The Pin That Pricked The Bubble

One need not look hard to find any number of articles talking about how student debt in the U.S. recently reached the $1 trillion threshold.  Regardless of what it means to our nation in general, and more specifically, the individuals who graduate with no salient marketable skills to show for their debt, it has been my opinion for quite sometime that the generally accepted annual 6% inflation modeled into virtually all future cost of higher education projections could not go on forever. As is the case in every corner of the business world I can think of, it takes disruptive innovation to bring about a real paradigm shift. It began a few years back, but it seems that we are finally on the cusp of what I believe will be the disruptive innovation that pricks the high cost of education bubble.

NY Times article: Harvard and M.I.T. Team Up to Offer Free Online Courses

 One could argue that only schools with billion dollar endowments such as Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T. and their peers have the luxury of offering free non-credit courses precisely because they have benefited in the past from the high cost of education, but that misses the point. In a digital world, where it becomes faster and easier to connect to the internet every day, "what you know" will become more important than "who you know" or where you went to school. In the end, results matter. If somebody sitting on a dirt floor in Tanzania can absorb, digest and implement an idea derived from the same course content as somebody sitting in a mahogany-lined classroom in New England, what does it mean for the local economy in Tanzania, and to the bigger picture, the world in general?

College is not for every one; never has been and never will be. I think one of the greatest shams pulled on our nation's youth has been to inculcate them with the belief that if they just go through the motions and do whatever it takes to graduate with a 4 year degree regardless of the discipline, they would be entitled to a life of privilege. Ivy League course content, offered for free, to basically anybody with an internet connection, is the death blow to this notion. In the end, the world will be better for it.