<p>Udacity-AT&T ‘NanoDegree’ Offers an Entry-Level Approach to College</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/business/economy/udacity-att-nanodegree-offers-an-entry-level-approach-to-college.html”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/business/economy/udacity-att-nanodegree-offers-an-entry-level-approach-to-college.html</a></p>
<p>Interesting concept. I’m a believer in the careful but innovative use of technology to make education more available and accessible.</p>
<p>* In a proposal to be released this week by the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project, Harry J. Holzer of Georgetown University urges states to provide incentives to universities to steer students toward higher-wage occupations, including tying college funding formulas to the wages of graduates five years after graduation.*</p>
<p>Er…the reason that many positions are high-wage is because they are less saturated fields, in which good people are hard to find. Look what happened to the law market - lawyers were seen as a generally high-wage, high-prestige profession, and the combination of the recession and an oversupply of new law graduates led to a depression of wages. If everyone goes to school to become a computer programmer, the field will no longer be in demand and wages will fall.</p>
<p>And this is what I have suspected about MOOCs and online courses all along:</p>
<p>A review of MOOCs co-written by Professor Hollands concluded that the typical community college student often did not have the literacy or the drive necessary to benefit from courses that require a lot of self-motivation and offer little if any face-to-face interaction.</p>
<p>I’m not sure that MOOCs in and of themselves are the way forward for disadvantaged college students. First of all, they need to have access to the Internet and a computer, which is a barrier for the poorest. Libraries don’t provide enough time to really complete a course. And what’s the point of having intro calculus in MOOC format if you barely understand algebra?</p>
<p>I think one of the ways forward is to provide alternates to college that provide shorter-term, job-connected training so that everyone doesn’t feel like they need a 4-year degree. That’s what Udacity is doing here, and that’s why I think it’s different from (and potentially more effective than) MOOCs.</p>
<p>I agree with the idea that shorter-term, vocational training will be enormously helpful to those who cannot attend or finish college, for whatever reason. I wish guidance counselors and others (including Obama) would stop pushing college for everyone. I personally know several young people who finished with a lot of debt and are no better off in terms of work, and, worse, a few who didnt finish at all but have a lot of debt. Some people SHOULD go to college, those with genuine interest and drive, and those with academic inclinations.</p>
<p>MOOCs are unwieldy. I tried one on contemporary poetry. There were thousands of people in the class, the discussion was chaotic, the lectures unfocused. MOOCs offer no credit as yet, so I am not sure how anyone can consider them an alternative path for achieving a degree.</p>
<p>That said, there are countless online courses and programs at many colleges and universities, including non-profits (Phoenix is for profit), state universities, and smaller schools or departments of schools, geared to non-traditional students. The cost is often affordable and classes can be done at home or library.</p>
<p>As for shorter-term, job-focused training online, look at any community college catalog. Our local CC has vocational classes (including office skills, allied medical technicians, accounting, etc.) in person, online and hubrid. The CC also sponsors online career training at ed2go (self-paced), and Protrain Online.</p>
<p>Udacitys partnership with AT&T is a great way to help students while also accomplishing very specific job training for positions at that company. I will say, however, that those hired for jobs used to get paid for training, and this is a handy way to reverse that so that students pay for training before getting hired!</p>
<p>p.s. my punctuation on this keyboard is not working properly, especially for apostrophes!</p>
<p>This title made me flash back to that Father Guido Sarducci Five Minute University bit! Lol! </p>