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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 05 2018, @10:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the will-Harvard-be-one-of-them? dept.

CNBC:

There are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States, but Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen says that half are bound for bankruptcy in the next few decades.

Christensen is known for coining the theory of disruptive innovation in his 1997 book, "The Innovator's Dilemma." Since then, he has applied his theory of disruption to a wide range of industries, including education.

In his recent book, "The Innovative University," Christensen and co-author Henry Eyring analyze the future of traditional universities, and conclude that online education will become a more cost-effective way for students to receive an education, effectively undermining the business models of traditional institutions and running them out of business.

What percentage of their graduates will be bankrupt?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fadrian on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:06PM (8 children)

    by fadrian (3194) on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:06PM (#730699) Homepage

    I think Christensen is wrong. In fact, most colleges and universities have the majority of their 100 and 200 level courses online for their students already. To think that mainstream schools can't make the shift to online offerings quickly is ludicrous.

    The bottom line is that schools are recognized for (a) the quality of their instructors and their materials, (b) selectivity WRT student body, and (c) pedigree. Having online courses won't change any of that. See Arizona State whose online program is as big or bigger than their campus program for a quick example of a successful transition.

    Plus Christensen doesn't explain how one removes that slight whiff of University of Phoenix/DeVry/Other Crap U. stench from the whole online school thing. Employers look at virtual schools with a jaundiced eye because their ranks are neither well-curated nor -evaluated. Gresham's law and all that. I'd think that "big name" schools entering this arena would remove some of this, but it will be a generational shift, not a technological-speed transformation - we've had the technology to offer courses online for at least five years - I don't see the big-ed institutions shutting down any time soon. I'm pretty sure you'll see HarvardOnline (still with better instructors than say LakeForestCollefgeOnline) well before Harvard closes.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:21PM (3 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:21PM (#730704) Journal

    Most universities have already diluted the quality of their instruction by allowing graduate students teach undergrads instead of making professors do it. As a result, you have foreign grad students who don't speak English transcribing notes onto a chalkboard, unable to field questions or do anything else useful or passable as teaching.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:55PM (#730726)

      As a result, you have foreign grad students who don't speak English...

      Not their fault at all.
      Proof: would the other students speak mandarin fluently, the grad student will show high teaching proficiency.
      Ergo: the blame stays with the University, why does it accept barbaric students and impose teaching in such a mess of a language as English?

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Wednesday September 05 2018, @01:00PM

      by opinionated_science (4031) on Wednesday September 05 2018, @01:00PM (#730735)

      Graduate teaching is common practice in the "Oxbridge" system. The difference with the US system is that the graduate student has to *write* the class, following tuition a few years before.

      Hence, although the students are treated as cheap labour, they at least get some practice with the technical material, and "Prof" time can be best served.

      For this to work, you need an entirely self-motivated student body capable of managing such work- something that is harder to ensure...

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @04:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @04:39PM (#730803)

      They've also diluted the quality of their institutions due to the 'Everybody has to go to college!' fad. That is driven largely by employers who are too lazy and greedy to properly interview candidates, so they require degrees for jobs that should never need them to cut down on their own workloads. The result of the indoctrination that everyone should go to college is that too many people who don't actually care about education attend colleges and universities, and then those institutions lower their standards in order to make money from these losers.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 05 2018, @01:00PM (3 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 05 2018, @01:00PM (#730734)

    we've had the technology to offer courses online for at least five years

    I graduated like 15 years ago from a local private college almost entirely online. We had the tech since the late 90s, at worst. Earlier if you bend the definitions.

    Employers look at virtual schools

    The marketplace is already discriminating between profitable scam schools and real schools that happen to have online programs. The common language hasn't caught up yet calling both "online degrees" or "virtual schools".

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @05:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @05:54PM (#730852)

      Well shit, it made me feel better thinking you are just an old dinosaur. Guess you really are the alt-right poster child around here. Boooo, get with the times. Modern times i mean, the 50s are over.

    • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday September 06 2018, @01:29AM (1 child)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday September 06 2018, @01:29AM (#731075) Journal

      Have to agree with you there.

      I took a course entirely online in 1997. Well, there were physical lectures, but all the notes and assignments, etc. were available online and all assignments were intended to be turned in online. I never attended class, and the only time I showed up for anything physically was for the final exam.

      So yeah, the option of doing this has been around a long time -- people just didn't do it as often. And long, long before that, there were correspondence courses by mail etc., which basically did something similar in a different medium.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 06 2018, @11:55AM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 06 2018, @11:55AM (#731255)

        the only time I showed up for anything physically was for the final exam.

        Heh, I just thought of something, taking CLEP tests for 100-level classes in 1993. Not all schools accept those for credits, but its nice when they do.