2011, Badges as credentials, 160,000 students in a MOOC, peer-ratings = students teaching students, Udacity charges 20% finder’s fees for grads, MITx, TEDed, free, student loan overhang, tuition going up …. free content, pay only for assessment, transferable credits based on ability, Apple buys Amazon, iTunesU becomes the ed app platform, preference matching, Google buys Udacity and Khan Academy, tied to education model, most colleges wait it out as badges replace degrees, residential college campuses are for the children of the wealthy only, Google unleashes EPIC the all-knowing learning system, 2020.
No, I don’t buy it all but step by step, this is a believable scenario for the elimination of colleges as we’ve known them.
Having watched university tuition climb by a factor of 50 over my lifetime, and having been delivering computer-based education/instruction for over 30 years, my response is “…about time.”. There are certain elements of this – particularly some of the corporate control and implied emerging monopolies that give me some pause, but the idea of transferable credits based on ability and certification by what you know are overdue. I think the teaching/learning model still needs some fleshing out to provide the experience and the learning that is typical of graduate school, but for undergrad this would be a huge improvement over what we have now.
The hypothesis raises mmore questions than posing answers. There is a presumption, I suggest, that says that the learning will be governed by thinking that may be Judeo-christian and euro-centric. The emering Arab and Asian participants will not, for argument’s sake, speaking in a Mid-Western American accent.