This blog post seems like a jumble of ideas that are neither consistent or connected.

It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?).

It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each major is limited.

He talks about how administrators are unnecessary, then suggests a similarly labor intensive accreditation system that requires experts, committees and other logistics that requires significant manpower and time/energy.

There are many flaws with the educational system, of which convenience, rigor, equality, and cost are a few the OP mentions, however his solution doesn't seem to solve many of the challenges he mentions. I doubt that accreditation is a major cost to running a university - there are simply many other market forces (wanting facilities, a good football team, strong researchers that might not put teaching first) that causes the cost/benefit relationship to be the status quo. He finds it unconscionable that adjunct faculty don't make enough money, then hopes to solve it with a free market - where honestly the things he values might not be the things many others value. He wants rigor - then critiques current accreditation processes that largely does what he suggests.

Each of the major MOOCs already are trying to accredite/build reputation/be rigorous. What OP is essentially doing is describing the idea of Udacity, Coursera, etc without the technical backend, the users to attract such a marketplace, connections, support, or actually being able to do a MOOC.

Considering that it is their first degree, I made the possible inaccurate assumption that this person was just getting out of the US equivalent of high school. My thoughts at that age were pretty jumbled too.

Many of my peers didn't really have any idea why they were in college until maybe their third year. It wasn't until they had the benefit of having gone through such a program and looked back on it to appreciate what it was that it was and how it affected them.

My sister asked once why I considered college graduation a 'big deal' and not high school graduation. My response is that graduating from college is the first thing you can do where it's reasonably hard, takes a multi-year effort, and is completely optional. It is, for me, a signal that someone has decided to pursue something through to the end, and to do so with the full knowledge that not doing so is also a valid path. It is, for me, the kinds of things that adults do, and kids don't do.

"...graduating from college is the first thing you can do where it's reasonably hard, takes a multi-year effort, and is completely optional...a signal that someone has decided to pursue something through to the end..."

I see this point-of-view a lot, and it is certainly the conventional wisdom. But, for a moment, let's abandon this belief and explore other perspectives.

What if college isn't a demonstration of tenacity or natural ability? Instead, what if education is just a game that everyone is forced to play at an early age, and what if advanced-degree seekers are those who have learned to enjoy playing the game? (Or, have been forced to play, because of economic reasons)

I certainly can buy that.

For instance, I know a lot of people with advanced degrees, and they generally fit into 3 buckets: 1) people who were expected to get an advanced degree because their parents had them, 2) people who enjoy playing games and winning external validation, 3) people who have an innate obsession with some aspect of knowledge. (BTW - I think the true scholars are category 3.)

What if people who win at education are just people who are naturally competitive, like being bounded by rules, are good at min-max game play, and who ultimately are driven by praise?

Certainly, those types of people would be excellent candidates for the corporation. But, are they also good candidates for being citizens or Humanity, in general?

And, what are other perspectives? I am just a curious person who happens to have a general dislike of conventional wisdom.

> For instance, I know a lot of people with advanced degrees, and they generally fit into 3 buckets: 1) people who were expected to get an advanced degree because their parents had them, 2) people who enjoy playing games and winning external validation, 3) people who have an innate obsession with some aspect of knowledge. (BTW - I think the true scholars are category 3.)

This is reductionist nonsense. Please. People get advanced degrees for a million reasons.

> What if people who win at education are just people who are naturally competitive, like being bounded by rules, are good at min-max game play, and who ultimately are driven by praise?

You can replace "education" with damned near anything in this sentence. "Business." "Basketball." "Super Smash Brothers Brawl." "Terrorism." Which is a sign that it's an asinine point.

I'm sorry that someone stating their thoughts can so easily unleash your spite.

No spite! I harbor no ill will. I just thought they weren't very good points. And I tried to explain why.

I don't think 'conventional wisdom' means what you think it means, but setting that aside, what are you trying to say?

That people go to college for different reasons? I certainly think that would be generally agreed to.

I'm not feeling attacked, your response was confusing.

You used the term "conventional wisdom" when perhaps you meant "What I think other people believe, or I have read other people to believe." That was confusing because I don't agree with the statement you made in #1. Folks I knew at college, and since then, all shared a common experience when their natural ability completely failed them in college. They 'hit the wall' as it were. That was part of the maturation process.

My comment was that college was the perhaps the first time someone gets to choose to take on a multi-year task that is nominally difficult. That isn't a subjective statement, it is a descriptive one. I say perhaps because it isn't the only possibility but it was the relevant one because the original article is about college and more specifically college degrees.

Your second statement asserts a filtration process. Again, not mentioned by me, but implied in the original article because the plan to make up a degree (presumably to qualify). Except that it isn't a filtration process its a selection process. Lots of people work in this industry and others without any degree or other certification. They experience selection bias when they are in a selection pool of individuals that have degrees but that selection bias is a primarily content based. The same person would have no selection bias in a pool of individuals with degrees outside the area of the job.

Successfully completed coursework in a topic, not necessarily a degree, carries with it an indication of interest. I've got 12 college hours of CNC machining coursework on my transcript, that comes from being interested in manufacturing. Interested enough to voluntarily invest some of my time to learn more about it. It is a social signal of sorts that it stronger than just a conversational opening of "Yeah I'm interested in CNC manufacturing machines."

I also disagree with your #3 but I understand what your are saying. Anyone who came through college and didn't get an appreciation for what it tried to teach them (which is my interpretation of the statement 'treating it like a game') would in fact be a signal not to hire them. It would represent to me, a lack of maturation in their ability to evaluate the use of their time. In my experience, that lack of maturity expresses as poor judgement in the workplace.

If your alternate conception of college were true, then we would expect to find a strongly negative correlation between college degrees and people who are good citizens or good humans. We don't see that at all, so we can conclude that there is more to going to college than you propose.

There's so many good points in your post.

The one thing which benefited me the greatest when I came out of college is the ability to think critically. I was able to form my opinions, examine things in a scientific manner, and make conclusions based on research and a logical thinking process. Something I wasn't even close to handling when I was 18 years old - which goes to your point about teenagers taking time to find themselves. It took me at least 2 years before I actually realized the opportunity college gave me.

And yet, for all of the questionable classes and lackadaisical professors, I still came out with a much stronger set of tools to look at and examine the world around me and communicate those ideas in a coherent manner to my peers.

These are the kinds of tools you simply cannot put a price tag on.

It depends who you are, i think this is all relative. Not talking myself explicitly, but for some people graduating high school is a major accomplishment in their life and is something that took a multi-year effort and was completely optional. Imagine a teenager who is the first one to graduate from high school in their family, who had numerous pressures to drop out (baby, lack of money, etc).

But I do agree with you that many people are unsure why they are in college until they are able to reflect on it after the fact. I think that happens a lot in life where you learn about yourself by looking at prior events.

>My response is that graduating from college is the first thing you can do where it's reasonably hard, takes a multi-year effort, and is completely optional

That's not entirely true - taking a job also falls into that category. Not saying that college isn't a valid choice, but 3 years of work at the same point can be an equally valid choice.

Not nearly as valid. Generally, people have to have a job in order to survive.

I worked to teach myself how to program. Started at the age of 9, pursued it off and on until I was 21 then went hard at it. I dropped out of community college because I had to work – so you're correct, working is something you must do to make money sometimes. But I had other options available to me. The easiest path I could have taken was to continue working construction for my father or paint houses with my cousin. These were neither fulfilling lines of work nor would they allow me to accomplish the life I wanted.

I was forced to drop out of college due to lack of money, but I would hardly consider what I have done to be less of an accomplishment. Over the last decade I have learned PHP, Perl, Javascript, Node, Python, CSS, HTML, various databases and now I am trying to transition into video game design and development which is what my plan has been for the last 15 years.

I disagree that college is the highest form of validation one can receive.

Edit: Grammer, spelling and this: forgot to mention that I have worked for several well known companies in a major US city now, one of them for 2.5 years, another for 5. I have also maintained a steady stream of side projects and clients.

I dropped out of college to accept a job in my desired field of software development. It continues to make sense in hindsight, especially with NPR running frequent stories about the high cost of financing education, market value, etc. My work experience IS my resume. YMMV.

What if you had continued to paint houses with your cousin for 3 years? Would you feel that getting and holding that job is also an equivalent to receiving a bachelor's degree?

Not really, at least not in my country (UK). It's entirely possible to survive without working.

It's also entirely possible to choose to go to college for several years rather than work - the decision to go to work at that point can be as as much an active (and optional) choice as going to college. No one is forcing you to do one or the other, or neither, at that point.

And even if you do have to work, you can choose to do the bare minimum to get by, or you can make the personal choice to push yourself.

I really like that point of view. Don't have a college degree, but it still resonates.

High school graduation is a rite of passage, university is not, that's the difference.

Really? I was just happy it was done and I could go do something interesting and be treated like an adult. I still speak to exactly 1 person I knew from HS. For me, HS is already a mostly forgotten blip in my life.

Undergrad and then graduate school were a much bigger deal because it was up to me to complete them. I didn't have teachers or my parents or anything else making me finish, it was something I did on my own. They were also both interesting and challenging.

I'm diverging from the topic, but isn't it terrible that "a good football team" is a major cost to running a university (in the US)?

It's my understanding that a "good" college football team generates considerable sums of money for a univerity. You're probably thinking about the cost of starting a football program or maintaining an unsuccessful football team.

A great college football team makes money, but does require a substantial capital investment. Typically the only private institutions you will find in the AP Top 25 are Stanford and Notre Dame. The bulk of schools outside the Top 25 lose money on their football teams. Before we weep over that however, they lose money on all of their sports teams, their student newspapers and student theater productions and a flagship state university, the non-student state residents often do consider a quality football program through the auspices of the university a benefit they are willing to pay for.

> do consider a quality football program through the auspices of the university a benefit they are willing to pay for.

Then it wouldn't be an operational loss, if the attracted number of students paying for the school with a football team offsets the costs of running the team after any direct proceeds.

The last I read, only the top ten or so teams turned a profit.

I am somewhat embittered though, as during my time at university, my tuition went up by $500 for the explicit purpose of funding the football team. And I was paying cash.

ACC profit Virginia Tech $14,853,103.00 Clemson Univ. $14,688,975.00 North Carolina State $11,609,800.00 Georgia Tech $9,350,858.00 Univ. of North Carolina $7,289,263.00 Univ. of Miami $6,767,811.00 Univ. of Virginia $3,076,978.00 Florida State Univ. $2,613,485.00 Duke Univ. $1,796,461.00 Univ. of Maryland $1,676,620.00 Boston College $1,211,197.00 Wake Forest University -$2,289,583.00

Only the top few athletics programs turn a profit. About half of D1 football teams turn a profit.

> there are simply many other market forces (... a good football team ...)

Not being an American, may I just take a slight space to admit that Mind == Blown

So this is your first encounter with the pretty crazy association between education and sports in the US?

You make some good points, but many of your objections are shallow.

> It starts with colleges should be more than job training centers, then ends with trying to create an accreditation process to prove value to external entities (of which I assume employers are a big part?).

It is absolutely consistent to realize that a degree is not about job training, but should probably produce employable graduates. Ensuring the quality of the program is important for both. Many universities/colleges are "not about job training", but all of them are accredited.

I think the point is to ensure quality rather than demonstrate value; the main reason he identifies for not attending the smaller public schools in his area is quality. Similarly for existing online schools, which definitely are about job training.

> It mentions the high cost of education, then describes how his current options are lacking because the number of classes in each major is limited.

I don't think this is inconsistent (which seems to be what you're implying), but agree that the author probably has a poor understanding of how such things work. See threads below.

> He talks about how administrators are unnecessary, then suggests a similarly labor intensive accreditation system that requires experts, committees and other logistics that requires significant manpower and time/energy.

Well, you actually answer this below. Lots of those "administrative" costs are not about necessary things like accreditation and instruction (sports, fancy facilities, libraries, etc.).

Some of these (e.g. libraries) are necessary (for serious students). However, this approach could externalize many such costs. Most public universities open these facilities -- esp. their libraries -- to the public (sometimes for a small fee). That doesn't make the cost problem for the sector go away, but it does provide an affordable education for those who cannot afford the mainstream option.

> however his solution doesn't seem to solve many of the challenges he mentions.

I don't think this is intended as a complete solution. I think it's intended to solve one specific problem standing in the way of a whole variety of solutions (that is, quality assurance and associated reputation).

> He finds it unconscionable that adjunct faculty don't make enough money, then hopes to solve it with a free market - where honestly the things he values might not be the things many others value.

This is a fair and important criticism. I think the author of the post should think deeply. I imagine there are two answers. First, his approach seems to genuinely value rigor. This can go a long way toward resolving negative perceptions (one major road-block for these sorts of approaches). Second, there might be enough similar people that this sort of project could become feasible.

> He wants rigor - then critiques current accreditation processes that largely does what he suggests.

I didn't see any critique of the current accreditation process. It's fair to ask why he isn't using one of those. I assume there are two reasons. First, many probably have a strong bias toward brick and mortar institutions. Second, I am sure many are "rubber stamp" committees (e.g. consider the dubious curricula of various "accredited!" online CS degree programs).

> Each of the major MOOCs already are trying to accredite/build reputation/be rigorous. What OP is essentially doing is describing the idea of Udacity, Coursera, etc without the technical backend, the users to attract such a marketplace, connections, support, or actually being able to do a MOOC.

Well, no. His model is actually very different.

The M in the MOOC model is important. Star lecturers, hundreds of students, several TAs and little or no cost to the student has been the model thus far. There are many reasons this model probably doesn't scale to an entire degree program. Quality of assessment is one reason.

His model seems to call for something more intimate and more hands-on, with the instructor paid exclusively through student tuition. This seems both more sustainable and more likely to produce quality students (imho).

edit: cleaned up some grammar. But this is still an internet comment post, so thanks for putting up with my slopping writing!

He does have some critique of the institutions which have received accreditation: ...even though some terrible schools and programs are accredited by the respected accrediting agencies...

There are different levels of approval and accreditation in the US, and as a layperson the distinction might be unclear. Due to this lack of transparency means some agencies might be seen to be doing a better job that others.

My experience with the education board in Vermont was very good. And although it wasn't exceptionally hard to get approval to give course credit, which is what you can get if you don't yet have all the prerequisites for a full degree program, it was certainly not a rubber stamp.

Thanks for the reflection based on your experience. fwiw I spent some time on Oplerno today. Your model (start with credit, then figure out accreditation through existing reputable boards) makes a lot more sense.

> ...and as a layperson the distinction might be unclear.

This is really the problem I understand he's trying to solve. As long as there exists meaningless accreditation and general confusion among laypeople, non-traditional models face an uphill battle.

So it's not that accreditation agencies in general are awful. It's just at accreditation doesn't mean much to people who aren't insiders. Which is just as a bad, from a student's perspective and from the perspective of non-traditional institutions.

Offering an accreditation aimed at admittedly non-traditional degree programs where the accreditation really means something seems helpful. But perhaps this is better solved by going through one of the existing high-quality accreditation agencies and then explicitly pointing out the quality of your accreditation.

Agreed, it is almost as if he needs a BA in English Lit

Opening an accrediting agency is the wrong first move. There's lots of space to work within the system that's already being opened up to you easily and cheaply.

Try these two accredited schools that will award degrees entirely by examination, remote classes, independent study, project-based learning, and other proven study that matches a rigorous college program:

http://www.wgu.edu

http://www.excelsior.edu

Excelsior is a traditional remote-degree program with lots of help to find you the right courses and get credit for them. Western Governors is new, online, and more experimental. Either one can both help you find ways to learn and get you the sheepskin bureaucrats need to hire you.

And they'll both handle all the accrediting for you.

Just looking briefly at excelsior, they don't even have a true CS degree. It looks like mostly IT, network admin, and technician kind of stuff. I don't think this really fulfills the need he was discussing.

I just filled out the tuition estimator, and for an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering Tech (not sure what "Tech" means), it costs almost $67k for four years. I haven't looked into online education before, but that just seems outrageous. I graduated 10 years ago from a public university with an EE degree and it cost me $17k for four years. I realize college tuition has skyrocketed, but I see no rational reason a similar degree should cost anymore today than what I paid 10 years ago, inflation adjusted. I'm really just shocked and saddened at the current state of secondary education.

"Tech" means technician. Generally they do the things that need some understanding of electronics, but not full-on "Engineer" knowledge/skillset. It might be anything from assembly, test, troubleshoot, characterize, document... but not likely design, research, develop.

Look at WGU. It's quasi-public and last I checked tuition was $6000 a year flat rate. It's designed to solve the affordability and access issues faced in states like Montana by leveraging technology and distance learning...essentially it's a modern approach to the teacher's college.

This is sorta the business idea that I always thought should exist but never had the guts to start. So, kudos for giving it a try.

However, the reason I never started it is because the value of a degree exists mostly inside other peoples' heads. Unless you can change what's in there, it doesn't matter what the piece of paper says.

And you'll face an uphill battle in changing it. Most people are not like Hacker News readers. They don't automatically assume that new ideas are interesting ideas; they tend to be risk averse instead. And so organizations that have built up a reputation over hundreds of years (like Harvard or Oxford) are at a significant advantage compared to even colleges that are decades old. Without a significant marketing campaign and a first class that goes on to be very accomplished, it'll be very hard to get people to take a new accrediting agency seriously.

Good luck.

So. Instead of paying a bunch of money and spending a lot of time on something that didn't feel right, you struck out on your own and self-educated yourself.

Own that decision! Having a fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system you invented will just make you seem like you're defensive about it or trying to pull one over on people or something. It just feels weird.

What's so fake about it?

Completing a list of criteria and scoring well on standardized tests is pretty much all that qualifies somebody for a "degree" from any one of our current post secondary insitutions.

When you wrote "fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system" I assumed you were talking about the Universities and Colleges of the world.

What's so fake about buying 100,000 followers on twitter? It means you're famous, right?

What does being famous on twitter have to do with creating an education accreditation system?

Maybe Twitter could use a better accreditation system for being famous - is that what you're implying?

And this is one of them.

Oh wait, except for the "expect to have" part.

I don't think there is a need to be condescending here. I actually like this persons idea and I want to see how it pans out.

I don't read it as condescending. I read it as representative of the response of the average educated person to a degree whose accreditation is supported mostly by the opinion of recipients of the degree. If you educated yourself, say so, and provide evidence of your own knowledge. That way, you'll be one more person who shows the validity of self-education, and you'll make it easier for the next one.

1. Apprentice in a good trade and you can earn more than the average professor. Seriously, my plumber makes more than than the prof who taught me quantum physics.

2. If you're at all cut out for college, you can get scholarships.

3. Even if you're not brilliant and just persistent, you can get loans.

University administrators and their associated bureaucracy have been expanding for quite some time now. It's actually rather sickening. I went to a conference and inadvertently lost the receipt for a $20 supper that sparked of a month-long shit-storm of gargantuan proportions when I tried to claim it as a travel expense. I think the University must have spent upwards of $2000 in man-hours lost. I honestly would have just paid the $20 had I only know what I was setting in motion! They weren't even coming down on me! They turned on each other like a starving pack of wolves, desperate to establish who was the alpha!

It's worth asking how we can step back into sanity from our current, ludicrous position. Recently, several University of Alberta professors organized a protest in which dozens of professors have applied, in groups, for the position of president of the University. They argued that any of the many groups applying for this position could do a superior job to any single person, and they'd each be getting a raise despite splitting the salary of the position! While the obvious message is that top administrators make far too much, I actually hope the UofA hires one of these groups. An absolute bloodbath for the administration of the UofA would likely ensue! Perhaps those claiming $20 for dinner at a conference will simply be given the $20 without touching off a grand inquisition that costs thousands!

I agree that higher education administrative costs have gotten higher since the 90's, BUT (and that's a big but), as far as your $20 goes, there's a reason you've been rung through the ringer. The institution didn't do that to assert dominance over you. They did it to be in compliance with the law and audit requirements. No one wants to track down $20. They have to because of rules imposed on them from outside forces.

Institutions who receive public dollars are audited at least yearly to ensure compliance with state/provincial requirements, and somewhere around every 5 years on federal statute. These audits include ensuring checks and balances on money paid out to staff/students for any reason, including travel and conference costs (fun fact, many federal programs have travel costs that are based on staff pay, thereby limiting the amount of 'excess' spending the programs can do on travel. . . .because everyone knows we attend conferences in Michigan for fun. . . ).

Anyway, it may seem like a small deal to you that you lost the receipt for $20, and in the grand scheme of life, it is. BUT, in the direct application of audit completion and legislative compliance, that $20 is the first step to lawsuits, persecution and public shaming of the University when it turns out that every employee was allowed to slip $20 past the business office. Controls are controls on everyone, they are impartial and they apply across the board; the same rules apply to the lowly grad. ass. as they do to the provost and president.

Is it senseless to have that much work and that many hours spent on on $20? Yes. Is it senseless to have that much work and that many hours spent to ensure that tax dollars are spent reasonably and within the bounds of the law?

No.

Source: I am part of those 'sickening' higher education administrative costs, and I have personal experience consulting for federal audit compliance at public colleges in the states.

TL;DR: You were subjected to a $2000 ordeal over a $20 charge because the audit and compliance system is broken and has no concept of measured response. Because layer after layer of bee watchers have been hired at six, seven, or eight figure salaries to ensure that every other layer of bee watchers is properly covering their asses in case that deli sandwich you bought turns into a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the good bees have left, and no one has noticed that each spoon of honey costs a hundred grand, while tasting oddly like corn syrup.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, how do you suggest we ensure tax money is appropriately spent, outside of audits?

And I think you vastly overestimate the cost of staff accountants, business office staff and compliance officers at colleges and universities. Those 'bee watchers' aren't making six, seven or eight figure salaries. More like 35,XXX-55,XXX; a very reasonable figure for accountants.

Ha, no issue with the red herring of accountant pay rates, just with the number of them there are. The ones I have real issues with pay for are the mucky mucks near the top [1], the increasing numbers of them there are [2], and the effect they have on tuition costs [3].

On reform, I'd say something similar to the IRS approach on taxes. Spend effort where there's a return on investment. IE, they're not going to audit people below the poverty line because they're sane, and the cost of the audit will be more than the return on back taxes. Similarly, don't audit $20 lunches, because five minutes of my time is worth more than the average we'll discover in errors.

In addition, an overall lower audit rate, but with randomized chance of audit that increases logarithmically as the charge goes up. Kind of similar to how the FAA checks pilot logs.

[1] http://www.post-gazette.com/image/2014/05/18/20140519college...

[2] http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2...

[3] http://watchdog.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir...

I'm sorry about how lengthy this is, really I am.

Not sure how accountant pay rates are a red herring. You stated that they make 6, 7 and 8 figures; that's not accurate, I don't have hard statistics to back it up, but it just can't be. Also, the average institution (for my state) employs 1 staff accountant for every 500-600 students physically on campus, or every 800(ish) students counting on-line and commuter averages. That seems reasonable to me considering they do all of the accounting for the entire institution, not just student accounts.

[1] If you believe that college presidents have anything to do with internal controls of an institution, or have really any idea of what the audit compliance processes look like, you're stoned. The mucky mucks near the top have nothing to do with institutional audit compliance. The state and federal government does. You don't agree? Read http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-12-26/pdf/2013-30465.pd... [CAUTION .PDF]

That's one of six federal statutes that I have to be versed in, and I'm only one of four people (but it actually replaced three others I had to know in the past, yay for streamlining!!).

[2] I never made a statement about administration, and it's not really pertinent to this argument. It's correct that there are more administrators now than there were in the 70's. Again, though, what impact that has on institutional audits is really up for question, and doesn't really make sense.

[3] What's the saying. . . Correlation does not equal causation. Administration costs are going up, correct. So are the costs of every other damned thing. Pair that with a decrease in funding from the state and declining enrollment in the last 5 years and now you've got something. The answer to high college costs is not only administrator pay. Of course that's not helping, but it's much, much larger than that; attempting to shift the blame to that one area is ignorant of many factors in public education funding.

AND FINALLY. Your entire last paragraph misses the mark entirely. The institution isn't auditing the individual about the $20 lunch. They're ensuring that they have internal proof of the cost, that it is allowable to the specific fund, and that all costs are 'reasonable and prudent'. External, state and federal auditors are responsible for auditing the institution. So while that $20 meal isn't important, 50 people buying $20 meals without reason are. Again, the beauty of controls is that they apply to everyone, they are impartial and they apply across the board. You don't get to pick which legislation and regulation to enforce based on price. You get to make sure your ducks are in a row so when the state steps in, they find nothing.

Oh, and "an overall lower audit rate, but with randomized chance of audit that increases logarithmically as the charge goes up" That's sort of how it works already. The states that I've worked in have audited every school that received public money over a certain threshold annually. Federal audits only occur in institutions who receive large amounts of federal money (the largest state institutions: think University of STATE), or those who have thrown up 'red flags' in their spending. . . . such as those that have incurred many, many $20 lunches without any documentation about why these expenses occurred. . . .

> 50 people buying $20 meals without reason are.

If you take out "without reason," then 50 people buying $20 meals is not actually a problem.

If a person travels for 3 days and claims 3 dinners at $20 each, there is an obvious reason to claim them, and no reason to audit, even if a receipt is missing. In my experience, this is how personal expenses at corporations work, which by the way are also subject to significant audit and tax reporting requirements.

> Administration costs are going up, correct. So are the costs of every other damned thing.

This is not actually true; administration costs in academia are going up much faster than almost any other cost in the U.S.

In addition to scholarships, which are merit based, many schools also have good financial aid, which is need based. I think colleges advertise this poorly but it makes a huge difference.

I am at Boston University now and while the sticker price is $55k/year the average american student pays about half of that. When my wife went to Princeton they used the FASA form to to calculate how much your family could afford and gave you a grant (gift) to cover the portion that should be student loans. In this way the fancy Ivy League schools can be cheaper than most other schools, and this is available to every student that is accepted.

When you say that "the average american student pays about half of that", are you counting student loans towards the half the student pays or the half they don't? I've seen loans treated both of these ways before. I went to Harvard, and like your wife at Princeton, I found the financial aid incredibly generous. Their net price calculator online is a pretty good guide to their policies: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat... .

collegedata.com (what ever that is) says that the total cost to attend BU is $61k, and the average need based gift was $26k plus another $7k in "self help" for freshmen which I assume is a combination of loans and work for the school. 83% of freshmen got aid, but less than half of students over all got financial aid. Some of this is skewed by the fact that BU has a large number of foreign students who typically do not get any financial aid.

$30k per year is still a lot, but its a private university in the middle of Boston. Half of that $30k is for room and board.

http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl...

> I think colleges advertise this poorly but it makes a huge difference.

Many colleges do not have the endowments of the Ivy League, therefore, need-based financial aid awards are essentially non-existent for people who are simultaneously too rich for aid and too poor to pay outright.

For instance, in my application to Babson College in 2007, I was outright denied all financial aid because my parents (combined) made $90,000 and had a modest retirement portfolio in the $200k range. At the time, tuition was about $50k/year. Without them utterly sacrificing their entire nest-egg or moving out of their own house, paying for school on their own was entirely out of the question. Thus, I ended up going to the private loan market and got a decent rate for a $50k student loan. Thank God I was only there for a year, I cannot imagine having to service a debt of ~$1,500/month for the next 20 years.

Personally, I think this idea is awesome. My off the top of my head suggestion would be to open source the requirements for accrediting a specific course.

For example, it's determined that students from the "Intro to Calculus for Programmers" course need to meet certain qualifications to pass. If they finish the course on their own, with no help from an instructor, then they only need pay an Instructor to oversee an "I know my stuff" exit process. If a student needs instruction, then the student can pay for the bits that they need. Instructors can become highly leveraged, experts in the parts where people really need help, charge more for their expertise, and students pay less because they need less overall instructor time.

That may be a little unclear. I've got a couple beers in me.

Thanks! That's really nice of you to say. What you suggested is 100% what will be happening.

Everything, with the exception of the actual instruction between a professor and a student/class (not recorded lectures, actual instruction) will be open source and freely available for anyone to use with a non-commercial clause in the license allowing for the author (or anyone the author permits) to generate revenue from their use with banner ads etc.

Absolutely fantastic idea Michael. I have been trying to solve the same problem from a different perspective. Would love to see you succeed.

Monday evening beers ---> check in on Hacker News.

A winning combo.

"open source the requirements for accrediting a specific course."

Isn't this MIT OCW and a zillion competitors?

>>I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree

That is very true for some degrees, but I laugh when potential C-S students say this.

My first year of undergrad at well performing state university, I took loans and worked at the schools IT support center, 7.50/hr. The following summer I worked as a "Application Development Intern" and made $10/hr. For the following three years I worked part-time at a local software consulting firm and made $15/hr and part-time as a C-S TA and made 10/hr. I paid off my debt 2 months after graduation and I got lots of great experience.

My story is very typical of my C-S and IS major classmates. And now those same internships in my Alma mater's town are paying 17-18/hr.

So when people say that can't afford to get a C-S degree I think they either don't know the score or want to be one of the "too cool for school" kids in the valley, but lack the proper reasoning (I don't use that term for people with good reasons).

I would go so far as to say that even taking out student loans and not working through college could be reasonable for a CS student, provided that they were confident in their ability to graduate and prove their worth to employers.

I didn't do that; I worked through my CS degree much like you describe, but had I instead taken on debt then proceeded to get the same job offers that I did in this timeline, then I would have had my student loans wiped out within two years of graduating. CS grad earning potential is good enough to make taking on student loan debt not entirely insane; which is more than can be said of many majors.

(Of course that is assuming that I would have received those same offers, which is questionable if I did not have the work experience that got from working myself through college).

eh, not everyone will be successful, even with a CS degree.

I know programs at many schools are hyper competitive, so that will weed out the ones that can't hack it, but College is expensive.

That said, I liked the line from Rich Dad, Poor Dad that explained the difference between thinking "I can't afford it." and "How can I afford it?" The former just shuts off your thinking and accepts a situation.

Granted the OP is taking a creative approach to the problem.

I'd argue that a person who is not going to be successful with a CS degree is probably also not going to be successful at starting a brand new accreditation system for higher education.

Getting a programming job requires some hustle. Establishing a new foothold in the hyper-comeptitive landscape of high ed probably requires a whole lot more hustle.

How long ago was this? It matters, a lot. Tuition doubled at my school while I was there. I ended up with ~$72k in debt. And it wasn't any Ivy-league school.

While I was at university, I had a total of 18 months of 40-hours/week internships/co-ops. Those were at intern rates, but even so a year and a half of working took care of about $40k of expenses. I continued to work for some of those companies while I was in class, which covered the rest.

It's not easy, but if you work hard you can at the very least keep your debt reasonable.

(It is probably also worth mentioning that your debt was more than double the median student loan debt of people leaving college: ~$30k: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/student-loan-debt-m... Your school (and mine) was far more expensive than was necessary.)

Let's be fair though. I knew one person, personally and closely, that went to school full time, worked a full time job and raised two girls (they weren't babies or toddlers though) and managed to get a 3.0+ GPA, but that doesn't mean everybody can do it.

I tried (not the raising the girls bit), with a full time job and going to school full time and my grades plummeted for that semester (which caused me to have to retake a couple classes and delayed my graduation a semester).

Even in a Mid-Missouri small town, making 7-8 bucks an hour working ~24 hours a week, it wasn't enough to survive, let alone survive AND pay "cash" for classes and books.

Aye, not everyone can do it. My backup plan, if dropping out appeared to be imminent, was to take on student loans. I think that for a CS major, taking on student loans isn't actually unreasonable, since CS majors have pretty decent earning potential.

What you really want to avoid is taking on student loans, then dropping out. If you do that then you'll be left with little but debt to show for it. If you instead try to work your way through school, but still drop out, at least you won't be in debt. Dropping out is far less damaging if you don't take on student loans, which is why I made student loans my backup plan.

Just curious, which small town in Missouri did you go to school?

"Small" being relative, of course, it was Columbia, MO. I graduated from the University of Missouri.

Oh okay, I go to a school just south in an miniscule town by your standards then. Haha.

How far just south? Rolla, or Jefferson City? My wife is from Rolla, and I know several people that went there. I don't know anybody that went to Lincoln though.

Rolla

There's a "for profit" problem going on in the US. First of all, the Echo Boomers just went through college, and during that time period, there wasn't enough universities / colleges for everyone.

So unless you were a very top performer in your class, it was unlikely that you got into a state university. Instead, people got into for-profit universities they heard through internet ads or TV ads. (There is _always_ a spot for you in a for-profit university). For-profit universities were a bad deal, they manipulated their students and lied to them about their accreditation status. The problem didn't become known until maybe 2012 or so when the Obama Administration began to crack down on their shady practices.

The fact of the matter is, State Universities are the way to go, although they weren't an option for many people. Today, the average cost of an in-state university is $9000 / year. (This falls in line with my experience)

Even with books and stuff, that will only be ~$45k in loans for the average in-state university.

As the Echo Boomers leave college age, the college-age population is beginning to shrink again and it will be easier to get a degree now without resorting to overpriced out-of-state costs or for-profit schools.

I was a college freshmen in 2004. But I have family members doing something similar now. Consider the interns making 18/hr and working 25 hr a week. That is just over 23k a year which is very respectable for a student.

I think besides where you go to school mattering for tuition, people forget about housing. Where I went to school students today pay ~$300/mo per head for sharing an apartment or house. Welcome to the upper midwest, obviously we can all think of places where housing is far more expensive.

Weird. I started in 2000, and I just went to the University of Pittsburgh, which isn't exactly an expensive city.

> provides me the opportunity to challenge myself and not be restricted to the 10 or 12 classes available in a major

I don't feel that you're restricted to a set number of courses for your major. Universities tend to tell students about the MINIMUM number of courses that you NEED to take within your major in order to graduate. Universities will be fine with students taking more courses within their major just as long as you take the minimum number of courses in other areas such as general studies. There are also more and more inexpensive online university programs, of which more and more are being offered by public universities.

Even if the courses don't challenge you enough in your university, there's nothing stopping you from asking a professor for more work in the form of a quarter or semester hands on project or research. GA Tech professors are more than happy to hand them out, and there are some cool ones.

Since we're on the subject of something that challenges you, you should try applying to Georgia Tech. I'm not sure what the stats are anymore, but not too long ago only 10% of incoming freshmen (most of whom were the top 5% of their HS's) would graduate.

Michael, I'm not sure you fully did your homework before coming up with your proposed solution (though I could still be wrong). imho I don't feel that anyone can fully understand the problems of the current university system, until they actually attend one.

A new form accreditation is really what's holding back a huge change in higher education. MOOCs right now, at most, can replace only traditional professional development classes. They're still not a drop-in replacement for college degrees.

That's because of accreditation. Bachelors degrees are valuable, in large part, because they're a common currency: employers know when they see a potential hire has bachelor's degree, he/she at least spent four years learning at a high level and fulfilled some level of competency in his/her chosen major.

Right now, there's no way for employers to make similar judgments about people who have obtained their education entirely online, so it's really hard to get a serious job in, say, software development, with just a few Coursera courses on your resumé. In that case, you'd need to build up a portfolio of OSS projects, etc. Whereas a newly-minted bachelor's in CS will get your foot in the door somewhere, even without that extra work to back it up.

One approach to accreditation/evaluation are domain-specific exams, like the Boards in medicine or the Bar in law. But just passing an exam doesn't necessarily communicate the same thing as a degree, and thus doesn't really solve the problem. There are also, no doubt, disciplines not well suited to this form of accreditation. This approach (Alyxandria) seems more focused on accrediting courses (which solves the same problem) and does it by peer-reviewing those courses, which I think is a very interesting, credible, and scalable approach.

Right now, LinkedIn might be the closest competitor out there to this. They offer a form of peer-review for one's skills with their endorsement feature. Another company that was trying to tackle this problem is Accredible[1], but it seems they've now pivoted to include many more features than peer accreditation — perhaps at its expense.

It'll be really cool to see how this problem is solved in the long run. I think "accrediting" individuals, rather than institutions or classes that individuals can then take, will be the winning strategy, as education becomes increasingly unbundled. That is, if articles, YouTube videos, etc. are to be considered legitimate tools of learning in the future, as college classes are today, then accreditation of individuals will be the only sensible approach.

[1]: http://www.accredible.com

This might be heresy here on HN, but I think that there is more than accreditation paperwork at play here. I think it remains to be proven whether a MOOC actually does deliver an education that is on par with what you would get from attending a 4-year CS degree program at a college or university.

MOOCs are new and exciting, but they're also new and unproven. Accredited bachelor degrees are valued because they have a long history of delivering value. MOOCs do not.

I think you're spot on. The challenge is to find away to evaluate both on a level playing field. A CS grad from different caliber universities probably (on average) have different levels of competency. Even graduates from the same university won't have the same level of skill. For traditional colleges, employers can cut through these asymmetries by using heuristics like institutional prestige and metrics like GPA.

The key is to find a method of credentialing general enough that it can apply to both traditional, college-educated job applicants and non-traditional ones alike.

Whether MOOCs will be enough for those non-traditional applicants to be successful in this modern credential system is a separate issue, and, as you point out, far from certain.

> "so it's really hard to get a serious job in, say, software development, with just a few Coursera courses on your resumé"

Well this is not a general solution, but for Coursera's Probabilistic Graphical Models, I remember someone in the course discussion board said that this was such a demanding course that he would hire anybody, who passed the course with good points, to his company.

"so it's really hard to get a serious job in, say, software development, with just a few Coursera courses on your resumé"

I think most wise recruiters will look for evidence of being smart, of getting stuff done, and of being a good fit.

Unless you're in research, serious jobs are project based, not learning based.

If you spend three years learning all you can about CS and making an Awesome Cool Thing, I don't think many employers are going to think 'Meh.'

The situation in the UK is that degrees are getting more and more expensive and less and less valuable. It's making more sense now to go straight into work, even at intern level, than to lose three years and rack up tens of thousands in debt for no obvious benefit.

<i>If</i> the teaching and learning were truly worth the cash, it would be no contest. But outside the Big Name universities, they really aren't. And even there, a big part of the benefit comes the networking opportunities.

In middle league universities you don't get the networking, or the teaching, or the experience, or the industry connections. So what are you paying for?

It would be fun if the general solution was making online classes absurdly hard. Unfortunately, it's hard enough to stop cheating on exams in physical lecture halls, so once a high grade guarantees students job interviews....

...we will know if they know the material or not?

I don't think cheating on exams is that widespread, what are others experiences?

Companies already can choose to interview anyone who's taken relevant coursework, but usually can't commit that much time so they screen applicants first. If the grades in a few particular online courses become widely known for getting students interviews, I think most of us would expect cheating in those classes to rise and the classes' role as a screening mechanism would degrade.

I don't have data on cheating available, but anecdotally, I've TAed economics classes at UCSD where---routinely---over 100 students in a class would turn in word-for-word identical homework (this had nothing to do with whether students were allowed or prohibited from "working in groups" on homework, so it was definitely considered cheating in some of the classes). I suspect that cheating varies a lot from university to university and from major to major.

Reliably measuring cheating is of course difficult; we can measure /detected/ cheating, we cannot measure /undetected/ cheating.

And who can blame students for cheating considering the incentives - I was never faced with the choice to cheat or fail, but you can bet if I'd gone $70,000 into debt for school I'd cheat before I'd fail.

I once sat in a computer lab and watched a group of four guys completing an online take-it-when-you-like multiple choice exam for first year mathematics for engineers. The software attempted to prevent copy-and-paste and changing windows to Google, and of course there were instructions saying the exam should be their work alone, and they shouldn't look up answers. One of the guys was on the exam system and would read the question; his three peers on computers next to him would google for and calculate answers. Needless to say, by the time the fourth guy was doing the exam his results had little to do with how much mathematics he had personally learned!

Or… you could just emigrate to (one of the better-functioning parts of) Europe. Public universities with no or low fees, some of them excellent to world-class, no worries about SWAT raids, greater privacy protections, healthier food, etc. etc. I used to admire the US when I was young(er). Mostly, I came to realize, because I have deeply liberal values (liberal, that is, in the original European sense!). These days, I ask myself why anyone would even stay in that pathetic joke system, especially if young, flexible, and intelligent. You can't get anything done for your own people, starting with education and health; all you do is work them harder to extract more taxes to pay for your warlords to terrorize and snoop on the rest of the world.

Aren't non-EU students supposed to pay full price for their university education?

Sure, in the UK. I don't even count them in Europe anymore. ;-) Try Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, France,…

But won't there be a language barrier? And call me a distrustful cynic, but I somehow doubt those countries would accept that I just show up there and demand edumacation.

Not in France for example.

Ambitious. Probably completely overreaching and doomed to failure. Small chance of a wonderful success. Good luck.

" In my mind higher education should be almost exclusively about academics. I’m looking for an affordable degree program that is academically rigorous, and provides me the opportunity to challenge myself and not be restricted to the 10 or 12 classes available in a major."

For someone with these kinds of goals, I think the best perspective is to think of universities as cultural institutions, like marriage. The institution allows young people 3-4 years to spend on education, experimenting with their personality, etc.

Peers are important from that context as are mentors.

>provides me the opportunity to challenge myself and not be restricted to the 10 or 12 classes available in a major

This seems like an exaggeration to me. Looking back at my BS I took about 45 classes total (not including labs). Of the 45 classes 16 were specifically for my major (EE), 14 were science/math/engineering, and the last 15 were general education.

This strikes me as potentially much more disruptive than MOOCs and much closer to the original concept of the university.

I love this concept and give the author credit for articulating it so well. My only suggestion would be to add a social component to the program.

Meeting people is the most important part of college. The vast majority of graduates find jobs through their personal networks. If finding a job isn't your top priority, students who expand their circles grow intellectually as they exchange ideas with people who have different perspectives.

Having said that, I've thought about putting together a do-it-yourself comp-sci degree that involves attending local Meetup events. One of the great things about this field is that, in most cities, there are active communities surrounding what it is you want to learn. So it's possible to capture the personal networking experience of college without the tuition.

I would love to see the social and academic components of college decoupled.

One of the things that always struck me as stupid about college when I attended is that I knew I was paying mostly for the privilege of going to school with a bunch of other grads who were silly enough to drop 40 grand on an elite education, and yet would end up in powerful positions afterwards on the strength of the name alone. The academics I could (and did) get elsewhere, more efficiently, but the degree and the network can't be replicated. However, the degree (fundamentally) is just a piece of paper, and the network (fundamentally) was just hanging out with a bunch of people who also got that piece of paper. I've found both to be quite valuable post-college, but there are many, many subjects that I could've studied that would've been more useful than my courses.

I bet we would see a lot more innovation in instruction methods and content of courses if they were decoupled from social aspects, networking, residences, and accreditation.

For me, the social aspect of college was about a lot more than forming a "professional network".

I learned a lot and grew as a person interacting with people outside of my area who will probably never (directly) provide me with a competitive advantage in the job marketplace. However, I know what I don't know in much deeper ways than I otherwise would.

Attending meetups might get you this for the very narrow slice of the world that is CS.

I had a bad idea for you Michael. Every day there are news articles about university professors who did something wrong or have some other reason to quit. You could contact them and point them at your project.

A sample for today:

Professor John Schindler posted a photoshop http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/navy...

Professor Bacevich retired http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/good-bye-professor-bacevich/

and is starting a MOOC https://www.edx.org/course/bux/bux-intl301x-war-greater-midd...

Reddit user 20kadjunct is adjunct professor with an annual salary of $20,000 and 2 other jobs. http://www.businessinsider.com/adjunct-professors-ama-on-red...

professor Thomas Docherty, a nationally recognised critic of higher education leadership and policy, was suspended last term in March. http://theboar.org/2014/06/23/suspended-professor-prevented-...

A fresh badge of Professors every day.

(the plot thickens)

I'm not sure this is what is happening with alyxandria, but Whoa. I think a peer-to-peer degree accreditation is an amazing idea, and I am a little bit sad I didn't think of it first. There might be a problem going with a strictly money-based exchange system (bad incentives) but I am certain there are solutions to this problem (some sort of rating system).

I would be willing to help. I have a PhD in chemistry/biochemistry.

"I want America like Europe where they'll educate your kid until his head explodes. You want to go to college, go, we need you, we need doctors because people grow up and fall down and go boom, everyone is going to need a doctor, let's have three doctors per floor of every apartment building in this town. How about that as a good idea? Like that is a good idea. Okay, so let's make college tuition either free or really low and if you have a country full of whip-crack smart people you have a country the rest of the world will fear. They will not invade a country of educated people because we are so smart we'll build a laser that will burn you, the enemy, in your sleep before you can even mobilize your air force to kill us. We will kill you so fast because we are so smart and we will have foreign policy that will not piss you off to the point to where you have to attack us." Henry Rollins

> I’m looking for an affordable degree program that is academically rigorous, and provides me the opportunity to challenge myself

If you're not going to university, you must find yourself some good books to read. Get in touch with someone who is knowledgeable in the field you're interested in and ask them for book recommendations. I remember one day my friend recommended me the sequence of books for learning physics (CM by Goldstein --> QM by Sakurai) and reading these two books did more for my physics education than what I learned in class...

<plug> If you're interested in learning first-year science in an affordable manner, check out the No bullshit guide to math and physics. I wrote this book because I was tired of watching my students suffer at the hands of mainstream textbooks. http://minireference.com/ </plug>

I understand the frustration the author may have with the current college system but there are ways of getting a cheaper quality education. People overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. Take 1 college class every 6 months and you will get that degree in due time.

Yes. The title is "I can't afford a Bachelor's degree" and he talks about $12k and $17k a year programs, but if he did not take a full schedule on and cut it in half, it would be $6k to $8.5k a year (or perhaps $7-9k with fees). It takes longer but if you say you can't afford it the other way...

This could be good, but I don't think we need to imitate the "granularity" of the existing system. Currently, the "accreditation" is very chunky: a piece of 11"x17" paper certifying you know how to read and write, and can produce a sustained effort of three years in a row.

A more interesting option would be to issue certificates for each course taken. Specifically, it shouldn't be necessary to sit through all the lectures and do all the exercises, but simply pass an "I know my stuff" exam, as per @amorphid's suggestion.

The test could be a 30 minutes skype interview + problem solving session over skype with an professional accreditator. Of course, this only pushes the reputation question to the problem of who accredidates the accreditators, but that might be easier to solve, at least for certain niches.

I got really excited about something similar, in 2011, when I read this post about the DIY-MBA movement: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/i-started-a-diy-mba-group-youre...

I haven't done it yet, but I am still contemplating the idea. One of the biggest problems that can arise with not actually attending a university in person is the lack of relationship and teamwork education. That can be partially mitigated via videoconferencing and online team projects, but it's not the same as being in an office and leading a group of individuals in person. One of these years I'm going to actually have time to do this....

Meanwhile, Udacity has started a credential program called Nano Degrees: https://www.udacity.com/nanodegrees

You've got moxie, kid! It seems like some other commenters are raising questions about your model -- if you change your mind, I'm sure someone in this thread could get you a job that would let you pay the bills and use your spare time to learn whatever interests you. (Going to a prestigious college was cool, but Matt Damon was right: I could have learned just about everything at my local library for $1.50 in late charges.)

Universities force students to learn, otherwise students will fail courses etc. I usually make plans to learn stuff etc next to my courses, but while I'm motivated to do so, it never seems to be enough. Therefore, I fail to do this additional work because nobody enforces me to do it.

I hope that the author of the article at least thinks about motivational problems such as mine before going through with it.

do you have an estimate of the cost for a full first degree? even one that's very broad will help me understand your idea better.

I sure do. As things stand right now, the cost of a bachelor's degree from start to finish will be capped at around $20,000 (hopefully less) if a student were to pay to take complete courses with a professor in a live-web conference, 1-1 tutoring, or in-person setting.

Professors charging less than the maximum amount allowed, plus the opportunity to take competency exams administered by a professor (which have a much lower cap on how much professors can charge) could reduce that cost pretty significantly.

How much would you say the cap for a professor to teach would be. Also why would they want to do this instead of teach a real course at their university

The site mentioned in the article (alyxandria.org) is flagged by my company's filter/proxy (IronPort) as being a potential malware site because "IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS." Perhaps this accreditation organization should check its DNS records?

Given that there are a lot of non-accredited schools filled with teachers and curricula that we don't take seriously, so I'm sure a homemade college degree by someone who thinks university is job training will go over well.

"Oh you graduated summa cum laude? From where? ... your house, you say."

This is an interesting idea, but I don't see how it differs from what Coursera and such are offering. Pay for a structured, college-like learning environment, to prove something to yourself, or brag. (I'm excluding those who are just trying to be more marketable to employers)

I attended a technology school in the Boston area with the intention of liberalizing my education once I found the time. But I never really did, save a small hobby here and there. I still have great hopes with all the new internet self-education options out there.

Why not depart even further from the traditional model of higher education? Open Master's is an interesting concept in this vein: http://www.openmasters.org/

We are refining it right now but you can go to http://www.coursebuffet.com and see approximately what level a free online course would be at a US university.

I love this idea and support it!!

Sort of PhD marketplace.

For smart people who can teach themselves there needs to be some sort of validating and credentialing of the knowledge they have!

Some valid criticism in here, but massive thumbs up for:

"The potential for a good story, is one of my only requirements in deciding to do or not do something."

We went the other way and have approval to give course credit from the state of Vermont. And are in the process of getting accreditation.

This is a cool idea.

It needs to be more fully fleshed out and coherent, and it needs more muscle (and players) behind it, but it is a cool ideas.

How did this make the front page of HN?

in HTML there are such things as anchor tags[0] that allow you to link to other pages instead of using the footnote-y reference-y markup.

[0] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html

The whole point of this is to disrupt the current education model, and your criticism is that it doesn't follow an aspect of the current education model.

Yes, a lot of people travel away from home for school. I'm sure it can be a great experience. Should that be a requirement for an excellent education? Of course not.

Does your lack of sympathy to that point matter terribly?

Not at all, especially when the click-through link asking for Professors says: "Work from anywhere. Online or in person - the choice is yours."

This seems like the beginnings of something great. I'm very curious to see how it shapes up.

This seems like the beginnings of something <i>essential.</i>

The current system is hopelessly broken and corrupt. It's not serving most students, it's not serving most teachers, and it's not even serving most employers.

It mostly seems to be serving bean counters, bureaucrats, and property speculators, who are all making out like bandits.

A serious disruption is inevitable.

Nice reading this was