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> | | | | The need for decentralized accredited education | | | Introduction | |
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< | Education has grown more authoritarian and oppressive in recent decades, perhaps in part to an implicit level of legitimacy that is given to higher education institutions and a growing demand for college education. Regardless of the reason, it seems that much of the reforms that students of the past fought for has been eroded in the face of digital tracking and surveillance and a school structure more focused on generating consistent income from its investments, donors, and tuition rather than the actual education of its students. Though a long march my more liberty minded academics into the institutions of universities is a possible solution this would take at least a few decades before any results could be noticed leaving generations of students all the worse off. The solution it seems would be to build an educational system that can challenge the universities and offer students the ability to learn as much as they can without being subject to oppressive university administrative policy. | >
> | Universities and colleges have ceased to focus on education in favor of administrative growth. They focus more on increasing the administrative staff and spending on services such as surveillance and security rather than improving the quality or accessibility of education. Meanwhile, spending on instruction has dropped as a percentage of spending in institutions granting bachelor's and master's degrees. Meanwhile online universities have become more affordable to attend than traditional universities in many cases. However, online universities alone are insufficient to solve this problem as many of the “best online bachelor programs” are online programs by traditional universities, thus unable to fully escape the bloat and surveillance. | | | | |
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Perhaps it would have been useful to provide some sources for what otherwise appear to be a collection of personal opinions. "Education" is a rather broad subject. Are these the community colleges, the four-year public universities, the for-profit trainers, or just everybody in one lump?
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< | Why accreditation? | >
> | Solution | | | | |
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< | However the problem is actually deeper than just creating a rival system. A group of tech savvy professors that chose to could essentially operate as an online university as far as the content that they would teach is concerned, but this would not solve the issue. The issue is to a large extent the issue of legitimacy or credibility, regardless of why we should want people to go to university the reality remains that they do do to get jobs and since such a rival system would require accreditation in order to be seen by employers as “real” the first issue that would need to be overcome is becoming and accredited institution. As such the challenge that any such attempt for an educational institution built for liberty and learning would be to get accredited by one of the 18 institutional accreditation agencies that are recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) or the Department of Education (ED). | >
> | The solution lies in building online universities that minimize administrative costs, value privacy, and provide higher-quality education at lower prices. According to Richard Vedder, it's possible to reduce the administrative bloat without affecting education and reduce tuition by 20% or more. An online university focused solely on providing education rather than the “arm’s race” of developing services and security could reduce costs as being online limits the proposed utility in such spending. Administrative budget reductions consequently allow for an increased budget to hire more teaching staff. This increase enables smaller class sizes, which would improve educational efficiency. The problem of school surveillance can be addressed by changing the university-student contract from being an implied contract to an explicit one with clear terms that students can inspect. By giving clear terms to students, students can judge if the university is fulfilling their duties to them such as the not tracking its students, not selling student data to outside parties, and not punishing students for publicly disagreeing with or protesting the university. Furthermore, such a contract ensures that the university’s words are not empty promises, if the university fails to uphold its promises students have legal recourse. | | | | |
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< | Subverting the system | >
> | The case against change | | | | |
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< | I believe that this issue can be overcome fairly easily, so long as the true purpose of the institution was not disclosed. This is to say that there is no dearth of professors or other academics which may be willing to join such a project and thus it should be able to attain accreditation given that other online only schools have been able to do so. The only objection that I can see to such an institution becoming accredited would not come from its lacking any sort of educational quality but rather from other colleges and universities that do not want a competitor. Thus it is best to approach accreditation as though this were to simply be another online only college that has no intent to rock the boat. | >
> | The proposed solution ignores the necessity of administrative work, such as regulatory compliance. A Vanderbilt study cited regulatory compliance as accounting for between 3-11% of “higher education institutions’ nonhospital operating expenses”. Another essential function of the administrative departments is to help students with financial aid, especially as more first-generation college students have begun attending this function has become increasingly vital. The increasing expectations on colleges to provide more services and security than they did in the past serve further to justify administrative spending as a reduction could mean less future applications. Furthermore, rather than being a one-to-one replacement for traditional education, online education has been linked by Katie Lear to anxiety and depressive symptoms. Living and studying apart from peers while studying online may only increase the feeling of being alone as students miss the regular daily interactions that were once routine. Thus, the belief that a school can reduce administrative costs and have no negative consequences fails to account for student expectations and the negative effects of online education itself. Lastly, the proposal fails because it is unrealistic, expecting universities to bind themselves for no additional consideration. Thus, the proposal would leave universities understaffed for administrative issues while increasing contractual liability for no clear benefit. | | | | |
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< | Once accredited this institution will be able to act as a university should, that is to say a place centrally focused on education, the development of young minds, and not focused on tracking, censoring or otherwise oppressing its students. This example overtime will hopefully either cause others to replicate its success in order to fill a need or colleges and universities will begin to reform and limit their authoritarian tendencies and focus on providing an education to their students. Either result would be better for students than our current system and would begin having effects on some students near immediately and on many more within a few years of accreditation as the education market would react to a school catering to students that care about their rights and their education more than they care about the prestige of name recognition. Creating an institution that serves students without oppressing them will cause changes within the educational system far more quickly than attempting to reform the current system from within and thus is a more worthwhile use of the time of educators that believe in educating students and respecting their rights. | | | | |
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> | Rebuttal | | | | |
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< | Conclusion | >
> | While some administrative staff are necessary to ensure compliance with laws, that does not forgo the possibility of administrative reduction. Assuming the high end of 11% of administrative spending is required to ensure the university is compliant with all relevant laws, this would mean that nearly 90% of spending can be reduced. Though a similar case can be made for administrative spending financial aid, a reduction may be warranted given the expected decrease in student enrollment. The idea of universities needing administrative staff to meet the scope of expected services and programs is broadly inapplicable to an online university, as such services often necessitate students being in one central location, clubs, security staff, checkpoints, gyms, etc. Thus a reduction in administrative staff can be made without reducing necessary staff and while reducing tuition and increasing accessibility. Though the possibility of isolation and depression are legitimate concerns, they can be mitigated by the student's ability to socialize outside of class, which was unavailable to many students at the time of Lear's observation due to the pandemic. Conversely, most students feel that they learn at least as well with online classes as they do with traditional classes, with some claiming to learn better online compared to conventional classrooms. Furthermore, Universities can receive additional consideration from students who are equally bound to duties that would be expected of them. Additionally ensuring students data rights aligned with the majority of students who want their data to remain private. Though some degree of data sharing seems to be acceptable to students, the extent to which current universities monitor students goes beyond what students approve of. Consequently, communicating to students that their data will not be monitored allows students to choose a university that aligns with their values, thus giving any such university an advantage over an otherwise similar competitor. Therefore, while universities may not benefit financially by binding themselves, they benefit by clarifying the expectations they have for their students and a competitive advantage over similar quality schools. | | | | |
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< | Ultimately it might seem tempting to completely upend the educational system and create a school without the need of accreditation, especially since it seems that accreditation has become more and more easy to come by, this approach is flawed in that it would only be able to serve wealthy students that share the schools ideals. Lacking accreditation means that anyone who reasonably has to worry about employment in order to live would be unable to attend the school because graduating from it would not materially help them as they search for employment. Worse than the mere classist implications of this attempt to completely snub the current educational system is the fact that the school would lose out on great talents that could serve as champions for the cause of freedom. It is thus more valuable to the ultimate end of changing education in order to recenter teaching and freedom to have accreditation than it is to be seen as a completely outside institution. | >
> | Conclusion | | | | |
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There's nothing here. No learning about the regulation of higher education has occurred. There's a fantasy argument, disconnected from legal or historical reality, bout why it would be prudent to accredit hypothetical schools (of cosmetology, philosophy, law?) There's no connection to any literature about the subject, as though contact with other writing was irrelevant. There's no connection tot he course we have been in together, There isn't even an outline or an effort at structure. Really this isn't passing work. Let's meet to find out what's going wrong and how to meet minimum standards for the course.
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> | Thus the solution to the current problems within university are best addressed by an online University that focuses on maximizing education and minimizing costs.
Cutting administrative spending allows for an increase in teaching staff while reducing tuition, making education more accessible and of higher quality. Additionally by making the implied contract of university explicit students and universities benefit. Students would now know what their rights are and have a way to enforce their rights while universities would gain an advantage over colleges that do not make the contract explicit and are able to clearly define their expectations for students. These changes, especially when taken together, would allow for a return to education and an improvement over the current system. | | |
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