UConn Back In Top 20 In U.S. News & World Report Ranking

[specialisthusky]

Why should we rate these rankings any higher than the USNews rankings?

The world uses any metric that shines UCONN in the worst possible light. Why use the most popular national ranking when this one from England says UCONN sucks. Why use great Apr scores from last year when there are scores from 4 years ago that allow the NCAA to ban UCONN. It is the Emmert effect.

 

[Chuck]

I truly don't understand the fascination with research by a lot of people. I'm an attorney. I hire attorneys. When I'm hiring, I look at the schools the person attended. I don't care that Ohio State has a ton of research money for physics. I want to know how competitive the school is for an undergrad with the major my applicant has. Then I look at the specific law school ranking.

I'm not saying research is unimportant. It just seems that people are using incorrect metrics for certain things. It's like saying that UConn's football team should be great because we've recruited well in basketball. (Typed on iPhone. please don't judge typos).

 

[pj]

Universities are run by bureaucrats and bureaucrats care about how much money they can spend. Undergraduates come with expenses comparable to the revenue they bring, so they are not profitable to the university bureaucracy. However, research overhead is a huge income stream that carries virtually no associated expense (in theory, overhead compensates for faculty offices and labs, university libraries, etc, but if you have an undergraduate college, you have all of those things). So the university bureaucrats and their agents, the presidents, care above all about research, and they create incentives for the faculty to care only about research.

So the world rankings are much more reflective of how university presidents see the world than the US News & WR rankings.

When the world stops being run by and for bureaucrats, the undergraduate rankings will rise in importance.

 

[upstater]

I truly don't understand the fascination with research by a lot of people. I'm an attorney. I hire attorneys. When I'm hiring, I look at the schools the person attended. I don't care that Ohio State has a ton of research money for physics. I want to know how competitive the school is for an undergrad with the major my applicant has. Then I look at the specific law school ranking.

I'm not saying research is unimportant. It just seems that people are using incorrect metrics for certain things. It's like saying that UConn's football team should be great because we've recruited well in basketball. (Typed on iPhone. please don't judge typos).

The reason: there's a bias against faculty who don't conduct research because the conceit is that knowledge becomes stale very quickly. Plus, the faculty at all the top schools conduct research, so if you're at an institution with a heavy teaching load (given that teaching a class is a 15 hour a week commitment) chances are you are not conducting research.

The caveat is that big institutions like Ohio State might be hiring many instructors to teach who are also not conducting any research.

 

[upstater]

Universities are run by bureaucrats and bureaucrats care about how much money they can spend. Undergraduates come with expenses comparable to the revenue they bring, so they are not profitable to the university bureaucracy. However, research overhead is a huge income stream that carries virtually no associated expense (in theory, overhead compensates for faculty offices and labs, university libraries, etc, but if you have an undergraduate college, you have all of those things). So the university bureaucrats and their agents, the presidents, care above all about research, and they create incentives for the faculty to care only about research.

So the world rankings are much more reflective of how university presidents see the world than the US News & WR rankings.

When the world stops being run by and for bureaucrats, the undergraduate rankings will rise in importance.

And this becomes even truer in a world without public support for education. In such a world, research budgets gain weight.

Still, the studies looking at teaching by adjuncts versus teaching by full-time faculty (i.e. people conducting research) don't show much correlation between learning outcomes and the status of the teacher, other than the fact that adjuncts give higher grades. So, I think you'd have a great deal of difficulty making the case that undergraduate education is impacted negatively. For those same bureaucrats, this is a feature of the system. After all, if research faculty are denigrated, then hey, no one should complain that undergraduates are taught by adjuncts. It's a kind of game. The studies will prove the very things that are of interests to the bureaucrats and the powers that be.

 

[Excalibur]

Still, the studies looking at teaching by adjuncts versus teaching by full-time faculty (i.e. people conducting research) don't show much correlation between learning outcomes and the status of the teacher, other than the fact that adjuncts give higher grades. So, I think you'd have a great deal of difficulty making the case that undergraduate education is impacted negatively.

Further evidence of the dirty little secret about undergraduate education -- it's a commodity.

 

[upstater]

Further evidence of the dirty little secret about undergraduate education -- it's a commodity.

It definitely is to a degree. But what courses are commodities?

1. Remedial classes for students who should have learned literacy skills in high school at the very latest. Colleges do this. It's a commodity. Service work.

2. Online classes that are cash cows and coffer fillers, credit killers. Commodities.

3. General requirements which, for some students (like myself), are the best classes universities offer. For the vast majority who have been beaten to death in No Child Left Behind and taught that education = filling out scantron sheets, a total waste of time. In other words, these courses are NOT a commodity but they are treated as such.

4. Pre-professional majors. I have such a degree from Boston U. Most of these courses are useless, and studies have shown them to be, but they satisfy parents who want to persist in the illusion that the money they spend will MORE THAN LIKELY lead to a job in the student's chosen field. Commodities.

5. Upper level classes in most majors are not commodities and are not easily reproducible. This is basically why students still go to college for a degree.

The fact that more than 70% of college courses are taught by TAs and low paid adjuncts reinforces your point.

by the way, Excalibur, the statement I made about studies and learning outcomes was badly phrased and made out of the context. All the studies I've seen on this issue have been poor and didn't show me much. They were looking at student grades as the measure of success. The studies showed that freshman taking courses with adjuncts had more success (higher grades) than freshman taking courses with full-timers. That's a flaw in the studies. In order to determine how successful teachers are in the classroom, you'd have to test students for knowledge gained, and so far the only studies that have done so have been interested in comparisons by major and discipline, rather than by faculty rank. You'd also need to look the outcomes according to the caliber of student. It could be that students with lower admission scores gain more knowledge from adjuncts while better students gain more knowledge from full-timers.

 

[woomba]

How do the Peer Assessment scores look like for all these schools btw?

 

[GopherHawk]

OK. I must be bored today. I might have missed one or two as I went fairly fast.

Chuck stated he is interested in the Law School, not the research prowess. Here are UConn, B1G and ACC schools listed in the USN Top 100 for Law and Business schools. As you can see for the most part getting a Law degree or a type of Business Degree from the ACC or B1G you are in good company.

UConn Law school ranked # 58
Uconn Business school ranked # 58

B1G Law Schools in Top 100 of USN
Chicago - #4
U of Mich - # 9
Northwestern - # 12
U of Mn - # 19
U of Ind - # 25
U of Ia - #26
U of Wi - #33
tOSU - # 36
UMd - #41
U of Ill - # 47
U of Neb - #61
MSU - #80
Rutgers - #86

ACC Law Schools in Top 100 of USN
Duke - #11
Notre Dame - #23
Boston College - #31
UNC - #31
Wake - #36
FSU - #48
Louisville - #68
U of Miami - #76
Pitt - #91
Syracuse - # 96

B1G Business Schools in USN Top 100
Northwestern - #4
U of Chicago - #5
U of Mich - # 14
U of Indiana - #22
U of Mn - # 23
TOSU - # 27
U of Wis - #34
UMd - # 37
MSU - #43
Purdue - #44
U of Iowa - #44
U of Ill - #44
PSU - # 49
Rugers - #61


ACC Business Schools in USN Top 100
Duke - # 11
U of Virginia - #12
UNC - # 20
Gtech - # 27
ND - #27
Boston College - #40
Wake - #47
Pitt - # 61
Vtec - #75
Syracuse - #79
NCSU - #88
U of Miami - #91

 

[pj]

Still, the studies looking at teaching by adjuncts versus teaching by full-time faculty (i.e. people conducting research) don't show much correlation between learning outcomes and the status of the teacher, other than the fact that adjuncts give higher grades. So, I think you'd have a great deal of difficulty making the case that undergraduate education is impacted negatively.

I would never make that case. People are good at the things they care deeply about. Adjuncts are hired for teaching only and only people who care about teaching will be attracted to those jobs. Full-time faculty are hired for their research and that is what they care about. With rare exceptions, they don't care deeply about teaching undergraduates. Of course the adjuncts are as good (or better) teachers.

The adjuncts give higher grades because they don't have the clout to deal with dissatisfied students. They want to keep their jobs and an absence of complaining students is the best way to achieve that. Since the bureaucrats don't want complaints, they are happy as long as adjuncts keep the undergrads content and paying their tuition.

But -- if the bureaucrats changed their incentives, if teaching rose in importance, if teaching faculty were rewarded with pay comparable to the researchers, if universities were rewarded based on learning outcomes of their students, if great teachers had high status in universities -- then the situation might change dramatically.

 

[Excalibur]

OK. I must be bored today. I might have missed one or two as I went fairly fast.

Chuck stated he is interested in the Law School, not the research prowess. Here are UConn, B1G and ACC schools listed in the USN Top 100 for Law and Business schools. As you can see for the most part getting a Law degree or a type of Business Degree from the ACC or B1G you are in good company.

UConn Law school ranked # 58
Uconn Business school ranked # 58

B1G Law Schools in Top 100 of USN
Chicago - #4
U of Mich - # 9
Northwestern - # 12
U of Mn - # 19
U of Ind - # 25
U of Ia - #26
U of Wi - #33
tOSU - # 36
UMd - #41
U of Ill - # 47
U of Neb - #61
MSU - #80
Rutgers - #86

ACC Law Schools in Top 100 of USN
Duke - #11
Notre Dame - #23
Boston College - #31
UNC - #31
Wake - #36
FSU - #48
Louisville - #68
U of Miami - #76
Pitt - #91
Syracuse - # 96

B1G Business Schools in USN Top 100
Northwestern - #4
U of Chicago - #5
U of Mich - # 14
U of Indiana - #22
U of Mn - # 23
TOSU - # 27
U of Wis - #34
UMd - # 37
MSU - #43
Purdue - #44
U of Iowa - #44
U of Ill - #44
PSU - # 49
Rugers - #61


ACC Business Schools in USN Top 100
Duke - # 11
U of Virginia - #12
UNC - # 20
Gtech - # 27
ND - #27
Boston College - #40
Wake - #47
Pitt - # 61
Vtec - #75
Syracuse - #79
NCSU - #88
U of Miami - #91

UConn Law has recently been as high as #39, I believe. There has been some very inept leadership there in the past 6 years or so, and the crumbling library didn't help. You will see the school's ranking improve with both of those issues solved.

 

[GopherHawk]

When you look at the list, you see the traditional ACC schools are higher ranked the the additions. You can look at that two ways.

1) They were such a good academic group to start with they could only add people below the average.
2) They have sold out their traditional values for $$$

 

[upstater]

I would never make that case. People are good at the things they care deeply about. Adjuncts are hired for teaching only and only people who care about teaching will be attracted to those jobs. Full-time faculty are hired for their research and that is what they care about. With rare exceptions, they don't care deeply about teaching undergraduates. Of course the adjuncts are as good (or better) teachers.

The adjuncts give higher grades because they don't have the clout to deal with dissatisfied students. They want to keep their jobs and an absence of complaining students is the best way to achieve that. Since the bureaucrats don't want complaints, they are happy as long as adjuncts keep the undergrads content and paying their tuition.

But -- if the bureaucrats changed their incentives, if teaching rose in importance, if teaching faculty were rewarded with pay comparable to the researchers, if universities were rewarded based on learning outcomes of their students, if great teachers had high status in universities -- then the situation might change dramatically.

I understand and share some of these concerns but I don't think it's clear cut. First, the majority of non full-timers are not people interested only in teaching, but they are interested also in research themselves, as postdocs and TAs and adjuncts still on the market. Also, this idea about teachers not teaching many courses comes mainly from STEM, and not even STEM but STE. People in M. teach as do the majority of full-timers. In the Humanities teaching is a big part of the job.

 

[IMind]

When you look at the list, you see the traditional ACC schools are higher ranked the the additions. You can look at that two ways.

1) They were such a good academic group to start with they could only add people below the average.
2) They have sold out their traditional values for $

With the exception of the very first attempt at expansion the ACC has been very reactionary. There was no great plan... other than maybe adding Miami... and that hasn't exactly worked out for them. There's no great visionary or financial genius behind this.

 

[CL82]

The world uses any metric that shines UCONN in the worst possible light. Why use the most popular national ranking when this one from England says UCONN sucks. Why use great Apr scores from last year when there are scores from 4 years ago that allow the NCAA to ban UCONN. It is the Emmert effect.

Ah now I understand. So you saying the poster is in a bit of a (G) funk.

 

[Sea Goat]

Hey you forgot Minnesota @ 25 : (.

I agree with the recent post, albeit they are important, these are merely US News Undergraduate Rankings.

Here are the latest London Times World University Rankings:

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2013#sorting=rank region= country= faculty= stars=false search=

UConn does make the top 400, but more than half of the BIG's public schools rank in the top 150:

22.) Michigan
29.) Northwestern (private)
37.) Wisconsin
56.) Illinois
99.) Purdue

102.) Minnesota (we typically climb above other BIG peers when it comes to rankings based on graduate schools, research and global influence. In other words, we are often in the top half or third of BIG members in terms of graduate research and global impact.)

107.) PSU
113.) OSU
116.) Maryland (future member)

*At this pint, 8 BIG schools and 1 future member crack the top 120, as for the ACC only 4 schools. Don't tell this to your typical ACC fan, they think a university's only goal is undergraduate school. They seem to live and die with US News Undergraduate Rankings. Why not? They're good with this metric.

The ACC schools that crack the top 120:

23.) Duke
54.) UNC
99.) GT
106.) Pitt ( hey, at least they topped PSU)

As you go further, Neb is the only BIG member ranked below 255:

171.) MSU
236.) Iowa
240.) IU
255.) Rutgers(future member)

4 ACC schools fall between 304 and 380 (UConn's ranking):

304.) NCSt
316.) VaTech
329.) WF
331.) BC

380.) UConn



At least 3 ACC schools rank below 400.

Nebraska = the BIG's black eye, ranked in the 491-500 range.

The ACC's black eyes = Syracuse (ranked between 601-650) & Louisville, I stopped trying to find them after 650.

PS. University of Chicago is ranked 9 (fellow CIC member of all BIG schools) and John Hopkins came in at 16 (BIG affiliate member, CIC membership unknown).

The trouble with your analysis is that the most commonly referenced college rankings are those in US News. Every school that gets a favorable US News ranking touts it and those that get panned try to explain it away. But US News rankings mean more than others because people, rightly or wrongly, believe they're a true measuring stick. Perception does become reality. In any event, there is no denying the continual improvement of UConn and its march up the charts leaving many private and public institutions in the dust.

 

[Gfunk]

Ah now I understand. So you saying the poster is in a bit of a (G) funk.

Just merely pointing out other rankings - they all have a share of so-called objective criteria which can also be interpreted as subjective.

I think UConn's US News Undergraduate Rankings are to be viewed quite positively.

One can also argue that many BIG schools, as well as others in say the ACC, Pac12 or whichever sports-affiliated conference, work to maintain a consistency across most, if not all metrics that publish, schools like Cal, Stanford, Harvard, Duke or Michigan. These type of universities seem to get the fuller picture of their mission as national-to-global brands.

As someone else stated on here, "Miss ahead of BC" - sure I'd prefer BC for undergraduate school, but BC may not have answered my needs for graduate school. Honestly, if I had to do it all over again, I'd prefer one of those ultra expensive liberal arts colleges like Macalester or Claremont KcKenna for undergraduate studies. As for graduate school, I went with a program that not only offered plenty of funding options, but like-mined researchers and faculty - so yes a flagship state school worked rather well for me.

 

[Gfunk]

The trouble with your analysis is that the most commonly referenced college rankings are those in US News. Every school that gets a favorable US News ranking touts it and those that get panned try to explain it away. But US News rankings mean more than others because people, rightly or wrongly, believe they're a true measuring stick. Perception does become reality. In any event, there is no denying the continual improvement of UConn and its march up the charts leaving many private and public institutions in the dust.

Agree, but US News also has Graduate school rankings that get plenty of mileage by prospective grad students. National universities, especially, jump or fall many places when you compare the two, per program. So Minnesota, for example, doesn't rate as high for the undergrad experience, but their law and business schools are often top 25 to top 20.

Bottom line, I view my tertiary education as a complete picture, but the graduate degree has given me the most leverage in the workplace, it's not even close. I think folks generally put more emphasis on undergraduate rankings, which is understandable because it's the first step.

In hindsight, Minnesota was not the greatest experience for undergraduate school, but damn their grad schools, many of them, were quite worthy. I inevitably went across the state border for grad school, but staying home would have been fine.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Just merely pointing out other rankings - they all have a share of so-called objective criteria which can also be interpreted as subjective.

I think UConn's US News Undergraduate Rankings are to be viewed quite positively.

One can also argue that many BIG schools, as well as others in say the ACC, Pac12 or whichever sports-affiliated conference, work to maintain a consistency across most, if not all metrics that publish, schools like Cal, Stanford, Harvard, Duke or Michigan. These type of universities seem to get the fuller picture of their mission as national-to-global brands.

As someone else stated on here, "Miss ahead of BC" - sure I'd prefer BC for undergraduate school, but BC may not have answered my needs for graduate school. Honestly, if I had to do it all over again, I'd prefer one of those ultra expensive liberal arts colleges like Macalester or Claremont KcKenna for undergraduate studies. As for graduate school, I went with a program that not only offered plenty of funding options, but like-mined researchers and faculty - so yes a flagship state school worked rather well for me.

You can look at the London Times rankings as a metric of "prestige". So it probably factors in publications, nobel prizes and noteworthy accomplishments of the faculty. BC is hurt without a med school and with limited grad programs. U Mississippi on the other hand, produced William Faulkner, which I'm sure still counts for something. It's accomplishment, which is what lands MIT and Harvard at the top. Grad schools dominate in this area and get all the attention. Prestige has very little to do with educating undergrad students. UConn is playing catch-up for some obvious reasons, including the fact that the global top ten has three schools less than 100 miles away and our campus setting is a hard sell for those profs who prefer access to urban amenities.

All of these rankings are fake to a large degree, and none of them reflect educational quality in any real way. A small class with a good prof at your local community college could often provide a better learning experience than a similar class at Michigan, with a disinterested highly published prof who hands off most of the teaching to a graduate assistant. I have little doubt that an Amherst or Williams is probably top notch for a liberal arts education, but you aren't taking Civil Engineering there, or curing cancer, or inventing the next whatever.

 

[upstater]

Agree, but US News also has Graduate school rankings that get plenty of mileage by prospective grad students. National universities, especially, jump or fall many places when you compare the two, per program. So Minnesota, for example, doesn't rate as high for the undergrad experience, but their law and business schools are often top 25 to top 20.

Bottom line, I view my tertiary education as a complete picture, but the graduate degree has given me the most leverage in the workplace, it's not even close. I think folks generally put more emphasis on undergraduate rankings, which is understandable because it's the first step.

In hindsight, Minnesota was not the greatest experience for undergraduate school, but damn their grad schools, many of them, were quite worthy. I inevitably went across the state border for grad school, but staying home would have been fine.

I do find it incredibly hard to believe that there are grad students out there looking at US News grad rankings when the grad programs are actually ranked by the National Academies and Carnegie. If this is happening, I would suggest such students reconsider the prospect of grad school.

 

[BoatShow]

GFunk loves showing up in these threads playing his favorite game of "my list is better than your list"

 

[pj]

GFunk loves showing up in these threads playing his favorite game of "my list is better than your list"

His list is the list the B1G cares about so if we want to get in that conference we should care about it too.

 

[progrocks]

I truly don't understand the fascination with research by a lot of people. I'm an attorney. I hire attorneys. When I'm hiring, I look at the schools the person attended. I don't care that Ohio State has a ton of research money for physics. I want to know how competitive the school is for an undergrad with the major my applicant has. Then I look at the specific law school ranking.

I'm not saying research is unimportant. It just seems that people are using incorrect metrics for certain things. It's like saying that UConn's football team should be great because we've recruited well in basketball. (Typed on iPhone. please don't judge typos).

Metrics are juked. I went to a B1G law school, and at the time there were Top 40 in the USN rankings. They had a goal to increase it and now they are Top 25. They moved the stats to get the results they wanted, think Baltimore crime stats in The Wire.

Is my degree worth more now that I went to a Top 25 law school?


Also, I was a CT high school kid who never applied to UConn and went to a NESCAC. Odds are very good that today, UCONN would have received an application. It's perception has increased a lot in 20 years. Still would have been a safety school, but I would have never gotten into the school I went to today, so the safety would have been needed.

 

[itgoeslike]

Only 1 pt separates UCONN from the next three public universities: Texas, Ohio State, and Washington. The stellar stats of the incoming class along with nearly 150 new faculty (many leaders in their respective field), will enable UCONN to pass at least two more public institutions come the fall 0f 2014.

 

[upstater]

Public education is going to go belly-up. Don't get your hopes up.

 

[itgoeslike]

Public education is going to go belly-up. Don't get your hopes up.

Actually, I think the funding challenges of many public institutions, especially in states with multiple universities, will contribute to UCONN's climb in the rankings. I think Connecticut is pot committed and will continue to fund their initiatives.

 

[upstater]

Actually, I think the funding challenges of many public institutions, especially in states with multiple universities, will contribute to UCONN's climb in the rankings. I think Connecticut is pot committed and will continue to fund their initiatives.

Consider me a HUGE skeptic. Not pointing a finger at anyone in particular at UConn, but the national trends are hard to deny, even at AAU schools that are a lot better funded than UConn. Here we are talking about undergraduate education the last few days, and UConn's $1.6 billion is going toward buildings, and Avery point and Stamford, and also UConn STEM (read: graduate research). The plans at most state institutions involved gutting the undergraduate curriculum through a host of measures (intersessions, online courses, lower standards for degree, adjuncts). For a long time people have said a BA is nothing more than a glorified HS diploma. It will be increasingly more difficult to disagree with that. UConn's moves do not seem to counter any of what is going on nationally.

The current Pres. and Fed. administration has taken the last Pres. and Fed's plans, and amped them up by a factor of 5x. When they've finally constructed their Ministry of Education (K thru Bachelors), it will be interesting. What will be lost? Not sure anyone knows.

 

[itgoeslike]

Consider me a HUGE skeptic. Not pointing a finger at anyone in particular at UConn, but the national trends are hard to deny, even at AAU schools that are a lot better funded than UConn. Here we are talking about undergraduate education the last few days, and UConn's $1.6 billion is going toward buildings, and Avery point and Stamford, and also UConn STEM (read: graduate research). The plans at most state institutions involved gutting the undergraduate curriculum through a host of measures (intersessions, online courses, lower standards for degree, adjuncts). For a long time people have said a BA is nothing more than a glorified HS diploma. It will be increasingly more difficult to disagree with that. UConn's moves do not seem to counter any of what is going on nationally.

The current Pres. and Fed. administration has taken the last Pres. and Fed's plans, and amped them up by a factor of 5x. When they've finally constructed their Ministry of Education (K thru Bachelors), it will be interesting. What will be lost? Not sure anyone knows.

I don't totally disagree regarding national trends in higher education. Where I do disagree somewhat is UCONN's situation in respect to its undergrad efforts. A portion of the STEM initiative is to fund a higher number of related undergraduate students. In addition, a significant percentage of the new faculty hires will be integrated into undergraduate studies. UCONN (along with USC) is one of the few universities nationally to increase its investment in Humanities. UCONN is somewhat unique in that it has more of a vested interest in advancing and expanding both its undergraduate and graduate programs than many other schools.

This could balloon to a much bigger conversation, but I think 2nd tier public and private schools, along with some lower 1st tier privates are going to be challenged to keep pace. Many schools that don't adapt will be hurt by online educators. And let's be honest, online learning, when used in the right proportion can be effective, both in terms of cost and education. What could also be a concern for some institutions is that there are more and more students with enough AP credits to enter college as a Junior. I have several friends with kids that only needed 2-3 (some with summer) years at a quality institution to get their degrees.

 

[upstater]

I don't totally disagree regarding national trends in higher education. Where I do disagree somewhat is UCONN's situation in respect to its undergrad efforts. A portion of the STEM initiative is to fund a higher number of related undergraduate students. In addition, a significant percentage of the new faculty hires will be integrated into undergraduate studies. UCONN (along with USC) is one of the few universities nationally to increase its investment in Humanities. UCONN is somewhat unique in that it has more of a vested interest in advancing and expanding both its undergraduate and graduate programs than many other schools.

This could balloon to a much bigger conversation, but I think 2nd tier public and private schools, along with some lower 1st tier privates are going to be challenged to keep pace. Many schools that don't adapt will be hurt by online educators. And let's be honest, online learning, when used in the right proportion can be effective, both in terms of cost and education. What could also be a concern for some institutions is that there are more and more students with enough AP credits to enter college as a Junior. I have several friends with kids that only needed 2-3 (some with summer) years at a quality institution to get their degrees.

You're right this could balloon. My concern is that because of the competition from "credential" mills, that schools are trying to become credential mills. It's pretty easy to do. Make education a sham and hand out diplomas. This is why I'm not such a big critic of the APR anymore, since the entire university is now moving toward a "sham metric" system. I'd put a greater stake in the Steve Jobs experience. He could recite back exactly what he learned at university that was integral in Apple's design and successes. But he didn't get a degree. So what? Now we're moving toward the reverse.

Online education could be fantastic. I spend enough time online to know that. We're probably at the beginning right now of what it will be. But--I think it will turn into a sham. For it to work, you need specialists to spend many hours designing courses with true interactivity. Instead, the rollouts have been close-ended MOOCS that duplicate the same lecture experience that we've been using for 1,000 years. It is dull and unimaginative, and I would bet several years salary that the outcomes will be atrocious. Talking to students who have taken them is funny, they are watching shows, texting, tweeting, eating, etc., fast-forwarding the class, and while you can just as easily daydream in class (or sleep or whatever) there are fewer distractions. I am easily distractable. I would sink with such a curriculum. My sense of the education corporations is that they want to spend very little money on course development in order to fatten margins as much as humanly possible, and if what they're peddling is a sham, they'd rather create a metric that argues against the fact that what they're doing is a big money suck and a waste of time. And so they're developing SATs for the END of your college years, but without coercing and compelling students into taking such exams (by withholding a diploma, I suppose) the whole enterprise is shaky.

 

[itgoeslike]

You're right this could balloon. My concern is that because of the competition from "credential" mills, that schools are trying to become credential mills. It's pretty easy to do. Make education a sham and hand out diplomas. This is why I'm not such a big critic of the APR anymore, since the entire university is now moving toward a "sham metric" system. I'd put a greater stake in the Steve Jobs experience. He could recite back exactly what he learned at university that was integral in Apple's design and successes. But he didn't get a degree. So what? Now we're moving toward the reverse.

Online education could be fantastic. I spend enough time online to know that. We're probably at the beginning right now of what it will be. But--I think it will turn into a sham. For it to work, you need specialists to spend many hours designing courses with true interactivity. Instead, the rollouts have been close-ended MOOCS that duplicate the same lecture experience that we've been using for 1,000 years. It is dull and unimaginative, and I would bet several years salary that the outcomes will be atrocious. Talking to students who have taken them is funny, they are watching shows, texting, tweeting, eating, etc., fast-forwarding the class, and while you can just as easily daydream in class (or sleep or whatever) there are fewer distractions. I am easily distractable. I would sink with such a curriculum. My sense of the education corporations is that they want to spend very little money on course development in order to fatten margins as much as humanly possible, and if what they're peddling is a sham, they'd rather create a metric that argues against the fact that what they're doing is a big money suck and a waste of time. And so they're developing SATs for the END of your college years, but without coercing and compelling students into taking such exams (by withholding a diploma, I suppose) the whole enterprise is shaky.

The largest universities today are online entities. I do agree that there is a risk of churning out credentials. But, I suspect there is also money to be made in educating to a higher level. Imagine if an online "startup" could show that their students performed higher than a top university on third party testing, i.e., LSATs

I envision universities hiring user experience teams to deliver an optimized experience that blends a real-time interactive experience with online instruction and prepackaged content. That's already happening to a certain extent, but agree, that many universities are feeling their way through it, and we are still on the front end of things.