Someone has to step in and drive down the price of a “real” four-year college degree. It isn't quite happening yet.
Online diploma mills are widely considered a cruel joke – a degree from Kaplan University, as things currently stand, will not get you anything close to what the children of wealth get from attending Stanford and living in America's most expensive cities volunteering their labor for internship programs. Many factors make sure of that.
But the semester is young. The frontier inches westward. The metaphors may be mixed, but the opportunities are obvious.
“Consider it a modern version of The Oregon Trail,” writes Austin Powell, “the classic video game that schooled an entire generation o the dangers of 19th Century pioneer life, with tech companies racing to claim school districts like territories.”
Powell edits the online “Sunday magazine” The Kernel, which last week focused on opportunities in net-based education. If you're interested in that sector, the whole “issue” is worth a perusal.
Call it “Instructional Design,” a specific field related to UX with its own software, jargon, and in-groups. Or call it “Edutech,” a business that nets $121 billion a year. It's a tough market to crack, the old guard will continue to resist, and there's the delicate issue of “prestige.” But, inevitably, more and more people will be getting their educations and credentials online, not from the University of Google, but from carefully planned and executed programs, the best of which we have yet to see.
In declining urban centers far from Silicon Valley or Silicon Beach, Teach for America alumni are contributing their tech savvy to give disadvantaged kids not just a chance, but an edge.
The Minerva Project attempts to restore the tarnished glory of liberal arts education with programs that emphasize deep thought and discussion over box-ticking.
If you're looking to hire someone with mad coding skillz, why not just start learning them yourself instead? ("Program or be programmed," as Douglas Rushkoff puts it.) That, plus some hot and sweaty "idea sex," might open opportunities for how to teach from a computer about something that might not necessarily be a computer.
This is life-or-death-of-civilization stuff here, people.
What's your big idea for the back-to-school season? Don't worry about curing autism or dysentery. Just throw something out there.
