A critical part of the shift towards resilient communities will be a radical reduction in core economic costs for individuals/families/communities through improvements in productivity and STEMI compression (less space, time, energy, mass, and information required for any unit of activity/production). The objective of this is cost reduction, over the longer term, will result in a radical improvement of the participants to produce wealth (thriving in a vicious and potentially stagnant or depression soaked global economy, and not simply surviving). This process wont just apply to economic activity, but to core activities like education. Let's dive into this.
Education, in its current form is an admixture of industrial and artisan processes. While the quantities of product (graduates) produced and the facilities resemble industrial processes, the actual production is most closely akin to artisanship (with guilds, no less!). Regardless, this process has become an albatross of cost and stagnating quality. For example, costs for collegiate education have increased 4.39 times faster than inflation over the past three decades and has now eclipsed affordability for most households (median incomes have stagnated during this same period) with no appreciable improvement in the quality of graduates. Worse, there is reason to believe that costs of higher education (direct costs and lost income) are now nearly equal (in net present value) to the additional lifetime income derived from having a degree. Since nearly all of the value of an education has been extracted by the producer, to the detriment of the customer, this situation has all the earmarks of a bubble. A bubble that will soon burst as median incomes are adjusted downwards to global norms over the next decade.*
Fortunately, with the implosion of this bubble, the opportunity to introduce improvements will emerge. The most interesting of these improvements is the ability of collaborative online education to replace much, if not most of in person teaching. For example:
- Lectures. Videos of lecture series, plus associated materials, are available for many courses at some of the best Universities in the world (i.e. see MIT's open courseware). Online videos are not only better than in-person lectures in many respects, they also allow you to get the best. There is no need to recreate the lecture with tens of thousands of less qualified/exceptional teachers.
- Application. As MIT is finding out, JIT (just-in-time information) in combination with simulated application of the concept to real scenarios is the best method for success. The advent of computer simulated virtual worlds for in the computer gaming industry have proven this combination (JIT info and immediate application) can train kids to adults in complicated and complex tasks in a fraction of the time other methods require.
- Collaboration. The business world is already shifting on online collaboration as a replacement for most in-person work (the economic crisis will only accelerate it). In my personal experience developing exceeding complex products, its possible to conduct the entire process from ideation to delivery online without any face to face contact (at great savings in time to direct expense). Unfortunately, this ability/skill/mindset isn't central to the educational world, despite the fact that students are currently doing much of this already in their private lives with social software.
The shift towards online education as the norm and in-person as the exception will arrive, however, the path is unclear. It is currently blocked by guilds/unions, inertia, credentialism, and romantic notions. Here's what could happen:
- Local governments cut costs. Nearly or officially bankrupt local governments, out of desperation, opt to reduce costs through online education (the single biggest line item in most local budgets). Drawing from online home schooling systems, the market for these systems explodes (growing at several thousand percent a year).
- Entrepreneurial innovation. As student populations at the collegiate level dwindle due to cost pressures, a major University (with a brand as good as MITs or Harvard), opts to offer full credentials to online student (at a tiny fraction of the cost of being in attendance). Ten million students enroll in the first year to attend Harvard's virtual world.
- Open source alternatives. Unable to afford in-person education, the lack of a major brand in the marketplace, and a job market in free fall stunts the growth of online education. As a result, a massive open source effort develops to develop virtual worlds and other online courseware that rivals the best Universities. The government is forced, over the objections of established institutions, to confer credentials to graduates that pass standardized tests (in fact, comparisons quickly show that these graduates are the equal and/or better than traditionally educated competitors). The business world embraces them.
The result of these innovations creates a highly productive educational system that produces high quality graduates at a small fraction (an order of magnitude less) of the current costs. Decentralization via online education also results in massive STEMI compression for a given unit of instruction and the educational platform created enables a level of flexibility and renewal needed to meet the challenges of a rapidly mutating global economy. Resilient communities, as early adopters, will become the first beneficiaries of these benefits (which will allow them to accelerate beyond competitors) as subscription access to world-class online educational (virtual worlds, lectures, courseware) drop to less than $20 a month.
"An Ivy League Education for less than $20 a month. Why not?"
*Interestingly, the rate of decline will likely even be harsher for the graduates of extortionately expensive elite universities with the implosion of Wall Street and broad corporate profitability.
NOTE: Please feel free to shoot me studies/etc. that support or undermine this brief. As always, agreement with my position isn't the objective of this brief. However, I hope it does get you thinking in new ways.