TOP TOPICS
THE FIVE FORCES
ARCHIVES
DECEMBER 9, 2008
Education Keeps Its Distance
Distance learning has become increasingly more popular with the introduction of new and affordable communications technologies. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) estimates that the number of students enrolled in distance education courses will grow to over 18 million in the next 5 years. The biggest factor affecting enrollment, NCES predicts, will be the greater likelihood of traditional college-age students (18-24-year-olds) to participate in distance learning programs, rather than traditional universities.
According to a recent article from George Washington University, a growing population of its graduate students no longer needs to set foot on University property to complete its GW education. Over the past four years, to be sure, the number of new students who entered a graduate-level, distance-education program run by GW has nearly doubled, while the number of online courses has almost tripled. Last year, 550 new graduate students entered 18 programs, and during the fall 2008 semester alone, 365 graduate students enrolled in an online program, according to the Office of Institutional Research.
Schools that solely specialize in online education are also on the rise, and for good reason. Take a look at Western Governors University, recently profiled by Time magazine. Chartered in 1996 by the governors of nineteen western states, WGU now serves students in all 50 states and in several foreign countries, and employs faculty mentors in over 30 states.
According to Dr. Robert Mendenhall, president of WGU, over 75 percent of students are underserved in at least one of the following four categories: low-income, minority, rural, and/or first-generation college. Tuition at WGU is under $6,000 for a twelve-month year - without state subsidies of any kind - and the average time to graduation is under three years. Most importantly, students and employers have reported that WGU graduates are equipped with “all the necessary competencies” to excel in the workplace.
It’s no secret that the success of the online education industry is due to its compatibility with modern, oversaturated lifestyles and career needs – personalization at its best - but I’m willing to bet that this industry’s success is just beginning.
A brief case in point: Ten Sleep, Wyoming (pop. 350) is home to a company called Eleutian Technology, which has been hiring people in small towns across northern Wyoming to teach English to Koreans of all ages using Skype, the free online calling and person-to-person video service. According to a recent Associated Press article, Eleutian already has close to 300 teachers hooked up with more than 15,000 students in Korea. That’s amazing!
Just two years old, Eleutian is already one of Wyoming’s fastest-growing businesses, and CEO Kent Holiday says he’s just getting started. However, in my humble opinion, it’s the entire online education industry that’s really just getting started!
NOVEMBER 26, 2008
China’s Creative Youthology
In high school, I made the decision to pursue a career in a creative industry. The decision was based mostly on gut instinct; although I managed to get pretty decent grades in math and science, neither really arrested my attention the way my artistic hobbies did. I was always aware that the Asian-American community promoted science and technology, but the high accessibility of creative studies at school compelled me to follow that track instead. Looking back, I really think that the ease with which I went down this path is partially due to an American approach to education that values creative pursuits such as literature and art just as much as science and technology.
In the past, studies have shown that the Chinese approach to math and science in children’s education was far more rigorous. This study from 2006 suggests that the strong emphasis on math and science in China’s college entrance exams shows that Chinese culture displayed a preference for these areas of study. However, some of that cultural sentiment is changing thanks to economic transformation, government support, and new education initiatives. Zafka Zhang and Lisa Li write in this blog post that in the last 5 to 8 years, the kind of encouragement seen from the government for art students has changed dramatically.
This recent surge in support and attention for art students in China seems to be a very conscious effort on the part of the government to strengthen and diversify some of the intellectual exports of the country. As a result, Zhang and Li believe that Chinese youth are developing their identities in a global society with greater ease than the previous generation. I think this transformation is fascinating; it is fostering the exploration of national expression through dialogue with the international art community. The internet has played a very important role in making art programs and professionals around the world available to Chinese art students. China’s creative industries could quickly gain prominence worldwide through unfiltered channels online.
As innovation continues to drive the “brain race” around the world, China is investing in a homegrown generation of young thinkers who can pave the way to establishing the country as a premier source of artistic thought and creative services. I’m glad to see the changing attitudes in China; cultural attitudes never change completely overnight, but it seems like the proactive actions of the government have gone a long way towards validating creative studies as a worthwhile field of study. I’m sure that within 5 years or so, China will offer a competitive community of professionals that is also deeply connected to international communities through online collaboration.
AUGUST 15, 2008
Is College A Waste Of Time?
According to Charles Murray, the W.H. Brady Scholar at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, that’s exactly what it is. In an op-ed in the August 13th issue of The Wall Street Journal, Murray poses a hypothetical question:
Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:
First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”
You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that’s the system we have in place.
Murray argues instead for a system of standardized certification tests specific to a person’s chosen career field:
The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.
The model is the CPA exam that qualifies certified public accountants. The same test is used nationwide. It is thorough — four sections, timed, totaling 14 hours. A passing score indicates authentic competence (the pass rate is below 50%). Actual scores are reported in addition to pass/fail, so that employers can assess where the applicant falls in the distribution of accounting competence. You may have learned accounting at an anonymous online university, but your CPA score gives you a way to show employers you’re a stronger applicant than someone from an Ivy League school.
My first thought upon reading all this is that education can’t be reduced to training. I’m of the opinion that well-rounded individuals tend to think more clearly and contextually and show a capacity for breadth of interest. Murray attempts to answer this:
Certification tests need not undermine the incentives to get a traditional liberal-arts education. If professional and graduate schools want students who have acquired one, all they need do is require certification scores in the appropriate disciplines. Students facing such requirements are likely to get a much better liberal education than even our most elite schools require now.
The problem I see here is that it makes a broad, liberal arts education contingent on utility. If your employer wants it, or your grad school wants it, only then do you make the effort to get it.
I’m not a fan of the idea that whether I want to be a marketing executive or a systems engineer, taking a course on Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy or possessing a half-dozen college credits on the development of Western Civilization is considered essentially superfluous to my career path. Knowledge is edifying for its own sake, and understanding the world is a key to being successful in any endeavor. It also gives us something to fall back on in the event that we find ourselves in an industry that is in decline and we need to branch out or start over on a new path. I couldn’t tell you how many times a day I fall back on my liberal arts education (if for no other reason than to reference something I learned while writing a blog post about education).
On the other hand, I agree with Murray that the post-secondary educational system can be overly bureaucratic and ossified. I like the idea of convenience and self-study, and universal standards for admission to the workplace that test knowledge rather than diplomas. Student loans are prohibitively expensive for many individuals, and college (and other) debt is on the rise. Worse, those seeking to go back to school after starting out on a career path often find that the time required is extremely prohibitive, and would be much better spent pursuing the credentials needed in as expeditiously and inexpensively as is possible.
As opportunities to participate in distance education become more widely available, and industries become more specialized, I think Murray’s vision is the more likely outcome. I just hope we don’t lose sight of the fact that there are things worth knowing that transcend the specific skills we want to put on our resumes.
JULY 24, 2008
College Degree Not Enough In The 21st Century
As a parent of two teenagers – one a rising high school senior and the other a high school freshman – college is a looming reality. It’s a part of our daily household conversation thread, and the source of not just a little anxiety. We talk about it at the dinner table, during long car rides to out-of state softball tournaments or while sitting on the back porch in candlelight on summer nights. We talk about the challenge of getting admitted to your first-choice school at a time when there is a glut of qualified applicants. We debate the merits of small colleges vs. big ones. And we try out different majors and discuss essay strategies. However, one thing we don’t talk about is the value of a college education.
But that’s just what Wall Street Journal economics writer Greg Ip did in a story this month, “The Declining Value of Your College Degree.” For much of the last century, a college degree pretty much guaranteed that your income would rise faster than it would for someone without one. But around the turn of this century, that equation began to change. Since 2001, Ip reports, the inflation-adjusted wages of all U.S. workers – including college graduates – did not grow.
Ip’s point is not that a college education is worthless; it’s that it’s not enough anymore. It’s simply the price of admission to the modern workforce. Employers are demanding more specialized knowledge – what Ip describes as skills that are “more narrow, more abstract and less easily learned in college.”
And the cause of this shift? The same basic forces that are reshaping every aspect of modern life: globalization and technology. Today’s graduates are competing not just against one another, but against immigrants and foreign nationals who have similar educations and skills. And, as we all reside today in a borderless Web environment, they are direct, not distant, competitors.
That competition has caused some political backlash against globalization. A decade ago a solid majority of college grads said that globalization had been good for the U.S., according to a poll conducted for the WSJ and NBC News. But in March, the same poll found only a third of graduates thought globalization was good and nearly half thought it bad. But globalization is not an exclusively negative economic force. It produces winners and losers. Increasingly, specialized knowledge and skills are what separate the two.
So our late night conversations about college with our daughter will become broader. Yes, she’ll still be going to college. But the question of “what unique skills should I acquire” needs to be added to the list of all the others. Because her post-college life will be lived in what we at New Persuasion call the Brain Race – the global competition for specialized knowledge that will define the power of individuals, corporations and nations going forward. And a college education will be only one piece of the required 21st century skill set.
OCTOBER 30, 2007
Filter for Good
While doing some research this morning I came across a website representing a campaign called “Filter for Good.” According to the website,
Brita and Nalgene have partnered to present FilterForGood. Take the pledge to make a small change in your life that could be part of a big change nationwide.
If you’re ready, take the pledge. Still not convinced? Learn the facts about why reducing bottled water waste is so important.
And, if you purchase a FilterForGood refillable bottle, you’ll also be supporting the Blue Planet Run Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to provide safe drinking water to 200 million people for the rest of their lives by 2027. For every FilterForGood refillable bottle purchased between August 10th and December 31st, 2007, a donation of $4, up to a maximum of $25,000, will be made to the Blue Planet Run Foundation.
This site offers some really great statistics about why bottled water waste is a concern and what we can do as individuals to help the big picture. This shows that our society is aware of the environmental issues gaining media attention as well as ways in which we can make a difference. I think that emphasis on the environment is only going to become more and more important over the upcoming decades– especially because of the continuous coverage of the impact humans have on global warming. It is good to know that companies are teaming up to give us options as consumers without taking away the convenience element that we love.
OCTOBER 2, 2007
Firsts
Here at McGinn MS&L we find it important to keep track of the first time important things occur in our society. These changes tell us a lot about things that may be surprising or even overdue, and are a great indication of where we stand.
Some recent firsts that are significantly important are:
Ø On
Ø For the first time at least since World War II, there were more failed marriages than lasting ones at the 25-year mark: Slightly more than half of the men and women who got married in the late 1970s were separated or divorced — or widowed — before they reached their 25th anniversary.
Ø The 2008 edition of “
Ø John Edwards appeared in the first MySpace/ MTV candidate forum. The Democratic presidential hopeful was the first in a string of candidate dialogs planned by those two stalwarts of modern culture.
Ø The number of violent crimes increased by a larger amount than expected last year, extending the first significant rise in murders and robberies in a dozen years. Robberies surged by 7.2% and murders rose 1.8%.
Ø The number of people living past 100 in
What does this all mean? Well, advances in technology have made things like the "test-tube baby" and the record number of Centenarians possible. It also is the main factor behind the MySpace/ MTV political influence which signals a huge shift in society and the things that we emphasize as a nation. Technology is changing everything about our world and we are taking notice. It’s great to see that we are taking advantage of our ability to communicate to mass audiences and political leaders are taking the time to speak to these audiences– young and old.
The rise in the number of murders and robberies could be because of a larger issue, such as Hurricane Katrina or the terrorist attacks on September 11th. We are starting to realize that we should stop and enjoy life, and how important is really is to remember that everyone is an individual with their appreciation for the world around them. This could be the reason for the record number of failed marriages as people begin to explore what they find most important in life. We are encouraging individuality and uniqueness, as well as embracing positive changes such as the first edition of U.S. News and World Report releasing a ranking specifically for the nations Black Colleges and Universities.
As new firsts emerge and these changes continue to become an integral part of the way we live, it’s important to just stop and take in these shifts before years go by and we never even realize they occurred.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2007
Are We Bad Parents?
My best friend Kelly is a kindergarten teacher. She has 29 children in her class. Normally, she says that maybe 2 or 3 are disruptive, don’t listen, and don’t respond to threats. This year, Kelly has 14 kids like that. What’s different? Kelly thinks it’s the fact that this is the first group of kids she’s had born after September 11. She speculates that this event affected parents so much that they never set limits, they never said no to their children. (And here in the Washington area, 9/11 was followed by the sniper - which didn’t help matters much.)
One of my sisters - she has six kids - once told me to never feel sorry for my children. If you feel sorry for them, they got ya. Over the years, I’ve come to think she’s right - and now we have a nation of people feeling sorry for our kids because of scary incidents like 9/11 or the sniper.
Which may explain the growing success of a book by psychologist David Walsh: No: Why Kids—of All Ages—Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It. Walsh says our kids are suffering from a discipline deficit disorder. What I find fascinating about the book is that teaching professionals are pushing it. From U.S. News & World Report:
In Minnesota, Walsh’s home state, a "Say Yes to No" coalition of educators and PTA parents sent "tool kits" touting the book…to 2,500 principals before school began last week…School principals from Indiana, South Carolina, and several other states are getting set to work No into teacher training sessions.
Kelly told me that on her back to school night, she was firm with the parents about setting limits and saying no to their children. Again, our teachers are telling parents how to behave. When and how did we stop parenting?
SEPTEMBER 19, 2007
Luxury in the Dorm
This past weekend I had the occasion to visit a dorm at George Washington University. I hadn’t been in a dorm in years and was shocked at how nice it was. Each room in this particular dorm had its own kitchenette and bathroom. Some rooms have their own washer and dryer. Apparently, this is the norm. When I was in college we were crammed into tiny rooms with no amenities and sharing a bathroom with 6 other girls was the norm. We shared the laundry room with the entire dorm.
Apparently, today’s college students have grown up with certain standards and aren’t going to lower them just because they are in college and away from the comforts of home. In fact, they expect those comforts to follow them there. When deciding where to go to college, dorms and dining halls play as much a part as do the classes and football team.
A recent article in the LA Times studied this trend:
Back-to-school shoppers will spend $5.4 billion this year, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2003, according to the National Retail Federation. On average, about $1,500 of that will come from each freshman gearing up for life in a residence hall that is nicer than most parents ever imagined.
The trend toward the four-star dorm is a convergence of several factors: a generation of
students who have grown up sharing neither the bedroom nor the bathroom with siblings, parents who are accustomed to high tuition costs and don’t object to paying a few hundred more per month for better accommodations, and universities competing for enrollment and using posh new residence halls as marketing tools.
Callaway Villas, in College Station next to Texas A&M, is a gated ACC complex of three-story town houses plus a 16,000-square-foot clubhouse, a resort-style pool, basketball courts, a sand volleyball court and shuffleboard. Living units have faux-hardwood floors, ceiling fans and, for those light sleepers, white-noise generators.
Another trend that I find amazing is that more and more schools are furnishing dorms with
double beds! An article in today’s Washington Post explains:
University officials hoping to keep students on campus and compete with off-campus housing are trying new room designs and all manner of amenities to appeal to the millennial generation, especially those seeking the comforts of home while in school. Some have given single rooms to students not used to sharing. Others have offered maid service and microwaves. Now they’re giving them a larger space on which to lay their heads.
At AU, the move toward double beds came after complaints by students that the twins were too small and too childish, said Rick Treter, director of residence life. When a dorm designed with suites of larger single bedrooms was built, the double beds were the ticket.
I think this is just another trend showing that luxury really is everywhere in society. Gen Y
students have grown up expecting certain things and living quarters are no exception. They are not willing to compromise and expect college dorms to be no different than what they are used to. Colleges have taken notice and in order to attract the best students, have outfitted dorms accordingly. I can only imagine what they will think of next.
AUGUST 13, 2007
Want to Know about the Fish You’re eating? Ask the U.S. Government
When I eat seafood, I don’t normally think about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). But the good folks at Resource Shelf recently pointed me to a new service from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service - FishWatch.
Seafood lovers can find out the latest information on some 30 species of fish - with more on the way. There is information about the sustainability of different species and the health hazards and health benefits of eating seafood.
This is a great example of transparency and information sharing that could not have been done before the Internet. Certainly the timeliness of the information and data they collect would not have been available so quickly. It’s also a wonderful illustration of how scientific information can be presented in a way that feels helpful and not overwhelming. It’s what using the Internet is all about.
JULY 30, 2007
Information Therapy - User Generated Wellness
Managed Care. Magazine recently ran an article about Information Therapy. What is information therapy?
"… the practice of providing more and better information to patients so they can contribute more to their healing…the term information therapy applies to a wide range of uses and situations. For some providers, information therapy is literally a physician-written prescription telling a patient to read specific information, learn it, and apply it. For others, information therapy is used to help a patient make treatment decisions, such as whether to continue chemotherapy."
There’s even The Center for Information Therapy - a non-profit which gives support to both doctors and patients.
This is personalization at its best. One doctor said, "The greatest untapped capacity in health care is the patient. Engagement of the patient is powerful and allows for outcomes that aren’t available with any other approach."
It sounds a lot like user-generated content - or in this case - user generated wellness.
Thanks to Resource Shelf for the link.
ABOUT UNDERCURRENTS
Our culture is shifting all around us. In Undercurrents, we present our observations and insights about where our society is heading.
MOST POPULAR POSTS
RECENT COMMENTS
- [MT »]
on Why Zappos Is Brilliant - [Josie »]
on Why Zappos Is Brilliant - [Kristen Variola »]
on Why Zappos Is Brilliant - [Gloria Huang »]
on Why Zappos Is Brilliant - [SolarGoddess »]
on Why I Am Resisting Twitter - [Patrick »]
on The Best Of 2008