Why they’re about to plunge.
Good news for the country, and education, but bad news for all those about to fall off the gravy train.
3 thoughts on “College Costs”
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Why they’re about to plunge.
Good news for the country, and education, but bad news for all those about to fall off the gravy train.
Comments are closed.
It’s not just higher education either. With enough money, Disney or anyone could develop entertaining, interactive, timeless instructional modules for any number of subjects in highschool or lower. Given the restlessness of kids that age, the classroom would probably still be needed. But the role of instructors would be different.
Now, also consider what businesses really want. Really, they want proof of current competences. So instruction could well go to skill certification and maintenance of certification.
I don’t expect the collapse to come quickly enough to do me any good. I fully expect the education mafia to fight this tooth and nail, particularly any effort of establishing a credentialing system independent of universities (which means my kid will be out of university before anything happens). Eventually industry might tell them to collectively p*ss up a rope and start requiring independent credentials even of university grads, but there’s going to be lots of pushback from the government (the credentialing systems are going to be found racist or classist and the same legislation that barred IQ tests will be found to apply to these).
One of the factors hindering certification tests has been the perception that you’re inviting a lawsuit such as the one that resulted in the Griggs v. Duke Power Company. However, what employers would need to do is to ensure the certification tests actually match the job description.
The Supreme Court ruled that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, if such tests disparately impact ethnic minority groups, businesses must demonstrate that such tests are “reasonably related” to the job for which the test is required. Because Title VII is passed pursuant to Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the disparate impact test later articulated by the Supreme Court in Washington v. Davis, 426 US 229 (1976) is inapplicable.
So, using IT certification tests as an example, if the job is for a network administrator, then requiring the appropriate certifications is reasonable. In fact, I would require even college grads to have the certifications because of things like grade inflation, you really don’t know if they can do the job. Many types of jobs (such as doctor, lawyer, professional engineer, CPA, nurse, etc.) still require certification tests. The challenge is to ensure the tests actually measure job-related knowledge. Perhaps employers need to establish communities of interest to help develop test criteria.