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Re:DRUCKER SAYS "UNIVERSITIES WON'T SURVIVE"



>from now the big university campuses will be relics.  Universities won't
>survive.  It's as large a change as when we first got the printed book.  Do
>you realize that the cost of higher education has risen as fast as the cost
>of health care? ...  Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any

Yep.  We're gonna have to eliminate health care, too.  We have so many damn
people; what's the point, anyway?

>that the system is rapidly becoming untenable.  Higher education is in deep
>crisis...  Already we are beginning to deliver more lectures and classes off
>campus via satellite or two-way video at a fraction of the cost.  The

I just don't think "distance learning" will be able to replace the
university.  Not because you can't deliver the in-class content, but
because I think it is more difficult to create the out-of-class environment
remotely.  Most of the important, worthwhile and positively mind-wrenching
learning experiences I have lived through, experiences that I maintain were
the real value of my "higher" education, occurred outside the classroom.
They were very often stimulated by ideas I formed or picked up in class,
but the university environment itself what a necessary component.

The idea of universities degenerating into a system of
techno-correspondence courses and satellite community colleges just seems
ludicrous.  How could that possibly be so much cheaper?  Because we can
save money on professor salaries by eliminating the "excess?"  Because we
can have fully interactive, two-way video classes with a professor and
10,000 remote students at once?  Because everyone can live at home with
their parents, instead of living in a dorm?  Exactly how will that improve
"the content or the quality of education?"

Certainly rising costs are a problem, but to say that "Universities won't
survive" is sensationalism at its worst.

Regards,
Chris




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