“The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn’t need to be reformed — it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it. ” — Sir Ken Robinson
Even though most people believe students are declining in their interest in education I believe is the opposite. People are more aware of the importance of education as never before. The problem is that is shifting from standardize to personalized education, from brick mortar institutions into online education, self-education and entrepreneurism learning.
This shift in education has been created in part because the premise of ‘get a degree, find a job and you will make enough money to live’ doesn’t work anymore. Apart from engineering most of the degrees don’t have a return that make them worth it. As the research mentioned by The Economist most of the degrees have a return lower than American Treasury Bills[1]. We should rather invest our money instead of spending it in college! But we all agree that still today going to university gives you a better chance than those with only a high school diploma. We also agree that a college degree won’t assure a path towards social safety net or a job forever.
Why do students think a degree won’t make the difference? Part because it’s getting difficult to differentiate between each other when everyone is getting good grades. Students could be getting smarter but I believe there is a “fake democratization of grades” effect that can be seen on grades.
The English weekly newspaper The Economist put it very simple in their video “Even Ivy Colleges have grade inflation!” when saying that “Harvard average grade in 1950 was a C+, today is an A.”[2]
“Most of us are directly acquainted with at least some of these disturbing consequences of grades, yet we continue to reduce students to letters or numbers on a regular basis. More expensive, how do a job will earn it back” (Kohn).
How can we keep trusting universities if they are driven to increase grades to attract students? Would you still be interested in buying something that is loosing its value – every year?
Due to cost and trust do students have loose interest in education? I believe they haven’t. So where are they studying? The answer is: online. We have been seeing students take education into their own hands. Millions are enroll into online courses and this tendency just began.
In this chart from the Babson Survey Research Group we can appreciate how we have today more than 7 million students (32% of total) taking at least one online course.
I believe there is a trend on education were online is the future. Universities as are seen today won’t disappear but would have to add value to justify their high tuitions and face-to-face classes.
As the lower chart shows above the annual growth rate of total enrollment is small (<5%) or close to 0% but the online enrollment as a percent of total enrollment has gone from a 11% on 2003 to a 30% on 2011.
The students decline is not in education itself but in today university system. Online education as others kinds of self-educations will keep growing in the future. I wish universities can adapt to this trend and provide students with an affordable, personalized, well-oriented education that can fulfill the new needs of today’s society.
[1] The Economist (2014). Is college worth it? Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21600131-too-many-degrees-are-waste-money-return-higher-education-would-be-much-better
[2] The Economist (2014). What drives grade inflation at Ivy League colleges?. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/09/economist-explains-2
