Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
Digital learning is expanding access to higher education, but may be widening the achievement gap. Students who have trouble learning in a traditional classroom have even more trouble learning online, concludes a study of community college students in Washington state. For older students, women and high achievers, the difference between online learning and face-to-face learning is small.
Some 21 percent of jobs require “middle” skills — more than a high school diploma, but less than a bachelor’s degree. Community colleges can help 1.5 million unemployed Americans bridge the skills gap, researchers say. But colleges will have to balance open access with the push for higher graduation rates.
Massive Open Online Courses are the next big thing for learners who don’t need college credit.
Online technology “promises historic improvements in the quality of and access to higher education,” predict John Chubb and Terry Moe in the Wall Street Journal. Elite universities are putting classes — if not degrees — online.
One Nobel laureate can literally teach a million students, and for a very reasonable tuition price. Online education will lead to the substitution of technology (which is cheap) for labor (which is expensive)—as has happened in every other industry—making schools much more productive.
And lectures just scratch the surface of what is possible. Online technology lets course content be presented in many engaging formats, including simulations, video and games. It lets students move through material at their own pace, day or night. It permits continuing assessment, individual tutoring online, customized reteaching of unlearned material, and the systematic collection of data on each student’s progress. In many ways, technology extends an elite-caliber education to the masses who would not otherwise have access to anything close.
College won’t be 100 percent online, Chubb and Moe predict. Students will “go to school and have face-to-face interactions within a community of scholars, but also do a portion of their work online.”
The “college experience” is very expensive.
Robin Hood was the model for Santa Monica College‘s plan to charge higher tuition for added classes, say members of the very liberal college board. Those who could afford it would pay more, opening up space in budget-priced classes for low-income students.
Low tuition is no bargain if colleges can’t meet student demand, an analyst argues. If community colleges charged enough to fund sufficient classes, students wouldn’t be turning to high-cost for-profit colleges that don’t put students on a wait list.
In the face of protests, California’s Santa Monica College has suspended plans to charge four times more for high-demand classes. But with demand exceeding supply of classroom seats — and no money to hire more instructors — that leaves rationing by wait list, the academic equivalent of Soviet bread lines.
Selective colleges should “redshirt” disadvantaged students, giving them an extra year of college prep, writes Grinnell’s president. It works for football players, he argues.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Police used pepper spray on protesters who stormed a board meeting at Santa Monica City College. They object to the college’s plans to charge premium pricing for priority access to high-demand classes.
California’s three-part higher-education system is a disaster, writes Kevin Carey. While the national media focuses on Berkeley’s problems — larger classes, fewer janitors — non-elite students are being denied a chance to pursue education and job training.
The state’s community colleges are considering a series of reforms to improve graduation and transfer rates.
Ireland’s focus on sending disadvantaged, disabled and older students to college is pushing top students to study abroad, charges Michael Murphy, president of University College Cork, reports the Irish Examiner. In order to widen access, colleges have diverted resources from the most talented students, Murphy told business leaders in Cork.
Dr. Murphy admitted: “It has become unpopular, indeed politically incorrect, to voice concerns about the needs of academically talented students.”
. . . the universities’ ability to maximise the talents of the intellectually gifted has diminished as expanding higher education has brought weaker students who need more academic support from fewer staff.
“There is extensive anecdotal evidence of many of our brightest students emigrating after completing Leaving Certificate for overseas education and never returning,” he said.
While college enrollment increased 15 percent in the last three years, colleges and universities have 10 percent fewer academic staff and 9 percent less funding, he said.
Via Lessons From Abroad.
On Community College Spotlight: Open access is an empty promise at community colleges. Enrollment’s up, funding is down and students can’t get into the classes they need to complete a degree or a vocational certificate.
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