MITx Expands Access to Higher Ed

The "Do It Yourself" University (DIYU) movement, discussed here last month, has gained the support of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose MITx program began teaching students yesterday.  Very likely this was the sort of thing that Kevin Carey had in mind, as he commented on in MIT Mints a Valuable New Form of Academic Currency (The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 22, 2012).  From all accounts, and there are many, MITx is expected to be only the first of many schools to enter this new category of for-profit schools or extensions offering credentials (or "badges") to students, often in lieu of a traditional college degree.  Will this level the playing field for student "consumers" of higher education?  Or is it another method that the increasingly privatized higher education marketplace will use to capture student dollars?  Only time will tell, but I rather agree with Carey that this is going to be an increasingly important part of the market and real competition to for-profit institutions like those profiled in College, Inc.  


There are a number of articles online for those who want to learn more, including one in yesterday's New York Times:

• Beyond the College Degree: Online Education Badges by Tamar Lewin (NY Times)
• MIT’s Online Threat to the Higher Education Cartel by Bob Adelman (The New American)
• MITx Opens Enrollment for First Interactive Online Course; Pilot Certificates Will Be Free by Marc Perry (Chronicle)
• MIT’s New Free Courses May Threaten (and Improve) the Traditional Model, Program’s Leader Says by Jeffrey Young (Chronicle)
• 'Badges' Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas by Jeffrey Young (Chronicle)

Race-Conscious Admissions Goes to Court

U. Texas Austin, where affirmative action is under fire.

The Supreme Court has taken up a challenge to admission policies at University of Texas, Austin, where a white student denied admission is seeking redress for what she claims is racial discrimination.  The story is well covered in Supreme Court Takes Up Challenge to Race-Conscious Admissions at U. of Texas (Chronicle of Higher Ed) and Justices Take Up Race as a Factor in College Entry (NY Times), and the issue could easily rise to a national debate when the Supreme Court hears arguments.  Already there has been some discussion of how Asian students might be discriminated against by Ivy League schools trying to keep them from dominating the rolls.  And as admission to college grows increasingly competitive, there are bound to be more cases along these lines.


I have long argued that anyone who questions a school's desire for diversity (designed to benefit the school by providing a more democratic learning environment for students) should also question why schools have legacy admissions (designed to benefit the school through strengthening alumni bonds and donor support).  Yet you rarely hear legacy admissions criticized, even though there is a lot of evidence that they are even a bigger problem for society than diversity admissions -- see Richard D. Kahlenberg's Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions for an extended critique, which you can find summarized to some extent in his 10 Myths about Legacy Preferences in the Chronicle.  One reason why legacy admits go unquestioned is our increasingly privatized mindset, whereby Americans see anything that is good for a school's bottom line as beyond question, even if it is even more unfair than traditional affirmative action.

Critical University Studies

In the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Williams writes "Deconstructing Academe: The Birth of Critical University Studies," which essentially sets forth the rationale, and much of the reading list, for a course like our own.   Williams visited Rutgers last year and much of this article was discussed in the talk he gave.  His essays on the student debt crisis are very valuable and anyone writing on those issues should seek out his work.

HILT Conference on College Teaching

It has long been acknowledged that most faculty in higher education have never had specific instruction in teaching.  So the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) is a huge step forward.  You can read more about the initiative in "New Initiative for better teaching" (Harvard Gazette) and "Harvard Conference Seeks to Jolt University Teaching" (The Chronicle of Higher Education).  There could be a great paper on how college instruction could be improved.

Christie proposes increased aid to higher education - The Daily Targum

The Daily Targum reports that Gov. Christie proposes increased aid to higher education, noting that Gov. Chris Christie's annual budget address calls for a 6% increase in funding for higher education.  As the Governor explained: “In our society, education is the key to advancement. More attainment in education is the path to more earnings and success in life. And a highly educated work force is a key to New Jersey’s competitiveness.”  Of course, coming after many years of decreasing funding, even a 6% increase is not a significant change, and his call for more funding comes as he is also calling for tax cuts, so there is some question of how long any increase could be sustained.  That said, however, we should still applaud the Governor for his vision and his understanding of the value of higher education to the state -- something he has also demonstrated with his recommendations for restructuring Rutgers.

Obama Tries to Keep College Affordable

Video: Obama Decries Rising Cost of College Education: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

Though he can't make states devote more resources to cash-strapped public colleges, President Obama is pursuing ways to keep college more affordable, as he announced in his most recent State of the Union speech and a talk on College Affordability in January (see above).   The outlines of his plan are discussed in "Obama Links College Aid with Affordability" (The New York Times, January 27, 2012).  The idea is to link financial aid to college value and affordability, denying money to schools with low standards and offering incentives for states and schools that do more to keep costs low and quality high.  Though it is very unlikely that this plan will pass through congress, especially in an election year, it does offer an interesting vision of what the federal government can do to address the many problems we have been discussing in this course.

International Students and Privatization

The Daily Targum has an editorial today on College Budgets: Filling the Gaps, which points to a New York Times article (Taking More Seats on Campus, Foreigners also Pay the Freight) about the University of Washington's efforts to recruit international students to help make up for cuts in state support.  The writer suggests this is a good model for Rutgers, and I can tell you that Rutgers is already doing this, though on a much smaller scale than UW.  Maybe we should all ask ourselves if we agree with the Targum editorial writer, though, that this is a generally positive trend:

Still, there may be some value to be found in this trend — and the pros do seem to outweigh the cons. Yes, some in-state residents are denied certain opportunities. But on the other hand, at a time when the only other alternative for these schools seems to be cutting valuable programs and laying off instructors — or worse, raising tuition prices for all students — looking to the term bills of more international students for extra cash may be the lesser of two evils.

All we can say for sure is that both the trend and the Targum writer's reaction to it are more evidence that we have all come to accept the privatization of public education as a given.