[p2p-research] In the future...the cost of education will be zero...Mashable

[Ryan Lanham]

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7/27/09, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://mashable.com/2009/07/24/education-social-media/
>
> >From the perspective of the people running the present system,
> unfortunately, the overhead (the administrative personnel supported)
> is the whole POINT of the present system.  And a low- to no-overhead
> system that competes with them is the primary thing to be avoided.
> They'll rig the game by every available means, just like the
> proprietary content industries, to avoid having to "compete with
> free."
>


>
> I certainly have, at times, shared this view.  But I doubt it is true at
> present.  My guess is that, in the main, people do not cling to bad
> systems...they rationalize the good they do and wait for proof of
> alternatives to show they are not contributing fair value.  In the end,
> people mostly acquiece to obsolescence.  It's hard, but it happens.
> Universities have historical value.  We gain validity from their past
> students and the accomplishments they achieve.  It is a giant prestige
> network.  Education and learning have little to do with prestige.  The
> challenge is to divorce the two...learning isn't prestige, and prestige
> isn't learning.  So, my idea is to turn old universities into social clubs
> that award membership (fellowship) based on social achievement.  Degrees are
> no longer very real metrics of anything meaningful, but learning is more
> important than ever.  So, split up the prestige component of degrees from
> the earstwhile learning component.


Ryan
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