A blog I read occasionally is from KnowledgeWorks (futureofed.org) entitled "The Future of Education is Here." KnowledgeWorks does forecasting on education and other issues. Though I don't always agree with the viewpoints expressed in their blog, the issues they address and propose are thought provoking. Below is a blogpost related to the current debt students currently carry and are projected to carry to earn a college degree. The thought considered is that we may have overvalued a college education and that companies may begin finding alternative ways to credential and seek ought their work force. As I read the post, it brought to mind something we have known and expressed in education for years: Education beyond secondary is important but it may not mean a college degree depending on an individual's career path. It also reinforces, in my opinion, that we must continue to do everything we can to provide diverse learning opportunities for students to help them determine what they are best suited for after graduating from high school. We don't want young people graduating college with mountains of debt with a degree that has little value to them in relation to the mental, physical, emotional and fiscal cost it took to get it. Your thoughts?
The Irrelevant Higher-Education Bubble
Posted: 31 Oct 2011 12:57 PM PDT
With the announcement that student loan debt has topped $1 trillion, exceeding Americans’ total credit card indebtedness, and President Obama’s new proposal allowing graduates to consolidate private and public loans while forgiving debt after a set amountof years, much has been written about the higher education bubble.
As we’ve noted before on this blog, a bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. As with home loans, Americans have long been told that higher education is one of the best investments you can make because the more advanced education one has the more money they are destined to make throughout their careers. But, according to this New York Post article, “Since 1999, student loan debt has increased by 511%, while disposable income has increased by only 73%.” Simply put, the growth of student loan debt in relation to the growth of disposable income is unsustainable ad cannot continue.
“A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.” — PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel
As I continue to read about the student loan crisis, I can’t help but wonder if, in a few years, this will all be irrelevant. I say this because of the emerging nontraditional methods of acquiring knowledge and skills. A recent Education Week article suggests developing national certification exams for all subject areas addressed in the new common-corestandards along with other content areas. Lydia Dobyns, in her Huffington Post article, discusses the possibilities of digital badges, specifically their potential to, “broaden the ways that students acquire and demonstrate, document and display their skills.” Both of these options would allow students to leverage their knowledge and skills without having to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a college degree that may or may not indicate competency. In addition, badges and certification would be a more accurate measure of competency, knowledge, and skills than the
current system.
Some may say badges and certifications are a long way into the future, if not all together impossible. For those skeptics, I would point to a center of American innovation, Silicon Valley. A Fast Company article described a growing trend among tech leaders who are scouring the ranks of potential employees for those who are self-taught instead of Stanford PhDs. If nontraditional credentials are catching on in Silicon Valley, how long will it be before the rest of the U.S. takes notice? And, if the rest of the country follows suit, who is going to spend $100K on a PhD?