At this session on higher education. About 1 hour and 49 minutes in, I ask how we know what works in higher education. People afterward told me that they like the question better than the answers. But Alex did give an answer.
At this session on higher education. About 1 hour and 49 minutes in, I ask how we know what works in higher education. People afterward told me that they like the question better than the answers. But Alex did give an answer.
One thing we know “works.” Reduce costs. Alex gives a good (the best?) answer. The other guys don’t seem to understand the question, which is perfectly understandable, though perhaps I didn’t understand their answers. The best thing about MOOCs is that because their costs are so (potentially) low, one can afford to test how to further reduce their costs. This is why I am bearish on education and bullish on MOOCs.
With reference to some of the comments below, I think I could write a reply that would serve both the theory of the firm and the theory of education. So, here goes. A major function a firm provides is the vetting of employees. It is very difficult to screen employees after they are allowed into the firm. Thus, universities perform this function. Even partying can be viewed (can be) as a feature- does the individual deal well with lack of supervision. It is literally impossible to train or screen people for their actual jobs, and would be undesirable if it were possible because the sample size would be too small. But majors combine nominal bucketing into the type of work that will be necessary as well as the logistical limits of sample sizing on campus.
It sounds to me like you are basically agreeing with Andrew M. Garland below (and with Bryan Caplan). Colleges perform a screening function: if you get that degree, it means that you can work without a lot of supervision and perform tasks requiring quickly memorizing and using fairly large and somewhat sophisticated bundles of information. What that information is doesn’t really matter, nor is it very important if you forget it after using it.
It’s close but a little different, and maybe a little more because I think deciding who gets to get to put their hands on the capital is such a huge consideration.
But really, if we just opened our eyes, wouldn’t it be obvious that 4 years could only ever really be just a screening function?
Though I suppose some of that could be considered “taught” by the college. By not giving you much supervision, the college requires you to learn to work without it, which may involve failures along the way, but none of them are on the firm’s dime.
And the academic work may give you practice in those “memorize, use, forget” skills. Some of them will be explicitly taught by the college and some will be developed through trial and error. Again, not on the firm’s dime.
What you learn that is important is once you get to the job. The college screens for your appropriateness for the firm and their job offerings, and also hopefully gives you a little bit of a head start on learning the type of thinking involved. So, I don’t think that a good education would only be testing if you could learn something utterly useless to you. In fact, some people might say that is a feature rather than a bug because devoid of the motiviation of something meaningful the hurdle to learning difficult useless things is an even better signal. I don’t quite think that kind of thing.
Then there are what people think are criticisms of universities like the distractions and the weeding out based on lifestyle and cost of living that I’m not sure are criticisms.
Is Andrew Kelly right that there are “carefully designed studies” that show the college wage premium exists and is not due to selection?
Is “not due to selection” the same as “caused by what happens at college”?
These are important questions, yet they were posited without evidence.
Quick, someone tell Bryan Caplan what those studies are!
College is the organized reading of books, at best. It is listening to lectures derived from uncited books, if mediocre. At worst, it is living next to books while having parties.
What is the magic ingredient of college which elevates it above personal reading? If it is discussion among smart and interested people, then this can be arranged outside of the formalism of college. If it is concentration, then college is partly/mostly a way to force young adults to learn things they will soon forget, except for a narrow area of interest to each of them.
I think college is a performance by a medicine-man who knows then the next eclipse will ocurr. He points to the sky at the right time and says, “behold, I blot out the Sun”. Why do I say this?
o I went to college.
o College is applied to people aged 18-22, the time when their intellectual interests (if any) are developing. They are dramatically more “mature” at the end than when they entered. Well, duh! That is the eclipse effect. “Behold, the college has transformed these children into adults.”
o Colleges carefully test and select the people upon whom they will work their magic. Where are the studies showing that sub-standard applicants will greatly benefit, but somewhat less?
o High-test students attend the “best” colleges, and low-test students attend the lesser colleges. Miraculously, they graduate the sort of student which they admitted. How can we possibly believe that the college did this?
Colleges should have the burden of proving that they add anything beyond initial selection and indoctrination into the manners of “educated” society (charm school), because that is obviously what they are doing. Yet, they obscure and suppress any measurement of what their students learn which actually affects the student’s lives.
A great comment.
I believe the question more fundamental than even what works. The question is what is the measurement of what works? Is it the game show knowledge of most testing?
Or is it the development of a habit toward brooding thought informed by the facts and processes presented during instruction and reinforced by testing?
I was struck by this anecdote from Joseph Epstein a couple years ago on Uncommon Knowledge (17:35 into the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JF2eJSHKKd0#t=1053
@JKB great clip, thank you.