Daily Aid 107: The future of affordable higher education

2 April 2009 1 views No Comment

Daily Aid 107: The future of affordable higher education

Opinion

The battle of words between supporters of the Family Federal Education Loan Program for federal student loans and the Direct Lending Program continues to heat up, with exchanges on forums, bulletin boards, and mailing lists. Lots of the same arguments are being rehashed, and each side has its “fact” sheet with talking points that are so beaten to death, they’re practically salsa.

I’d suggest that rather than petition for an either/or, we also devote some time, energy, and thought to the root cause of the debate. It’s not about FFEL vs. Direct, which program costs taxpayers more money, which program is better, which program is less susceptible to corruption or inefficiency…

… the root cause is that higher education is generally too expensive for the average consumer to afford out of pocket (with exceptions).

Demand for education has never been greater. Supply hasn’t kept up. Prices go up. Econ 101, right? Either we reduce demand by devaluing education, or we increase supply so that education becomes available as a commodity.

If you haven’t checked out iTunesU yet, you should. You can take courses up to a Ph.D. in physics from some of the best institutions in America like MIT, for example, and not leave your desk – for FREE. All that remains is testing and accreditation, and the available supply of education goes up without substantially increasing the cost of its production.

Think about that for a second. The role of higher education can shift from being a provider of information – which the Internet is equally, if not better, suited for – to a certifier of knowledge and skill, and for institutions with research specialties, a creator of new knowledge. If a student can solve Fermat’s last theorem from skills gleaned via their iPod just as well as sitting in MIT 10-250 for 8 years, does it matter where they learned it as long as they can produce results?

If you want to take the debate of FFEL vs. DL to a higher level, please encourage your colleagues to push for more online education and online degree initiatives at your institution, and to look down the road to the future, where the university creates and certifies knowledge, rather than tries to redistribute it in bulk as a commodity. That’s our way out of this, our way out of students defaulting on $100,000 loan balances and swimming in debt for 30 years, no matter which loan program they got it from.

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