One of the biggest obstacles before us, in creating new undergraduate institutions, is the concern of parents and students. They are in a very deep rut, and are terrified of venturing out of that rut. So, today, I will speak to those parents and students, who might want to get out of their rut and find a better solution.
People cling to old patterns in large part because they “don’t want to make a mistake.” They think they have only one chance to “get their college education right,” and they don’t want to mess it up. They are happy to give up potential benefits, for a degree of certainty. In essence, they are bond rather than stock investors. But, today, college education is mediocre at best, and the range of outcomes stretches downwards from there. I admit there is still substantial cachet and career value from the top universities. This comes largely from the admissions process: the students of these universities are, actually, highly talented. But, outside of the technical vocational fields, not much education of value is happening there. Outside of these top universities, in other words the other 95% of college education, there is hardly anything to lose. It is like owning bonds in the midst of an inflation: bonds are certain losers, and the only alternative is to take your chances with something else.
This is a funny time now, since just as COVID has turned the majority of parents into homeschoolers by default, so too many universities are basically shutting themselves down, and forcing students into alternatives whether they want to or not. Ad-hoc college “online learning” is a bit of a joke, especially at today’s tuition rates. Actually, Harvard and MIT have already had their courses for free online for several years now. Plus, you have other resources such as Khan Academy, Hillsdale College’s many worthwhile courses, or the Great Courses series. Many students would do well just to take a year off, and do something else. This “something else” could be a wide variety of things; and, one of the things you could do, is to continue your education by some other means. If you have nothing else in mind, I would take a year to read the Harvard Classics, and add more if you like, such as Durant’s Story of Civilization. It would be a year well spent. You can stay at your parent’s house, or relax on the beach in El Salvador, or maybe find someone who is sailing around the world and join as crew.
(About 20% of Harvard’s incoming freshmen have already declared that they will defer for a year, and this figure will probably grow.)
As I have said many times, I do not find that the ambitious “Liberal Arts” (that is, non-vocational) program of the sort I am describing would be best for most of today’s students. Most of today’s students shouldn’t be in college at all. The lower 50% of “college education” today is a farce and a scam, as abundantly chronicled by “Professor Doom” in Why Johnny Can’t Read, Write, or Do ‘Rithmetic Even With A College Degree: An Account of the Fraud of Higher Education. (“Professor Doom,” recently deceased, was a real professor engaged in this “fraud” on a daily basis.) These students would be best off with vocational training, either at a vocational school or on-the-job. Those that are getting something useful out of “college” are mainly getting vocational training, which is fine and good, but not really “education” in the Liberal Arts tradition. So, I am speaking really to a very small subset: those who value education beyond vocational training or vocational prep, and who are willing to go to some lengths to get it, because you aren’t going to get it in any of today’s major institutions.
You can “work the system” in various ways. For example, I think it would be worthwhile to be admitted to a major institution — let’s say it is Princeton or Columbia — go there for one semester, and then leave. People like Bill Gates are Harvard dropouts, but, nevertheless, they dropped out of Harvard. Much of the “signaling” value of these degrees comes from the fact that the student passed the difficult admissions process, since it is not very hard to get a degree once admitted. Also, once you “matriculate” for a term, in general you can go back at any time, even years later. I used to work for a guy who went to one term at Yale, then left and got a job in advertising at age 18. So, people have been doing this for a long time.
People have a lot of focus on “getting a degree,” and, along with this, concern about whether an institution is “accredited” or not. While there are a lot of low-quality institutions, accredited or not, in general it has been found that if a student works hard and gets a serious education, and this is adequately confirmed and documented, then people generally react as if that student worked hard and got a serious education. Accreditation doesn’t really have much significance one way or another. (Professor Doom has an extensive section on the uselessness of accreditation.) I think that completing the equivalent of a typical undergraduate education (four years of concentrated study) has a social significance, so that is a good framework to continue. If you do so, you can say you “have a degree,” and people will take it seriously, because it is, in fact, a serious thing. Plenty of people might claim otherwise, but if those people actually did the curriculum that I proposed, they would learn — perhaps for the first time in their life — what serious study is.
One purpose of the Teachers in our model is to provide this framework, and to verify that the student is actually doing the work. This is one reason why Teachers should have a close personal relationship with their Students. The Teachers will know whether the Student is doing the reading, or cheating on the tests. Despite its promise, online university education today is plagued by cheating, making its degrees of little value except perhaps for some vocational subjects where there is a standardized test.
Especially for the more elite universities, access to job opportunities on graduation is a major attraction of the program. But, many of these students come from families where the parents work at these kinds of companies anyway, and these connections could be more useful than a college brand name. Internships provide another possible means of exposure. In time, just as Ivy League Universities have developed active recruiting efforts for homeschooled students (because they are some of the best students around), so too corporations might develop active recruiting processes for students who embrace alternatives for higher education. In general, students that have gone to “alternative” unaccredited colleges have found that they have had no particular difficulty in getting recognition for their study efforts.
Actually, things are moving so fast now that I am perhaps already behind the times. Here is a report from the front lines:
In late May, I noticed a prominent placement agency had posted an opening for a private educator position in the Bay Area. The family was looking for a teacher to homeschool their three children with a progressive curriculum, customized according to their interests. They offered a “generous compensation package,” including healthcare contribution, paid sick and vacation days, and their fully-equipped 800-square foot guest house to live in.
This position turned out to be the start of a fast-growing trend: pandemic pods. The COVID-19 crisis brings with it an epidemic demand for private educator positions as many schools remain virtual for the upcoming academic year. …
What tempted me to apply for this position, partly, was money. The offer listed a salary of $90,000. … Not only did it sound ideal, but the parents I interviewed with said they would spare no expense. I could make a list of every single supply I wanted and they would buy it.
This is the way wealthy people educated their children from time immemorial. At a more middle-class level, it would be a great business for a homeschooling Mom, who can take on some new students without much difficulty, and probably make some pretty good money doing it. Homeschooling tends to take the same amount of time, whether it is one Student or ten — namely, all day. A homeschooling Mom might make $600-$1500 per month per Student, depending on the income level of the local neighborhood. A homeschooling mother of two that takes on five other students would make $3000-$7500 per month, which is not bad at all. Also, the K-12 homeschooling Mom can provide other services to working mothers, such as providing a place for their children to play until being picked up around 5:30-6:00 pm.
