0] [https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-college-not-for-
le...](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-college-not-for-learning-not-
required-at-tesla-2020-3)

------
somewhereoutth
Cynically speaking, the purpose of University has always been to connect very
rich people with very talented people. In this way the elite can fertilize
each new generation with fresh blood carefully selected from the masses. This
is good for the very rich, as they know they need talent to remain at the top,
and is also good for the very talented, as it gives them a path to that top.

Unfortunately, opening higher education to a much greater proportion of the
population (50% in the UK?) has somewhat torpedoed this mechanism. The rich
will become more stupid, and the talented will find less opportunity to
establish themselves.

------
wespiser_2018
For some programs, like Georgia Tech's OMSCS, online students in given courses
are known to do better on written exams then the in-person class[1] This could
have a lot to do with demographics: online students have a harder survivorship
curve to contend with, already have employment, and face little reason to
continue with the program if they are discouraged or stuggling. None the less,
it's an interesting data point!

[1]
[https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2876034.2893383](https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2876034.2893383)

------
abvdasker
This is a pretty bad take. The article doesn't consider the numerous
disciplines like chemistry, biology or physics for which often expensive
physical resources, equipment and facilities are a necessity — really any
course of study with a significant amount of time spent in a laboratory.

Call me paranoid, but I am very suspicious of the voices pushing for all-
digital education. Of the students whom I know, none want this. It's not what
they signed up for, and many feel shortchanged by their universities
continuing to charge them full price for a subpar learning experience post-
COVID.

~~~
empath75
> It's not what they signed up for, and many feel shortchanged by their
> universities continuing to charge them tuition fees for a subpar learning
> experience post-COVID.

As soon as they convince employers that a digital education is a reasonable
substitute for in person classes, the traditional university will be over.

Why would you put yourself into $100k worth of debt for a piece of paper when
you can get the same piece of paper from a pure online university for a
fraction of the cost.

~~~
abvdasker
What the students I've talked to are saying is, "why put ourselves into $100k
worth of debt for online-only classes?" If they're supposed to be doing lab
work, why pay any money at all for a class without it? Tuition prices are
unchanged even though higher education has temporarily transitioned to remote-
only.

------
asciimov
The best thing that college did for me is get me out from under my parents
roof and their influence. College gave me a chance to develop my own beliefs
and ideas by being surrounded by people from many different places.

College changed me, by forcing me to be surrounded by different thoughts and
feelings of people that I normally wouldn't have come into contact with in my
home town.

In the few short years I was in college I went from a religious staunch
conservative to an atheist liberal. This would have never happened to me had I
stayed in my home.

------
master_yoda_1
One very dangerous thing about university I notice is that it encourage age
discrimination. And that propagate to the industry hiring. Very few people
with family will choose to go to university full time, and hence can't further
their knowledge. Also discrimination is so rampant that even online degree is
not given same weight as the classroom even though the classes are exactly
same (for example stanford SCPD). So definitely we need a movement to stop
this discrimination and kill this so called universities.

------
8bitsrule
I'd never gladly give up all of the things about college that had nothing to
do with coursework. Yes, over the years the discipline, fluidity and acumen
required and acquired from mentors was invaluable. But that was maybe one-
third of the value.

To describe the rest? let's say: the concentration of similarly-oriented
students and the time to explore and grow in an intense and stimulating
environment. But - then - college was _a lot_ less expensive.

------
Dwolb
If I needed inspiration for a new online educational program I’d look to video
games to see what’s going on.

Take Rocket League for example. This is a game that’s incredibly simple to get
started: you drive a car and hit a ball. But to master advanced techniques,
like dribbling in the air as a literal rocket, it takes hundreds to thousands
of hours of practice.

To practice in a consequence-free environment there are standard and
community-created training packs. To gain skills relative to your peers
there’s a matching engine to create “fair online games”. To compete openly,
there are ranked matches with precise criteria for getting into and falling
out of a rank.

Furthermore, the community is incredibly supportive of questions, show-and-
tell streams, and is light-hearted enough to create their own memes. There are
even tutors who will review your games play-by-play with you to fix your game
sense.

There’s so much good stuff here to pick apart on how to build good programs
that are safe, inspiring, and lead to real skill progress for the
participants. The university does a lot of it naturally but from what I’ve
seen from Rocket League, you should be able to push a lot of those benefits
into online formats.

------
stevefan1999
I think vocational education could have been better conveyed online, but with
perfect pre-recording and editing. Coursera and Edx are a good example for a
forerunner though.

As a college student myself, this year, this semester is the worst for me -- I
felt really lazy without any faith to keep me going, that with face-to-face
activity I feel like I'm motivated to engage. But I hope this semester really
is the exception.

~~~
PragmaticPulp
> As a college student myself, this year, this semester is the worst for me --
> I felt really lazy without any faith to keep me going, that with face-to-
> face activity I feel like I'm motivated to engage.

The in-person energy of a University environment isn’t given enough credit in
these discussions about the relevance of Universities in modern times.

Physically going into a building dedicated to education and sitting among
peers who are also there to learn is a strong motivator for learning. The
social cues of seeing your peers pay attention helps align everyone toward
learning. Being among your peers is a good reminder that taking the education
seriously is important for remaining competitive in the workforce after
graduation.

Contrast that with online courses, where students utilize the same device they
use for gaming, social media, and browsing the internet to also view remote
lectures. No one will notice if you’re chatting with your friends during the
course, or browsing Reddit the whole time, or if you have the TV on in the
background. Sure, some people are good at sitting down, focusing, and paying
attention, but many others struggle without the context shifts, social cues,
and social pressure of a traditional learning environment.

HN has been having heated conversations about how self-teaching and free
online courses are going to replace expensive universities for as long as I
can remember. Yet in all of my experience interviewing candidates with an
extra emphasis on giving self-taught and non-traditional applicants extra
attention, I’ve never seen any self-taught candidates who come close to their
University educated peers. I’m sure there are great self-taught people out
there, but on average it appears that a real, in-person University education
really does something extra to prepare people.

I think there are a lot of intangible or hard to pinpoint aspects of a
University education that won’t be replaced any time soon by pure online
courses.

~~~
stevefan1999
Yes. For online learning, distraction that is easy to reach is a problem.

We can further generalize it to remote working, which surprisingly drew a same
parallelism as you described for school/workplace.

> I think there are a lot of intangible or hard to pinpoint aspects of a
> University education that won’t be replaced any time soon by pure online
> courses.

I had mixed view on this. I think this is about the matter of authenticity,
that whatever you read, taught and trained in school should be reliable,
consistent & correct (doesn't mean it is the most up to date, however). It
also served as a (referential) benchmark of your most of your skills.

However, at the end of the day this is a matter of the ebb and flow of
information -- You see that there are some people that can succeed with
limited public information on LeetCode, Codeforces etc., they are truly
successful and competitive, but most people also get preference for the
background of their school, e.g. CMU, MIT, that they are offered more
confidential information (like what type of algorithm question would
Microsoft/Google present to you?), more trainings (better
understanding/explanation of materials), more networks (alumni), etc. to begin
with.

If all of these information and assets are open to public and easily
accessible, universities, or perhaps every centralized education facilities
will truly met its demise -- their business advantages and potentials are
almost totally zero.

------
flr03
I think the title is clickbaity. As mentioned in the article there is more to
University than just classes, there is the social aspect of campus life etc.
So it's not like the Uni is getting obsolete because of online learning
platforms.

That being said I think there is indeed a big potential to offer quality
content at a reduce cost, and make knowledge accessible to more people,
especially in countries where access to university is extremely costly, hence
access to education not equitable.

Having social, human one to one interaction with professors like Deleuze,
Grothendieck, who, in example, where both teaching in French Uni, is not quite
the same as watching a video online. So I'd say Uni is the color dolby
surround cinema experience, online learning is the black & white TV at home.

------
opportune
The value of that $75k/year was never from the classes themselves but from the
social proof, networking, and opportunity to live among other like minded
young people at similar stages of their lives (and exposure to different
people/ideas through that). The classes themselves are essentially
commodities. A lot of highly ranked universities don’t even have great
teachers for many of their classes.

Universities that derive much of their value for being a proxy for some
combination of intelligence/privilege can keep their value going into the
future because they’ll likely remain just as selective if not more so over
time. It’s the not-particularly-selective, small private colleges and
universities which have their business model under threat, IMO

------
brlewis
For those like me drawn in by the bad headline, FYI the article itself uses
the obviously more correct analogy of live entertainment in the streaming age.
(TBH I didn't read it, just skimmed to see if they were really going to use
only the bad analogy)

------
intended
American higher education discussion is usually misplaced because it’s a
middle class jobs discussion with extra steps.

create the factory jobs which don’t need a degree and many people will be
happier and colleges will no longer be a part of a non-normally distributed
outcomes market.

People learn in a variety of ways, and the abysmal completion rates from MOOCs
clearly indicate that IT enables education does not solve the problem which
causes the symptoms.

Gamification, intervention, multiple steps to keep completion rates up still
Result in large drop out rates.

Online education will only work for a few people, and will fail far short of
its promise for everyone else.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I always expected the drop out rates for MOOCs to be high. The cost of entry
is low.

If you look at organisations like the Open University it's a different
picture. People have to put their hand in their wallets and that seems to be
enough to fix the problem.

~~~
intended
that underscores how our assumptions and solutions don’t make sense - free,
quality education avaiLable at any time? That was the holy grail which we
thought we had achieved when Salman khan‘S videos started getting shared.

Instead we have to concoct filters and tools to get a ~12-13% average
completion rate.

------
sho
I heard a great thought experiment once: would you rather have a stanford
degree without the education, or a stanford education without the degree?

20+ years of experience have taught me that anything but the first choice is
utterly insane.

------
goblin89
I like the distinction between a university and an institution focusing on
practical higher education (German “Fachhochschule” seems to convey the
concept). This should not be about difficulty and prestige, but one’s mindset
and what they want to do in life.

Research-oriented higher education is not likely to become obsolete, and
neither is applied practical education. What can (and, arguably, should) go
away is expecting an institution originally intended for the former to provide
the latter.

Unfortunately, in many countries universities have grown to become the default
option, any other path is considered inferior.

~~~
throwawaygh
_> I like the distinction between a university and an institution focusing on
practical higher education_

The USA already has Fachhochschule. See: any non-phd-granting regional branch
campus of the state's university system. Places like
[https://www.ucmo.edu/](https://www.ucmo.edu/).

The problem is that we don't admit that our Fachhochschules are
Fachhochschules, and students at our Fachhochschules therefore often don't
understand that they are at a Fachhochschule. People in the US talk about
university as if it's one monolith, when in fact we have at least three _very_
different types of universities with _very_ different purposes: elite
finishing schools (top-tier LACs and the Ivy League), universities (state
flagships and large R1 privates), and applied universities (low-tier LACs and
state branch campuses). And then students make dumb choices because all of
those universities offer the same educational programs.

------
TYPE_FASTER
I sometimes miss putting on a CD and listening to the whole thing. Not every
album is good for that, of course. And I can do that just as easily with any
media player. Something about the physical media made me more likely to listen
to the whole album, though.

I was a student in a Physics class in the mid-nineties that used connected HP
calculators to periodically survey the class to get a quick handle on
everybody's understanding of the material. I was a student in another class
where the lectures were recorded, and once in a while if the professor was out
of town, a TA would roll in a VCR cart, and we'd watch the lecture. It was
interesting to watch new technology get adopted with very different approaches
and outcomes.

Now we have K-12 classrooms using iClicker and there are open source solutions
like [https://github.com/qlicker/qlicker](https://github.com/qlicker/qlicker).
This, to me, is one of the better potential uses of technology: helping
educational professionals customize curriculum and pace.

We recently moved to a school district where there has been an investment in
developing curriculum. It has been a learning experience for me as a parent to
see how this can widen the subjects a student can cover, and the depth they
can go into. It's not obvious, nor is it easily measurable, so I fear it is an
easy target during budget discussions. Examples include units on it being ok
to fail/take risks (I forget if this was 2nd or 3rd grade), using the bee bot
([https://www.robot-advance.com/EN/actualite-beebot-
educationa...](https://www.robot-advance.com/EN/actualite-beebot-educational-
robot-from-nursery-school-112.htm)) to teach teamwork and problem solving at a
young age, and using Google Slides to create presentations about subjects like
the weather.

As a parent of a 3rd grader and 6th grader, I see the differences between the
educational approaches for the different ages, how people learn, etc. I'm in
agreement with the author of the article that I'm looking forward to see how
technology is integrated in such a way that it accelerates/improves education,
without removing some of the intangible benefits of collaboration, etc.

------
olegious
Like many things in life, this isn't a black and white issue. Higher education
isn't for everyone, some people benefit greatly, for others it is a waste of
time and money. It shouldn't be a requirement for moving up in life but one of
the options. There should be different paths for acquiring the skills required
to advance in life. For some it should be university level higher education
programs, for others it should be vocational schools and apprenticeships, etc.

------
asciimov
While there is no argument that lectures can be done online. There is so much
more than lectures at campus.

One thing that isn't mentioned is Labs.

People aren't going to be doing organic chemistry in their bathroom, nor are
they going to be firing clay pots in their ovens.

I know I wouldn't have had access to all of these things from home.

------
gorgoiler
Serendipitous meeting of minds in the common room / rose garden / library cafe
/ lab / river bank / Kings Arms / The Mill / student bar.

If you have no idea what this feels like, go back to your old University town
and try to dip back in, COVID notwithstanding.

------
LockAndLol
Is that an editorialized title? The title on hackernews doesn't convey at all
what the article's title and subtitle do:

> Are Universities Going the Way of CDs and Cable TV?

> Like the entertainment industry, colleges will need to embrace digital
> services in order to survive.

Completely different meaning.

------
charwalker
Yes, but like a CD I can get a very high quality experience at a university in
person. Like streaming I can get a weak, self driven experience remotely. I
guess a CD can still be real low quality recordings too but I was fortunate to
enjoy being at university.

------
jancsika
In that the people producing the content-- adjunct instructors and grad
students-- don't get paid much, but they get paid a helluva lot more than
they'll get in whatever hairbrained disruption scheme Silicon Valley comes up
with for the university?

------
mountainboot
College is a huge scam imo. Paying thousands of dollars for a class on
calculus that has 100 plus people in it is robbery. You can easily get that
knowledge online for free. The only reason to go is for the piece of paper.

~~~
kubanczyk
In many countries (except US) such course would be free or quite affordable.
It's just a matter of policy.

~~~
mountainboot
You make a good point. I should have clarified that college in the US is
scammy. In other countries with reasonable tuition it is quite a good deal.

------
battery423
Obviously right?

I mean look at the state of universities today: Around the globe every
semester a professor is standing in front of a class, presenting material and
they will do this again and again.

Every professor is doing it a little bit different but the main message is the
same. In Math its probably even closer between universities while history or
social studies might be further appart.

Where is our central / global learning platform? Which tracks all progress?
Allows you to chose what professor explains to you certain topics? Tools to
support you, nugget of wisdom explaining to you certain small parts of the
lecture?

YouTube explained to me a few concepts i just didn't get while listing to the
professor.

This is ridiculous!

Try to find lectures for free online which are above 101 curses. The video
quality is shit, no exercises nothing.

~~~
ubercow13
How would you scale assessment of exercises further than eg. coursera already
does?

~~~
battery423
Coursera is not the central learning platform, its a course platform.

You don't log in to see your learning graph which will give you the CS
Bachelors Degree. You need to choose a course which will give you a CS
Bachelors Degree.

Imagine you log into Coursera and you want to have a comparable Degree. You
would choose courses to learn 'nodes' of your learning graph. But you could
choose which one. You could learn the security topic from a course from
someone from harvard and you could learn security topic from someone in
germany.

You choose your language, you choose your medium. Might be that a lot of text
+ 1-2 explain videos help you more then a 2h lecture.

Might be that you can choose between implementing a program or do a
presentation.

It might even be required for you to listen to a presentation from other
students. Or create your own small programming tasks for others.

This could become the best curated/crowd created biggest collection of
educational material in the world.

~~~
senux
I think your sentiment is great overall and I agree with it in essence. But
realistically, there are way more obstacles to something like this than just
creating a platform, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Especially when you mentioned above, "why not start when you're a baby" which
I think you meant start at a young age. kinder-gardens, preschools, schools,
are not only used as a place for education, unfortunately. Parents NEED their
kids to be in someone else's care for a good part of the day. The current
pandemic has made that even clearer if it already wasn't.

Additionally, the sheer number of people that need education is not only
enormous, it's growing. Not only that, we are all different, with different
needs. Some don't have computers, some don't have internet, or paper, or pens,
or food. Some won't be able to learn how to read from home or learn math. Some
are deaf or blind.

Again, that's all before getting to higher education. Universities, despite
their bad record and resistance to change, are a place where a lot of research
happens. I'm not talking only about the US. Let's forget about the US for a
second since the scope of your comment goes beyond that. We are talking about
identifying, recording, and distributing courses from professors from around
the globe. How do you decide who's good enough? How to decide who's getting
paid and who's not? Most Universities and Colleges have more than one
professor per subject area.

Again, I agree with the sentiment but I wanted to share a larger perspective
because I thought your comment was interesting and worth discussing.

~~~
battery423
I thought about this as well and the benefit of such a platform would be that
depending on what your role is, the platform can do different things for you:

\- You are a teacher -> you can make sure you teach related stuff like the
rest of the world. You can share and exchange learning material, you can track
your students \- You are a parent -> you don't need it often but you might
need to see early if your kid is struggling or you wanna have some extra
material for your kid to exercise with \- You are in a government position ->
you can use it to get your curriculum \- You are an help organization and you
need stuff to print out for some remote village without internet

I'm not saying that i have fixed/analysed all issues coming from it but i do
see a huge benefit if we as a society centralize it more then what it is right
now.

------
zalkota
Check out Kettering university. Top rated engineering school in Michigan.
You’re required to have 2 years of engineering co-op experience before you can
graduate.

------
diegoperini
Until you can stream touch, smell, taste, vision and sound in a way that can
pass the turing test, streaming is a cave painting if the university is a CD.

------
sorenso
I don't think they are like CDs. You interact with lots of people on campus,
you have lots of laboratory classes, and much more.

------
mkoryak
I am wondering if contributing to a 529 plan still makes sense given where
things are going.

------
hatchnyc
It has always seemed a crazy disconnect to me that so many in academia will
endlessly complain about the expectation that what they teach prepare their
students to obtain a high-paying job while happily cashing the checks and
asking for more.

~~~
mjburgess
I have found that academics often find their dependence on students
embarrassing, and the idea of earning befuddling.

The university is a kind of "eternal adolescence" which promised to provide
dysfunctional high-IQs without the trappings of such obligations.

With the marketization of education, academics find themselves obligated to
their students (how undignified!) and for the first time needing to justify
their worth (how are they meant to do that?!).

These are, of course, things that everyone else has been doing for the past
two centuries -- now, finally, The University is getting a shock to its
system.

I was a person who, for the longest time, associated such pseduo-Nobel
attitudes with "being educated". Now, I think the whole place is infatalizing
and infantalized.

It is a very bad place for one's ideological health: it inculcates a kind of
outrage that any one should be obligated to do anything; a stort of
pathological Utopianism artificially sustained by state funding.

I think it's a large part of where extreme student activism comes from: a kind
of rage that the circumstances of our life are constrained _at all_. Shouldn't
there just be infinite money and infinite time? Shouldn't the whole world just
be a campus?

~~~
throwawaygh
IDK what university you're talking about.

When I was a PhD student, I worked 60 to 80 hour weeks doing research and
teaching. My advisor brought in _much_ more grant money than was spent on our
lab equipment/salaries (and worked even hard than we did!) Our lab ran a
(pretty healthy) profit, even before considering tuition and patent royalties.

I spent some time teaching. Again, 60 hour weeks and _all_ of my advisees
landed six figure jobs after graduating.

To the extent that the sort of institution you describe exists (low
accountability), those professors are probably making less than the high
school teachers in the same town. For example, an assistant professor at UCMO
makes $50K-$60K; a high school teacher with several years of experience and a
phd in Missouri makes closer to $70K-$80K (and with a much better pension):
[https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=UNIVERSITY+OF+CENTRAL+MISS...](https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=UNIVERSITY+OF+CENTRAL+MISSOURI)
And in terms of time/effort, the two jobs are pretty comparable.

The well-paid lazy professor doesn't really exist anymore, at least in STEM.
Professors are either well-paid researchers expected to bring in substantial
grant money (which is a hard job with long hours), or they are relatively
poorly paid teachers.

~~~
mjburgess
humanities departments.

Most science and engineering depts have been doing research justification,
financing, hiring from industry, etc. for awhile.

------
seemslegit
Remains available when the Internet goes out ?

------
6510
I just wanted to say: Derek Banas

------
Press2forEN
The article doesn't mention the political radicalization students are
subjected to at university. Having attended a decent school for two years
after the military, I never in my life saw such extremism concentrated in one
place.

I believe that radicalization combined with the psychological effects of the
lockdown is at least partially responsible for the social unrest we're seeing
today.

And now that I have my own children, I hope there are viable alternatives by
the time they turn 18.

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mamborambo
A good question! Just like the CD is just a vehicle for music delivery, the
university format is a dated system for delivering advanced education.

