The future for American professors — indeed, for academics everywhere
— looks bleak. I say this with a certain sadness because I have the
greatest respect for academic ideals. But the plain truth is that they are
selling a product that is ridiculously expensive and ill-suited to the
needs of a rapidly changing economy.
You will probably have heard a lot about the unrestrained growth of US
health-care costs. Well, academics are putting doctors to shame. The cost
of college tuition has risen 174% in the past decade. That is more than
three times the increase in consumer prices, which rose by 55%. The cost
of tuition in a top private university is now about $20,000 a year. Since
1990, borrowing to pay for higher education has doubled and is now running
at about $25 billion a year.
This cost explosion is outrageous if you recall that prices are falling
in most other information-based industries. Why is academia unable to
control costs? Largely because it refuses to embrace technological change.
Teaching is still organised in much the same way as in Plato's day.
Thousands of lecturers stand in classrooms delivering lectures. Millions
of students travel hundreds of miles so as to be physically present on
campuses. Universities are still associated with particular buildings --
libraries, lecture halls and dormitories.
In the age of the Internet, none of this makes sense. Most education --
I would make an exception for the performing arts -- can now be enjoyed in
the comfort of one's home via the computer screen, and at a fraction of
the cost at which it is sold by the Harvards of this world. One academic
can prepare and deliver a course to an unlimited number of students
worldwide. And there is growing evidence that most cognitive skills can be
learnt more effectively on screen than in the lecture hall. With
interactive software and multimedia technology, courses can be tailored
precisely to the needs of individuals -- something impossible in the
classrooms.
Conventional universities seem absurdly outdated in another respect.
They are still wedded to the idea that learning should precede employment,
with the length and quality of education determining the quality of job
subsequently enjoyed. This notion has been taken to an extreme in the US,
where the minimum requirement for a good "professional" job is
now a bachelor's degree plus a law degree, MBA or doctorate. Most able
students now spend anything from six to 10 years earning paper diplomas
before entering the job market. The financial burden, given the level of
fees, is excruciating.
The notion that education must precede employment is vigorously
attacked by Mr Lewis Perelman, President of the Kanbrain Institute in
Washington and author of a visionary 1992 book, School's Out
(published by William Morrow, New York), which predicts the demise of
conventional education. The word "kanbrain" is taken from
"kanban", the Japanese word for "just-in-time"
inventory management techniques that have revolutionised factory
production. Mr Perelman argues that modern electronic technology has made
just-in-time knowledge eminently feasible.
The old approach was to start life by trying accumulate as large a
stockpile of knowledge as possible. Hence the years of toil in the groves
of academe. But in a rapidly changing world this is inefficient. We do not
know if what we have learned will be relevant. And in any case our
knowledge decays over time. The better strategy is to wait until we need
particular knowledge or skills and then obtain them electronically. A
switch to "just-in-time" learning would transform the pattern of
our lives. Talented people would not spend years preparing for employment.
They would begin work early -- perhaps in their mid-teens -- but continue
learning, on the just-in-time principle, throughout their lives.
In such a world, "going to college" would cease to be part of
the American dream. Electronic college would be available for eveyone all
the time. But the courses would probably not be supplied by heavily
subsidised, non-profit institutions such as today's universities. A true
market would develop, with commercial "learning companies"
competing for the custom of people of all ages and talents. Electronic
education, as Mr Perelman argues, is likely to be a highly profitable
business for companies in the information business -- a far bigger money
spinner than, say, home banking.
What is to stop companies such as Microsoft, the Seattle software
giant, entering the higher education market immediately and providing
screen-based education at a fraction of the current cost? There are two
main obstacles. The first is that educators form a kind of closed shop:
the accreditation committees that determine what counts as a bona
fide university will fight to protect the market of existing
institutions, just as unions fight to protect jobs in declining
industries.
The other obstacle is the attitude of employers. People pay enormous
sums for higher degrees, not because they cannot obtain the knowledge
elsewhere, but to give themselves an edge in hyper-competitive labout
markets. Higher degrees serve a function akin to that of the exotic
plumage of birds: they are primarily a means of attracting attention, of
signalling that you deserve special attention.
Yet simple tests of cognitive ability can be adminsitered in less than
30 minutes. Such tests, which can be tailored to the needs of particular
companies, are a better guide to job performance than academic degrees. If
employers were willing to hire on the basis of competence to do a
particular task, rather than paper credentials, a shift to cheaper and
more convenient electronic education could occur quite rapidly.
Technology, in the end, has a habit of proving decisive. The horse and
buggy was a fine means of transport in its day. Yet it was swept away by
the motor car. In due course, just-in-time electronic education, delivered
to your living room by commercial companies, will undermine the most
hallowed names in higher education.