Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

College After COVID: Higher education’s online future.
Claremont Review of Books ^ | Fall 2020 | John M. Ellis

Posted on 12/06/2020 6:11:30 AM PST by karpov

It’s now something of a cliché that the novel coronavirus has shaken up our normal patterns of behavior, and that we’ll not return to them unchanged. Given widespread unhappiness with the state of higher education, could some change for the better result?

What most needs to change won’t: the one-party politicized professoriate will still be there, egged on instead of restrained by diversity-obsessed administrative bureaucracies. But useful change may still come if students and parents begin to see higher education in a different way. How will the disruption affect them? To answer that, we need first to understand how uncertain public attitudes already were before the virus arrived. Pulling in one direction are the famous names of academia’s great institutions, its impressive buildings and diplomas, and a long-standing habit of seeing college as the pathway to a better life for one’s children. Pulling in the other direction are persistent stories of higher education heavily corrupted by radical indoctrination, together with sharply increased costs and crippling student indebtedness.

This is an unstable situation. Distinct movement in one direction was already visible. In 2018, Gallup found that “no other institution has shown a larger drop in confidence over the past three years than higher education.” But even more important than the drop in public confidence is a sharp decline in enrollments during the last decade.

In 2011, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center recorded a total enrollment in all sectors of higher education of slightly over 20.5 million students. Eight years later, in 2019, total enrollment was slightly over 17.5 million students. But in those eight years the U.S. population had grown from 311.6 million to 328.2 million.

(Excerpt) Read more at claremontreviewofbooks.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: college; education
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-30 next last

1 posted on 12/06/2020 6:11:30 AM PST by karpov
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: karpov

Bookmark


2 posted on 12/06/2020 6:13:21 AM PST by hawkaw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

As long as there is football, basketball and keggers, there will always be college campuses.


3 posted on 12/06/2020 6:14:30 AM PST by Old Yeller (Release the Kraken..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

We’re rapidly coming to the end of age old institutional control and dissemination of knowledge.

Most “colleges” and”universities” structurally haven’t changed much in 1000 or 2000 years or so.

Get ready...


4 posted on 12/06/2020 6:15:14 AM PST by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Old Yeller

My son’s college didn’t have any of that. It had academics and ummm, academics.

It’s a small private engineering university where everyone is there to learn engineering.

The place has no reputation at all outside of their fields of study where it’s not unusual for employers to request graduates from that school.

Students usually end up either in the space program or cyber security NSA type stuff.

Almost all of his last year and a half was online courses. Because of his college job he still lived on campus even though he almost never went to any classes.

(His job was in his field, near the college and paid enough to cover all of his school costs so that made sense)


5 posted on 12/06/2020 6:22:15 AM PST by cyclotic (The most dangerous people are the ones that feel the most helpless)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: mo

“ Most “colleges” and”universities” structurally haven’t changed much in 1000 or 2000 years or so. Get ready...”
**************

Yeh, agree.
Read in the WSJ this morning that several universities are eliminating Tenure and are laying off previously tenured professors. Long overdue in my opinion. Hope it spreads...


6 posted on 12/06/2020 6:23:39 AM PST by snoringbear (,W,E.oGovernment is the Pimp, )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: cyclotic

Can’t be STEM without labs.


7 posted on 12/06/2020 6:26:55 AM PST by diatomite (That grifter crook Biden isn't my president and never will be!! Resist!!.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: snoringbear

[[[Read in the WSJ this morning that several universities are eliminating Tenure and are laying off previously tenured professors.]]]

Excellent. Welcome to the real world.

Now go after the endowments. No more public dollars to these indoctrination centers.


8 posted on 12/06/2020 6:30:44 AM PST by headstamp 2 (Socialism- Institutionalized Deprivation)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: karpov
The declining enrollment numbers presented here don’t even begin to tell the story. Without a massive influx of foreign students the numbers would be down even more.

The first dominos to fall will be smaller private schools that don’t have large endowments, are ridiculously overpriced, and don’t provide any value to the students. Many of these were established back in the 1960s for the sole purpose of giving wealthy kids a way to get student draft deferments during the Vietnam War, and they outlived their usefulness years ago.

9 posted on 12/06/2020 6:31:24 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("There's somebody new and he sure ain't no rodeo man.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: snoringbear

A lot of good courses are taught by adjuncts at a fraction of the costs.


10 posted on 12/06/2020 6:31:52 AM PST by ActresponsiblyinVA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: karpov
This is not limited to higher education. Watching my 10yo grandson 3 days a week on his 4th-grade remote learning sessions, with no science or social studies (that used to be history and geography, but teachers apparently prefer more generic terms), has clearly shown that when the current generation of educators is able to provide could be done in a much shorter time-frame that the traditional k-12 and 4 years of college routine.
11 posted on 12/06/2020 6:32:57 AM PST by Bernard (No tag today. Maybe tomorrow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bernard

The real action is in K-12. Parents will have more power if they realize it.


12 posted on 12/06/2020 6:34:42 AM PST by DIRTYSECRET
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: snoringbear

I saw a news report yesterday that the Ohio State athletic department cut contract salaries 5% to reduce expenses. The football coach’s cut was $236,777.

Cable companies are losing customers let and right. Along with drastic changes at colleges and universities, big media is also in for drastic change to their revenue model. That’s bad news for college and pro sports.

That make me smile.


13 posted on 12/06/2020 6:35:57 AM PST by Gahanna Bob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Old Yeller
As long as there is football, basketball and keggers, there will always be college campuses

Maybe with a 90% price cut, not otherwise.

14 posted on 12/06/2020 6:36:29 AM PST by Jim Noble (Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: diatomite

Why bother? Indian and Communist Chinese students get most of the internships thorough OPT, not available to Americans. In fact, 74% of American STEM graduates cannot find a position in their field after graduation. Only foreign trash can.


15 posted on 12/06/2020 6:38:37 AM PST by Starcitizen (Thank you to the Senate for passing S.386, turning the US into the third-world shithole of India. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: diatomite

Most of his labs were already done. At this school you start in your major as a freshman. I think there was a little bit of in person but not much.


16 posted on 12/06/2020 6:39:54 AM PST by cyclotic (The most dangerous people are the ones that feel the most helpless)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: cyclotic

Students usually end up either in the space program or cyber security NSA type stuff.

—————————————
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University?


17 posted on 12/06/2020 6:41:04 AM PST by Starcitizen (Thank you to the Senate for passing S.386, turning the US into the third-world shithole of India. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: karpov

What happens to the university buildings? They don’t pay property taxes. Convert them all...Harvard first.


18 posted on 12/06/2020 6:41:14 AM PST by Boardwalk (Lets)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Starcitizen

No. Capitol Technology University in Maryland


19 posted on 12/06/2020 6:44:12 AM PST by cyclotic (The most dangerous people are the ones that feel the most helpless)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: karpov

Read a book.. that’ll get you more educated than anything taught on campus unless it’s a technical college. Then you actually learn something.

Why pay outrageous tuition’s for these big liberal colleges. May as well get your kid an iphone with a CNN and MSNBC app and lock em in a room for 4 years and get the same equivalency.


20 posted on 12/06/2020 6:45:51 AM PST by maddog55 ((the only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-30 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson