Why Corvettes cost less than college

[Dave_Berry]

"Bill Gates (a Harvard dropout) recently predicted: 'Five years from now on the Web for free you'll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university.'" Froma Harrop pits ZR1s against the Ivy League.

Froma Harrop: Why Corvettes cost less than college | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Opinion: Viewpoints

[nysmom]

The lectures that are available now are chock full of knowledge and my high-schooler periodically watches the MIT lectures on youtube. But I do not see how a youtube lecture can ever alone be an adequate substitute for a college class that has a laboratory component.

[ghostbuster]

Can we get a refund from the schools that are taking our money now? Geez. This may seem like good news...but then what about employing all those college professors and paying for all those buildings? Talk about white elephants!

[frazzled2thecore]

So when is Microsoft going to start hiring those who have watched lectures on the Web?

[XX55XX]

Getting an actual degree still requires time at the university, however... Oh, only if we can our degrees through self-study...

[sorghum]

And Bill Gates knows just how much about education?

[legendofmax]

"So when is Microsoft going to start hiring those who have watched lectures on the Web? "

My sentiments exactly. You can learn a great deal from the Web -- it's what I did growing up. Only problem is that not having a degree is going to make it pretty tough to get an interview.

"Will: See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don't do that. And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library."
-Good Will Hunting

[wis75]

Don't forget that although he never graduated from Harvard, Bill gates did get the campus college experience. He may have forgotten its influences on him. Life is more than a virtual experience from a computer. Education is more than book (computer) knowledge. Easy for someone involved in a solitary field to ignore the social interactions that can't be replicated with online courses. Just read a piece where a robot in the room added to web conferencing by virtue of its ability to swivel its head so the absent person could get facial expressions (the robot was a $15,000 prototype).

I wish people would look beyond money when considering worth.

[spurster]

She's a little inconsistent complaining about colleges being tax-exempt, then complaining about the cost. Somehow, I don't think taxing colleges will decrease costs.

I do think that the time is ripe for online education. It only needs someone to get it right. That's a big "only" though.

[BigG]

In a related matter, why tie up money in office towers anymore?

Modern communication makes those dinosaurs obsolete.

In fact, cities themselves are anachronistic...

[IndianPwnerDude]

"And Bill Gates knows just how much about education?"

A lot more than I know and probably a lot more than you know. He educated himself on computer technology when very few even knew it existed (granted, his parents were very wealthy, but still). He was admitted into Harvard and he even got an A- in Math 55.

Just because he is a dropout doesn't mean he doesn't understand the value of education. It was just that he felt his vision could not wait another for 3 years while he was getting a formal education. I think he was right.

[sacchi]

The Gates Foundation has actually done quite a lot of work on education.

Education Strategy - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

[hellojan]

Lectures, yes. Discussions, no.

I've learned more by being pushed by my classmates to articulate, argue, and distill concepts than I have from lectures by marquis names. Ideally, it's best to have both worlds playing off of one another.

[navyasw02]

So the lecture material is available for free online, big deal. A college degree means that you passed your courses and are at least somewhat competent in the subject. Reading some stuff online doesnt certify you.

[hellojan]

How are cities anachronistic? Concentrating the population and utilizing mass transit are the best ways to go green. I vividly remember a biology professor of mine, a naturalist at that, making the case for cities - starting on those grounds. There's a guy at Penn, as well. Another biologist, a botanist I believe, who has helped make the same case.

If anything's anachronistic its the suburbs. By the way, if you're trying to build some kind of syllogism there, it didn't work - nor did the logic follow. Or, to be fair, were you just expressing a sentiment?