The problem is that we have at least two things universities could be good at:
Actual education
Credentialing and Gatekeeping
Plenty of situations where you might want to get Actual Education, the university’s “Credentialing and Gatekeeping” mission interferes with. Free-form study tends to be expensive (often tuition costs cap out, so it’s more cost efficient to take a full-load than one class per term), scheduling is rigid, and study tends to be organized around testing, papers, and other tasks useful as “proof of work” rather than or even instead of developing knowledge. If my goal is “learn enough Korean to finish my favourite manhwa” or “fix my incomplete and wrong grasp of Eastern European history”, and I’m not a 19-year-old starting a degree programme and willing to commit four years an intensive study of the subject, a university is a pretty awkward way to get this knowledge.
Conversely, we’ve got a lot of people enrolling in university because they want the Credentialing and Gatekeeping: they need a BSc or whatever to unlock a higher tier of job title. The parts of the university that still respond to Actual Education intent will say “make sure the kid comes out well-rounded” and that means he has to spend more time and money on courses with no commercial value. This tends to race-to-the-bottom, as people seek out the easiest “filler” electives to meet the programme requirements, rather than actually indulging in the buffet of knowledge. TBH, I’m sick of hearing the “you’re there to learn how to learn” sound bite. Surely that’s something we should be teaching from day 1 of kindergarten-- or is it a skill we’ve decided is unimportant for those not on a college track?
That doesn’t even consider other potential purposes, like as a research hub.
I’m not sure what a “better model” would look like; maybe if credentialing were less important, we’d move towards streams of loosely scheduled open-entry/open-exit courses designed for broader adoption-- going over to the lecture hall a couple evenings a week could become socially normalize like spending nights at a pub.
The credentialism is overwhelmingly about classism, so if you make university free, that part becomes a totally different beast. That BSc is no longer a sign that you come from wealth (or are willing to indenture yourself to employers to LARP it), so it becomes less of an issue.
It also addresses the “one or two classes” issue.
The scheduling thing can be fixed by restructuring work. There’s no good reason work needs to take up a contiguous block of time each day nor why it needs to take up 1/2 of the waking day.
The problem is that we have at least two things universities could be good at:
Plenty of situations where you might want to get Actual Education, the university’s “Credentialing and Gatekeeping” mission interferes with. Free-form study tends to be expensive (often tuition costs cap out, so it’s more cost efficient to take a full-load than one class per term), scheduling is rigid, and study tends to be organized around testing, papers, and other tasks useful as “proof of work” rather than or even instead of developing knowledge. If my goal is “learn enough Korean to finish my favourite manhwa” or “fix my incomplete and wrong grasp of Eastern European history”, and I’m not a 19-year-old starting a degree programme and willing to commit four years an intensive study of the subject, a university is a pretty awkward way to get this knowledge.
Conversely, we’ve got a lot of people enrolling in university because they want the Credentialing and Gatekeeping: they need a BSc or whatever to unlock a higher tier of job title. The parts of the university that still respond to Actual Education intent will say “make sure the kid comes out well-rounded” and that means he has to spend more time and money on courses with no commercial value. This tends to race-to-the-bottom, as people seek out the easiest “filler” electives to meet the programme requirements, rather than actually indulging in the buffet of knowledge. TBH, I’m sick of hearing the “you’re there to learn how to learn” sound bite. Surely that’s something we should be teaching from day 1 of kindergarten-- or is it a skill we’ve decided is unimportant for those not on a college track?
That doesn’t even consider other potential purposes, like as a research hub.
I’m not sure what a “better model” would look like; maybe if credentialing were less important, we’d move towards streams of loosely scheduled open-entry/open-exit courses designed for broader adoption-- going over to the lecture hall a couple evenings a week could become socially normalize like spending nights at a pub.
The credentialism is overwhelmingly about classism, so if you make university free, that part becomes a totally different beast. That BSc is no longer a sign that you come from wealth (or are willing to indenture yourself to employers to LARP it), so it becomes less of an issue.
It also addresses the “one or two classes” issue.
The scheduling thing can be fixed by restructuring work. There’s no good reason work needs to take up a contiguous block of time each day nor why it needs to take up 1/2 of the waking day.