Educational Floss

“We pass thoughts around, from mind to mind, so compulsively and with such speed that the brains of mankind often appear, functionally, to be undergoing fusion.” ~ Lewis Thomas, 1974, former Dean, Yale Medical School; former Dean, NY University School of Medicine; former President, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute.

That's an amazing statement for 1974. Today, that speed has gone exponential. The internet offers tremendous educational potential, available without the incredible overhead of travel, gas, parking. Usually, travel time alone equates to at least another course each semester. It becomes even tougher when the student must work full-time, raise a family, and, then dress and drag themselves to a single class in the evening where travel time mounts to a staggering percentage of actual class time.

To offset this scenario, numerous on-line schools sprang up to offer degrees from associates to doctorates. These schools exact an extra-ordinary cost for the convenience. Their degrees either need to greatly return the student’s investment or be paid by corporate educational reimbursement. Their popularity exploded—with students and Wall Street. They rate among the highest earning and fastest growing corporations on the market.

Traditional schools failed initially to follow suit for a number of reasons other than rampant neuronal inertia. For example, they had a huge investment in brick-and-mortar and years of begging for more. To change so one does not use this plant fully would be, well, unthinkable. This mindset receives further enforcement when various fiefdoms compete for space as empire.

Education systems are not organized to fulfill the best interests of society on an immediate or timely basis. This is not to say educational organizations do not exist for society’s benefit; they do—they just aren’t organized to fulfill that mission. Internal fiefdoms, again, contribute to if not dictate the problem. Committees make up education’s power structure, and one fiefdom is not willingly undergoing retraction to support another’s expansion. For example, 15 open jobs for English received 1500 applicants, where 1500 open jobs compete for 15 nurses. The English Department is not about to shrink so Nursing can expand. Nursing salaries increase because of the nursing shortage, so the Nursing Department doesn’t fight too hard.

School quotas also dictate expansion because of funds provided. The student-paid tuition receives funds from the state equal to 4 or 5 times that amount, but these funds do not dictate whether student should be a nurse or an English major. The mechanics may differ from school-to-school or state-to-state, but the result remains the same. Students applying for nursing programs gain entry by quota and competitive point systems, thereby incurring years awaiting entry before starting their one- or two-year programs.

Society’s loss is partially offset by on-line schools offering nursing with various methods to complete the practical requirements. The personal loss is not so easily offset, since most cannot afford the highly profitable prices of online schools or waiting uncertainly to see if they gain entry to a public-school program.

To obtain education without credit is becoming easy. Many schools are placing courses online, limiting them only by having no contact with the instructor, no other students to interact with, and no credit. Massachusetts Institute of Technology intends mounting all their courses online and already has 1800 available. For the states, the normal funder of education, this type of arrangement would be tremendously beneficial with arrangements for earning credit. A small fee could offset the cost of administering a credit exam, but basically the course cost is moderate and richly paid for from the increased earnings of increased education. In fact, it should provide stellar return on investment as well as people's quality of life.

Everyone wins but the fiefdoms. Perhaps they qualify for bailouts.

"A great educational system almost always pays off! And a poor one is paid for, over and over. Eek." ~ Elizabeth Elzey
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No English majors or fiefdoms were hurt while writing this post.