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Subject: Reality Check - M.I.T. Calls Academia's Bluff
From: "Gary North's Reality Check" <reality@dailyreckoning.com>
Date: Tue, August 18, 2009 11:11 am
To: dbc6@cornell.edu
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Gary North's REALITY CHECK

Gold's price:
http://www.GaryNorth.com/snip/300.htm

The Federal debt:
http://www.GaryNorth.com/snip/544.htm

To subscribe to this letter:
http://www.snipurl.com/subscribenow

Issue 884 August 18, 2009

M.I.T. CALLS ACADEMIA'S BLUFF

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has begun
the most revolutionary experiment in the history of
education, stretching all the way back to the pharaohs. It
now gives away its curriculum to anyone smart enough to
learn it. It has posted its curriculum on-line for free.
These days, this means a staggering 1900 courses. This
number will grow. (http://tinyurl.com/2t2rfj)

This is proof to the academic world that MIT regards
its program as the best, and dares any other institution to
prove otherwise, where everyone can see and compare. The
free site validates the MIT T-shirt: "HARVARD: Because not
everyone can get into MIT."

MIT has publicly stiffed its main rival for the title
of the best science university on earth. That rival is the
California Institute of Technology. CalTech will forever
play catch-up to MIT on-line. It will be "We, Too On-line
University."

Students around the world can see for themselves that
MIT has what it takes to be the best. They can test drive
the entire curriculum.

Top students all over the world still want to attend
MIT. They want a diploma that has MIT's name on it. The
free site does not reduce demand for an MIT diploma. It
increases it.

MIT has up-ended several millennia of higher
education. Let me explain.


THE NATURE OF THIS REVOLUTIONARY EXPERIMENT

For as long as there have been priesthoods, there has
been formal classroom education.

The Egyptian priests had classrooms, lectures, and
students taking notes.

The Jews had schools where bright young men came to
learn the Hebrew texts and memorize the oral tradition,
which began being written down in the second century A.D.
This oral tradition was written down centuries later: the
Mishnah and the Talmud.

The Classical Greeks had academies. Plato and
Aristotle taught young men the rudiments of philosophy.

The Greeks also had medical schools.

These programs were closed to most outsiders. A
student had to be accepted. He also had to pay.

In most cases, the information was secret. The
student was bound by an oath of secrecy. Here are the
opening words of the original Hippocratic Oath.

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and
Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and
goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will
fulfill according to my ability and judgment this
oath and this covenant:

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal
to my parents and to live my life in partnership
with him, and if he is in need of money to give
him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring
as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to
teach them this art -- if they desire to learn it
-- without fee and covenant; to give a share of
precepts and oral instruction and all the other
learning to my sons and to the sons of him who
has instructed me and to pupils who have signed
the covenant and have taken an oath according to
the medical law, but no one else.

http://tinyurl.com/3erdw

The training created a medical guild. The guild
functioned as an oligopoly. It kept prices high by
restricting access to the training.

This is what the college diploma has always done. It
has created a guild that restricts entry by non-certified
people. This keeps wages high.

To obtain the diploma, a person must pay money to the
trainers. The trainers are located at one center or
special regional centers. Journeying to the center adds
costs. Quitting a full-time job back home also adds to the
expense. Forcing students to attend pre-requisites adds to
the cost. Everything is done to screen access to the
knowledge.

So, the knowledge does not spread. This is the
crucial function of the academic screening system,
especially for practical knowledge: healing people and
building things.

For the first time in the history of man, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has opened the gates
to all comers. It has said, "You won't get certified by
us, but you can get the classroom knowledge. If you are
smart enough to teach yourself, you will have the
knowledge."

MIT has now removed the most important layers of
bureaucracy: the layers associated with classroom
instruction.

1. The fee to obtain the training
2. The cost of journeying to a training center
3. The pre-requisite system
4. The cost of quitting your job

This has de-mystified the entire guild procedure. It
says this: "If you are smart enough, you can master the
initial content."

This opens the door for the revival of the local
apprenticeship system. Here is where a student masters the
non-textbook basics of a field, which are at least as
important as the textbook content.

Think of a written account of how to tie a shoelace.
Then think of a parent's training: apprenticeship.

There is one remaining price barrier: the high cost of
textbooks. But Amazon, eBay, and the many on-line used
book sellers let you buy older editions for $20 instead of
$150. A textbook one edition behind is 99% effective in
every undergraduate major.

The gatekeeping function of the academic guild is now
under assault by one of the supreme gatekeepers: MIT.


REMOVING BUREAUCRACY

The next step in the liberation of society is the
introduction of certification by examination without
diplomas. There would no requirement to attend a school.
Just pass the exam.

This terrifies every guild. Smart people could get in
just by passing the guild's entry-level exam.

The ultimate breakthrough would be a requirement that
every certified member of a guild would be required to pass
the guild's entry exam every five years or else lose his
official license to practice. That would mean the end of
exams that screen for wage reasons rather than for
technical reasons. The members would demand easier exams,
so that they could pass. More students would pass. Wages
would decline.

Finally, there would be a removal of state-chartered
systems of professional licensing. It would not be illegal
to sell any services at any price.

Combine these, and the bureaucratization of society
would end.

If you think, "This is utopian," consider this: MIT
has removed the crucial initial layer, which imposes the
greatest financial burden.

A student in India who understands English and who has
access to the Web can get an MIT education.

If other universities imitate MIT, the world of higher
education will be radically changed for the better.


$120,000 DEGREES FROM PODUNK COLLEGE

Let me tell you a story I know first-hand. It
happened several years ago.

There is a tiny Christian college -- then unaccredited
-- that has pretensions of being a first-rate Christian
university for conservatives. The librarian put a book by
a certain historian on its shelves. This scholar had
written some unconventional books regarding certain
controversial aspects of World War II. This book was not
one of them.

Some bonehead faculty member came to him and told him
to remove this book. He refused. She then told the
administration. The librarian was ordered by the
administration to remove the book, because a library-review
committee was scheduled to visit the school. This team
could revoke the library's accreditation if certain kinds
of books or authors with certain views were found on the
shelves. The librarian quit, as he should have. The book
was then removed.

The administration was bluffed by a bonehead faculty
member into committing a preposterous assault on
intellectual liberty -- removing a book from the library --
because of the administration's utter terror in the
presence of a committee of librarians.

There was a day when Christians chose death by lions
rather than capitulating to the State. That day is long
gone. This is the confession of Christian higher
education: "Our government-accredited utmost for His
highest." Colleges are staffed by certified bureaucrats
who have been trained by certified bureaucrats. They grew
up in the fear of committees, and this fear never leaves
them.

The losers? The students and their parents, who spend
$120,000 to earn a degree (if the student graduates) from a
low-prestige school that provides a third-rate education.
In addition, the school raises another $15,000 a year per
student from naive donors who don't know how third-rate the
place is.

There are accredited universities around the world
that offer distance-learning programs where a student can
earn a liberal arts degree at home in two or three years
for $15,000. A student can pay his own way by working as
an apprentice to a local businessman. This way, he or she
learns a trade. But no. The parents send them off to
college for $30,000 a year (after taxes).

Parents who send their children off to Podunk College
are behind the technological curve.

First, about half of college freshmen don't graduate,
even after six years. (http://tinyurl.com/n6sb6p) Second,
those who do graduate enter a job market in which only 20%
of graduates can find a non-minimum wage job.

http://tinyurl.com/osgrpx

The graduates are four to six years older, minimally
educated, have no full-time work experience, and have
forfeited four to six years of income. I call this
"formally certified stupidity." What would you call it?

A college could easily provide free on-line guides to
passing the Advanced Placement, CLEP, and DSST exams to
quiz out of the first two years. Total cost: under $2,000
for the exams. That would save parents at least $60,000.
The school would provide conservative guidelines for free
on-line in PDF. It would also provide free YouTube or
Blip.tv video courses.

If the school were interested in educating people, it
would do all this. But Podunk College is interested in
selling accredited degrees at above-market rates. It is
not interested in educating people. This includes all of
the "dedicated to furthering God's kingdom" colleges. They
are dedicated to furthering their little kingdoms at
parents' expense.

If they are really worth the money, they should prove
this for free on-line. MIT has. Why not them?

Simple: because they are not worth the money. They
know it. The parents don't know it. The illusion must go
on.

Could a college make its money by teaching upper
division courses on-line for 25% of today's tuition --
$5,000 a year instead of $20,000 -- with no room and board
costs? Yes. Will any of them do this? Of course not.
Why not? Because they are in debt up to their ears for
educationally unnecessary real estate. They adopted a
technologically defunct model before the Web.

There is another reason. If a school's curriculum
were 100% on-line for free, every parent, donor, and
prospective student could judge the academic quality of the
program. There is no interest in doing this. I think the
administrators have a sense that their programs are not up
to the standards of tax-funded universities.

Their problem is not lack of money and physical plant.
Education is about wisdom, self-discipline, highly
motivational teachers, and perspective. The problem for
these schools is a lack of a distinctive Christian academic
worldview.

If parents could see the classroom presentations, they
might conclude that the academic content is essentially the
same, the perspective is the same, and the cost is far
higher than tax-funded education. A prayer before each
class is not worth an extra $80,000.

Someday there will be a Christian college aimed at
home school graduates that itself is 100% on-line and
priced accordingly. In the meantime, parents and students
have on-line alternatives for under $20,000, total.

There are several state universities that offer this,
most notably Excelsior and Edison State.

Would a college lose its accreditation if it adopted
such a program? Not if it played things smart. It could
enroll on-campus students whose parents are eager to spend
extra money. There are still lots of these parents.
Jennie Sue and Billy Bob want to get away from home at
their parents' expense for four to six years. They wheedle
a free education by pleading a love of classroom education.
Peer pressure from other parents reinforce this. "What?
Your kid is still at home?"

Would parents enroll their children at an unaccredited
college? Maybe not. They, too, grovel at the feet of
accreditation committees. But since the graduates of
accredited schools can't get decent jobs these days, of
what economic value is accreditation?

I am not talking about students who major in a natural
science like engineering or chemistry. But hardly any
American students do. I am talking about the standard,
career-unrelated liberal arts degree.


WHAT DO PARENTS WANT?

The sad fact is this: most parents don't care about
education. They care about accreditation. The great
German social scientist Max Weber commented on this just
after World War I. He wrote this:

If we hear from all sides demands for the
introduction of a regulated curricula culminating
in specialized examinations, the reason behind
this is, of course, not a suddenly awakened
'thirst for education', but rather a desire to
limit the supply of candidates for these
positions and to monopolize them for the holders
of educational patents -- [B]ureaucracy strives
everywhere for the creation of a 'right to the
office' by the establishment of regular
disciplinary procedures and by elimination of the
completely arbitrary disposition of the superior
over the subordinate official. The bureaucracy
seeks to secure the official's position, his
orderly advancement, and his provision for old
age. (http://tinyurl.com/ntqrfb)

Parents seek union cards for their children. But
there are so many kids with union cards today that the
advantage has disappeared.

What should a wise parent do? Keep the child home and
away from the bureaucrats. Get the child apprenticed to a
local businessman. Have the child quiz out of the entire
B.A.

Add an incentive. The child gets $50,000 in cash --
or half the total cost of college -- as a graduation
present. The child pays for his/her college education.
The parent saves a bundle, especially considering how many
students drop out. The child gets starting capital. Use
it for grad school. Use it for starting a business. Use
it for down payments on a few repossessed houses.

Meanwhile, Podunk College gets nothing. This is the
way it ought to be until it offers something educationally
unique and worth the extra money, or else offers its
existing run-of-the mill program on-line for a third of the
money that it charges today.

Private, campus-based, wildly overpriced colleges with
undistinguished academic programs will survive, but only a
handful of them will prosper. They function today as
expensive marital matchmaking services. There are cheaper
ways to marry off your children. They can to use one of
these on-line dating services.

To the parent who says, "I don't want my child being
certified by a state university like Excelsior or Edison
State or Louisiana State at Shreveport," I respond: "So,
you prefer to pay $120,000 to a private college that gained
its accreditation only by kissing the hindquarters of a
state-licensed accreditation agency?"

There is stupidity and then there is financially
suicidal stupidity. Parents display both. The older the
child, the more suicidal the stupidity.

Under no circumstances -- none -- should a family or a
student go into debt for college. The average student
graduates with $20,000 of debt. This is suicidal. When
graduates marry, they are $40,000 in debt. I offer lots of
horror stories here:

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CONCLUSION

The end of the high-priced university training system
is in sight. It may take a generation. These schools are
licensed agencies of the state. They will not surrender
without a fight. But when the best science university in
the world says "Come and get it . . . free!" the other
schools have a major problem for justifying secrecy. This
response -- "We offer a better program than MIT does" -- is
not likely to be widely believed.

Any college that does not have all of its professors'
classroom lectures on-line on YouTube or Vimeo or Blip.tv
is saying, loud and clear, "We don't want people to see how
incompetent our faculty really is."

Any college that claims to be Christian but which
assigns standard secular textbooks and does not publish on-
line refutations of these textbooks is saying, loud and
clear, "We agree with the textbooks. We charge parents
$30,000 a year so their kids can have a prayer before every
class -- maybe -- and a morally safe environment -- maybe."
I call it Darwinism with prayers.

It is fraudulent. It is corrupt. It is widespread.

Parents, save your money. Have your college-bound
children stay at home and pay for their own educations by
using AP/CLEP/DSST exams at $60 per course, plus on-line
distance education at $100 to $125 per semester unit, plus
local apprenticeship with a salary are the way for your
children to pay for their own college educations. This
takes the risk out of the deal for you. With a 50% drop-
out rate, there is huge risk.

If you say, "My child is not smart enough or mature
enough to learn on his own," then do not send him off to
college. Let him stay home and watch "Animal House" twice
a day until he matures.


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[aussiebear]

I love this departure by North. Its confirms my disintermediation of the elite intermediators thesis. who needs dickheads as nodes when you have servers. If the rabble can write wikipedia, all they need are structures that won't bleed them dry and they can do anything.

But like all libertarians, he gets carried away...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north747.html

[Ursino]

How many Americans would have the motivation, persistance,
resourcefulness to really get very far with this. Without the
on-campus structure of labs, libraries faculty, interaction with
other students. Without the exams, project deadlines and grade
point competition to focus attention. I doubt that MIT is in danger
of giving away an MIT education. At least to US citizens.

But certain people in certain situations could definitely benefit from
access to this program.

[Pulp_Cutter]

I applaud what MIT & other free online providers have done. However, North goes too far with his "guild" paranoia. After all, long before the online course, there were those other mechanisms to transmit knowledge, called books. There's really no attempt to hide knowledge, by colleges - in fact, many college profs will talk your ear off. North is a little wacky.

[Thomas.]

I concur; MIT is taking no risk. Being at MIT is a very different experience than seing it on a screen. I do, however, think that there are a lot of wasted efforts within expensive institutions.

[mary]

We need to do something...i am not sure what.

I mean, there are NO JOBS for the young'uns. Yeah, it's great to work, get skilled in apprenticeships...but if you have 20 million kids doing this...again, is this a path to nowhere?

This is SO weird...you read about the catastrophy of a huge HS drop out rate AND illiteracy. But you read on the the other hand, graduates in almost ALL trades and professions...the literate, skilled ones...unemployed. You see disaster...damned if you do, damned if you don't...on both ends.

Over and over the elders have chanted...education is the KEY. Now, even new nurses and teachers....are unemployed. Over and over...we blame the person simply wanting to better themselves...a field which was hot yesterday...like geology...has crashed is just one year.

I am all for apprenticeships...but what if they displace paid, experienced workers?...we hear about the evils of "paid" internships. It's great if jobs are plenty...but what if work is already in short supply?

We tell people to get out and WORK...what if THERE IS NO WORK? You want riots of overly aggressive jobseekers outside YOUR business?

Something has to be done. Now, I can see if belt tightening needs to happen...but when a household incomes drops to ZERO and there are no JOBS, WTF does a person do...it's a lottery at that moment.

You say "Go into business"... it takes TIME and MONEY to builds even a little business....very hard if NO ONE HAS MONEY. You say barter...that's great for some things...but will TXU or Verizon barter for service? There are some living arrangements to barter...but are the opportunities to "barter" equal to the millions of people losing their homes right now?

I mean, it's very, very difficult. Like Orlov says, if provide basic shelter, food, transortation and security are arranged, people calm down somewhat. I cannot believe The administration is not addressing this issue.

I don't know what's going too happen.

[Ursino]

We only need a certain number of MIT grads anyway.
Few are up to that level of abstraction and even fewer
need it. More have a need for practical and concrete
study.
My eyes glazed over as soon as North got past MIT and
started on the Christian college tirade.

[Ursino]

We need to do something...i am not sure what.


I don't know what's going too happen.

There ain't nothing left but to pick a field a persons truly interested
in and start digging. And keep on digging until they hit pay dirt.
Nothing else can be done.

Practical knowledge and skills. Leave the degrees and theories to
the eggheads.

[Thomas.]

In my little burg, you still connot find a carpenter or house cleaner. My son easily got a job working in a hotel kitchen and banquet division. The unemployment hasn't hit us yet but college towns tend to be unusually stable.

[bearking]

Anyone who doesn't have a degree from MIT should immediately shoot themselves in the head.
Either that or they should seek out a MIT graduate and serve as happy serf to him/her for the rest of their lives and in the thereafter.

[pounddog]

i think mit's efforts will be of great service to universities in developing countries