Jackarandajam
Maester
I would only add to this that we live in what is the greatest information age in the history of humanity, despite it being so despicably handled (not by anyone in particular).There's two things happening in the US here. The first, Millennials were over-sold on a college degree, which didn't work out in the long run for some people and had a spiraling effect on things, like jobs asking for a degree that don't need one with wages that don't justify one. As parents, Millennials aren't pushing college the way it was pushed on them, and college enrollment is expected to decline. The second, the leftist political forces at these colleges has reached a breaking point for many people on the right, which has turned many of them against college, which in turn has pushed colleges even more to the left as they have fewer and fewer right-wing students and staff. But none of that will, for example, hinder their role in research, which happens primarily at the universities which are most equipped to continue thriving, or hinder the role of lawyers, doctors and engineers in the country. It is likely to worsen the teacher shortage, though.
We are, so no more questions, I'll ask everyone to wrap up their thoughts quickly.
Higher education, with its astronomical prices and mediocre practical results, seems to be at war with everyone's exponentially increased ability to access information rather than evolving with this change.
I think in a perfect world that (good) teachers should make more than professional athletes, so I understand having to pay professors and staff. I don't have the answers, but in the same way that after the pandemic prices went up and then kinda never went back down and policies still haven't gone back to being as customer-friendly as they were before, higher education seems to be ramping up its gatekeeping in the face of much higher levels of increased access to information in the world.
Basically I think the whole system is archaic in that it is still largely pre-internet in philosophy. Yeah, there are online courses and stuff, but the internet changes more than just how to charge people.
The Great Courses seems to me to be more in line with the future of higher education than phoenix university, if that makes sense.