I work at the edge of a campus and so I've seen where some of the costs comes from first hand -- lots of capital structures, and as we all know, that is an area that's been subject to high inflation. So if new buildings and/or renovations come down in cost (on a relative basis), then that will help education.
Salaries however is a big one. You either need to lower them and allow the cream to depart into private industry, teach fewer and bigger classes, or so something to improve the efficiency of learning.
Computers have been around a long time and still only have minimal effect on learning. Still, there's potential there -- maybe some lectures will simply be "on demand" and students will view them in their dorm rooms.
But when I look at the nature of the American people -- many slaves to video games, TV, and thoughts of entitlement, I find it hard to believe that that same group will have possess the long term motivation and discipline to gain much knowledge and skill without a professor breathing down their neck with midterms, quizzes, assignments, and laboratory sections.
I'm a pretty motivated person, yet, without the threat of grades, I probably would only have gone to the lectures and skipped all other studying except for that which really interested me. For today's generation, they wouldn't even bother with the lectures. |
