It’s a very interesting question as to whether you can get a liberal education outside the
walls of academia.
There’s no question you can increasingly get the core academic elements of that education
and I think that’s a very powerful piece of it.
But there’s Khan Academy.
Whether it’s Coursera.
Whether it’s edX.
These are all purveyors of online education.
In the case of Coursera and edX you’re providing the same courses in many cases that you’re
able to do.
And I think that the interaction, the interactive element will probably get better and better.
What you’re not going to be able to provide is the physical experience of being together
with people, the lateral learning, the pure experience, the socialization.
Think about all our lives we all know that people who succeed in life often have very
good social skills, have very good political skills.
They understand how to read a room, read somebody else, sell to someone.
So those qualities might not be as well taught in an entirely online experience.
But I think again the point is that the pricing power of a college will be under significant
strain if somebody says look, I wasn’t able to afford to go to College X but I’ve taken
32 courses with are the number of college courses you need to graduate from that college
and they’re from College X but also from Harvard, Stanford, Yale and I did pretty well
in them.
And here are my diplomas, my certificates that I’ve completed those 32 courses.
Will you hire me?
And when an employer says we’ll hire you because you have the training you need for
this job or you have the background you need for this job there goes the pricing model
for many colleges.
Not the elite colleges.
The very elite colleges are selling membership to a private club.
But for mostly everybody else you will have to explain why you’re charging $40,000 a
year.