While Arnold - as always - makes many insightful points, I wonder (just asking) whether his suggested solution is "throwing out the baby with the bathwater?" As the other Matt (below) suggests, the demand side of the market has potential for improving the quality of the product by voting with its feet. It'd be a long time coming until some other institutions develop a good enough reputation to supplant colleges and universities as the arbiters of who has learned enough to merit filling certain jobs.
As an important aside, the CFA Institute, which promulgates the Chartered Financial Analyst credential within the investment industry (a/k/a "Wall Street") has served in a certain field as a substitute for business schools and works in much the same way as Arnold's suggested scheme. CFAI puts forth a curriculum and suggested (well, required) readings, and at certain times each year administers exams for program participants. It's up to the participants to study and prepare for the exams as they wish - solo, with buddies, with paid lecturers, taking mock exams, and more. Much of the exams can be graded by computers, and the "essays" or long-form questions are graded by volunteers who are current certificants. Over the last 50 years, CFAI and its credential have developed excellent reputations in the financial industry.
Perhaps it's my Libertarian leanings, but we need to start with the market, in this case the students. If students start viewing tuition as an investment and college as preparation for a career, I suspect we'll see a drastic shift in universities as large numbers of useless degrees and pointless professors simply fade away due to lack of use. But as long as people treat college as some mandatory dilettante period and ignore the ultimate cost, reform probably won't happen.
Maybe high school economics classes should have a chapter on the effects of long-term debt on a developing salary and household budget. That'd drain the potential enrollment pool.
Treating universities as (purely) places to prepare workers instead of, well, what they are is itself problematic. There's value in teaching "useless" skills. There's a reason we have (or used to have until being called a university got over-rewarded) different words for university and a vocational school (tekhnikum).
Hiring is really hard! Even with the current system(s), 'bad' employees frequently pass thru all of the filters. (And lots of 'good' employees fail themselves because of scrupulous honesty.)
Interestingly, I've mostly decided to avoid such 'rigorous' filters myself and opt to work for smaller companies or smaller teams. I _think_ I could do very well passing those filters, but that kind of thing is precisely why I was so relieved to leave 'schooling', despite loving to learn and even enjoying testing.
The problem here is that a lot of hiring managers, and corporate policy writers think college makes one smarter. If you suggest to a random white collar office worker that a credential is maybe just a signal, they'll take offense. It's gotta be top down. Get some Equity Lord, hyper entrepreneur type to make the alternative system prestigious. Musk could do it.
But one potential problem with trying to provide prestige to any alternative system, e.g. via Musk (or any other 'Equity Lord'), is that their prestige, while significant, is extremely contentious.
> If you suggest to a random white collar office worker that a credential is maybe just a signal, they'll take offense.
Charitably, I'm guessing the worker is interpreted the suggestion that their credential(s) are _empty_ signals. (And they're not.)
Arnold's ideas for a college alternative seem like they could work well for self-motivated learners, but most people are not that self-motivated. I was a very good student, but I'm not at all sure I would have been able to do it on my own, as Arnold suggests.
While Arnold - as always - makes many insightful points, I wonder (just asking) whether his suggested solution is "throwing out the baby with the bathwater?" As the other Matt (below) suggests, the demand side of the market has potential for improving the quality of the product by voting with its feet. It'd be a long time coming until some other institutions develop a good enough reputation to supplant colleges and universities as the arbiters of who has learned enough to merit filling certain jobs.
As an important aside, the CFA Institute, which promulgates the Chartered Financial Analyst credential within the investment industry (a/k/a "Wall Street") has served in a certain field as a substitute for business schools and works in much the same way as Arnold's suggested scheme. CFAI puts forth a curriculum and suggested (well, required) readings, and at certain times each year administers exams for program participants. It's up to the participants to study and prepare for the exams as they wish - solo, with buddies, with paid lecturers, taking mock exams, and more. Much of the exams can be graded by computers, and the "essays" or long-form questions are graded by volunteers who are current certificants. Over the last 50 years, CFAI and its credential have developed excellent reputations in the financial industry.
Perhaps it's my Libertarian leanings, but we need to start with the market, in this case the students. If students start viewing tuition as an investment and college as preparation for a career, I suspect we'll see a drastic shift in universities as large numbers of useless degrees and pointless professors simply fade away due to lack of use. But as long as people treat college as some mandatory dilettante period and ignore the ultimate cost, reform probably won't happen.
Maybe high school economics classes should have a chapter on the effects of long-term debt on a developing salary and household budget. That'd drain the potential enrollment pool.
Treating universities as (purely) places to prepare workers instead of, well, what they are is itself problematic. There's value in teaching "useless" skills. There's a reason we have (or used to have until being called a university got over-rewarded) different words for university and a vocational school (tekhnikum).
Hiring is really hard! Even with the current system(s), 'bad' employees frequently pass thru all of the filters. (And lots of 'good' employees fail themselves because of scrupulous honesty.)
Interestingly, I've mostly decided to avoid such 'rigorous' filters myself and opt to work for smaller companies or smaller teams. I _think_ I could do very well passing those filters, but that kind of thing is precisely why I was so relieved to leave 'schooling', despite loving to learn and even enjoying testing.
The problem here is that a lot of hiring managers, and corporate policy writers think college makes one smarter. If you suggest to a random white collar office worker that a credential is maybe just a signal, they'll take offense. It's gotta be top down. Get some Equity Lord, hyper entrepreneur type to make the alternative system prestigious. Musk could do it.
(I love your nod to The Diamond Age!)
But one potential problem with trying to provide prestige to any alternative system, e.g. via Musk (or any other 'Equity Lord'), is that their prestige, while significant, is extremely contentious.
> If you suggest to a random white collar office worker that a credential is maybe just a signal, they'll take offense.
Charitably, I'm guessing the worker is interpreted the suggestion that their credential(s) are _empty_ signals. (And they're not.)
A Republican initiative to drastically cut funding for higher education is overdue.
No. https://manifold.markets/ZZZZZZ/should-the-government-subsidize-be
Arnold's ideas for a college alternative seem like they could work well for self-motivated learners, but most people are not that self-motivated. I was a very good student, but I'm not at all sure I would have been able to do it on my own, as Arnold suggests.