MIT drop-out Jeremy Rossman moved to California and started an “anti-college.” Students don’t pay tuition — they pay a percentage of future earnings. They don’t get grades or take exams. They make stuff.
Will it work? Who knows. But wild-and-crazy experiments like this are both a symptom of the higher ed crisis and an indicator of the disruptive change that the crisis will engender. If higher ed were a stock, it would be time to start selling short.
— JAB
(comments below)
(comments below)
The good way to understand what is happening here (Who Needs College) is too read a bit of history on the 19th century French Academy of Art. How its long term corruption ended up suffocating the very art it was intended to promote while the academy lead itself into cultural irrelevance.
Hence by the late 19th century most all Art of any relevance produced in France was done by artists outside of, and shunned by, the French Academy that had reached a dead end. Of course it took another few decades before our culture realized what had happened.
This is one of histories great recurring themes, happening over and over again.
Now, today, given the amazingly rapid change going on in this country, we can reasonable wonder how many of our nations institutions will be standing in 30 years. Indeed how many of them are standing now, bearing any relation to the way they worked and what they produced as recently as 25 years ago?
In his book, The Conservative Heart, Arthur Brooks, Ph.D., describes how he obtained his college undergraduate degree for $10,000 via an on-line college. On-line schooling is the wave of the future. Much can be saved — money, morals, maturity, and political outlook — by not sending your child away to college.
There are different strokes for different folks as they say.
I still believe , and more importantly, have real data to support it, that it’s a middle class right of passage for sons and daughter to attend brand name, big time sports – universities.
not everyone mind you – but enough to keep those Universities stuffed with more than enough goobers willing to go into debt up to their hind ends… and higher to scratch that American Dream ideal.
Jesus H. Keeeeerist – just look at ourselves with respect to TV – professional college sports is probably as popular as Sundary NFL… right?
And folks “say” that just a piece of paper with UVA emblazoned on it is worth it’s weigh in employment gold…
so .. we talk one game here – with great oratory relish then we boot it on the actual walk…
sorry – I’ll believe it when I see UVA or Tech or W&M at 75% enrollment and crying Titanic and laying off professors!
I am beginning to question the relevancy of employers in this new century. Other than provide an electronic pay check what real use are they to those they employ? I see a return to something along the lines of a guild system coming back into style.
The recent attention on this blog to “artisans” is an indication of that return to a ‘guild system.’
But the cynic in me has to ask, in this case, what does Mr. Jeremy Rossman get out of this “anti-college”? Is it a harbinger of the future, or just another scam for someone else’s personal benefit?
While your question is certainly highly relevant to the particular case, I suggest it is not so relevant to the overall issue.
For example – most good history books today are written by historians who are not employed in Academia. In contrast, many Historians employed by academia write nothing of interest to anyone other than their fellow academicians who also have nothing to say of interest to anyone outside of Academia.
This is of course was happens to all corrupt Academies. They are sooner or later corrupted by outside sources, typically political correctness. Like the French Academy of Art. Or the scientific Academy at the time of Galileo.
Hence, during many eras of history, the progress of knowledge has taken place outside of the Academy. The advancement of real knowledge then happens in places such as coffee houses, and private clubs, where intelligent people doing important things can gather, think, and talk, without the interference of academicians.
Even in science and technology today most real advances are taking place outside of the Academy. Although there are of course many exceptions even today, as regards hard science.
I have wondered the same thing from a technological viewpoint. The Theory of the Corporation is an interesting read. It was undoubtedly once an accurate theory for explaining the rise of corporations. However, like most economic and social theories, there is nothing to say that it will (or should) last forever. Perhaps the curtain is falling on the Theory of the Corporation.
One thing – don’t you find it a bit ironic that it’s the Democrats who eschew the so-called “gig economy”? The “gig economy” as evidenced by independent contractors orbiting around Uber represents the technological decay of the The Theory of the Corporation. One would have thought that the Democrats would have been happy to see the erosion of the evil big corporations with their coercive control over their employees. I guess not.
A most interesting observation –
It raises a number of interesting and related questions. For example:
Who today is pushing hard for crony capitalism? That is who is coercing or enticing heretofore private corporations to move in lockstep the federal and/or state governments?
Who is pushing for the rights of Unions? Do these promoted rights of Unions run to those who run Unions? Or do they run to those who Unions purport to represent, namely its members?
How do crony capitalist corporations interact with unions? How do both crony capitalist corporations and unions then interact with our Federal and State Governments, and their Public Employee unions?
What are the players in these various games up too and after? Where are these games leading us, the citizens of this nation?
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