Bill Gates Predicts Technology Will Make ‘Place-Based’ Colleges Less Important in 5 Years

Mr Gates doesn’t understand the variety of ways students learn, the importance of engaged learning, discussion groups, projects, and a host of other activities and learning experiences that cannot be duplicated over the internet. I know first hand, because I have both taught online and been a student online.

Gates did not say online classes would replace place-based colleges. He said they would become “less crucial” — which is good news for students who can learn without complex pedagogy.

To a very large degree, the college experience has never been based on what you know–many could get the same knowledge out of a decent library and diligence in study habits–but on the credential that the institution provides. You’re in a hiring position; do you really test knowledge, or do you just pick the Harvard kid over the one who graduated from South Central State College, or the one who didn’t go to college at all? So universities are are going to be in an advantaged position to make the most out of this shift. Will they? Some will, some won’t. Some will survive, some won’t. At least, at last, we will have some market pressures on the need to bring costs down out of the stratosphere.

An education is not simply about the transfer of data, information, or perhaps even “knowledge” which indeed can be accomplished via wires and cyberspace. The planet has a world of woes that require educated people who can recognize a problem when they see one, who can discriminate between quality and detritus in arguments, in behavior, in cultures, and in people, and who have a full moral center that a complete education–which includes the interesting places/environments in which one learns and lives, and the face to face human interactions and connections which enrich learning. There is a big difference between “educating” a person and “training” a person to fill a job slot in the increasingly tedious, shallow, and destructive modern economy.

Interesting … since technology is a major factor in what is underlying the spiraling cost of higher education (it certainly isn’t teacher salaries). Having access to the best lectures in the world for free is not much different than checking out the best text books in the world from your public library for free. In point of fact, said text books are considerably more comprehensive than even the best lectures, which after all highlight important points covered in more detail in text material. Equating access to knowledge with education is rather lame, but consider the source.

I hope Mr. Gates is correct. Much of what passes for on-line education consists of videos of boring lectures. Zero interactivity. I learn fastest when trying to find out or figure out answers to questions that I do not already know.

I have been trying to tell people this for the last ten years. It will not replace F2F but it will help reduce the costs. It will also expand the knowledge base tremendously. If we do not embrace this and learn to work with it, it will be the end of higher ed as a choice for most.

I’m reminded of those matchbooks years ago pitching musical correspondence courses that said “Everyone laughed when I sat down at the piano…” This is how I felt in 1992 when I started telling people how I was earning an MBA degree from an online university. They looked at me like I was from Mars, but guess what? I was commuting from South Jersey to New York, spending four hours a day on the bus, and it was logistically impossible to find a business school that fit my daily commute — except for the University of Phoenix/ONLINE. While my colleagues struggled to get from work to night classes, I was in class every day, on the bus, using a laptop to prepare class work, and uploading it via dialup modem at each end of the commute (there was no wifi and the campus was a BBS on a file server in the closet at the school’s San Francisco campus.)It’s about time we recognize that the online world can deliver a better and broader academic experience for students, and the face-to-face interaction so vaunted by traditional schools can be refashioned into discussion salons or networking opportunities for students that don’t require billion-dollar endowments or billion-dollar physical plants. The return on investment for a modest liberal arts degree today is pitiful, and students saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition debt (don’t get me started on the price of college textbooks!) will never reach their potential for productivity and creativity if their sole focus is working at dead-end jobs they hate just because they have to pay off the loans.Steve LubetkinMBA ’94, UOPHXsteve@lubetkin.net

I think the speakers are confusing information transfer with education. These predictions have been around since the advent of cyberspace, and while the business of transferring information has changed drastically, the nature of education is fairly stable over many centuries.If e-books become the standard, why would printed books become expensive? That doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t they become less expensive? Or oddities? Anyone ever sift through a pile of reel-to-reels, records, cassettes, or 8-track tapes at a garage sale? Or just go to the community book sale at the local library?

@ Steve LubetkinI’m just curious, Steve, how that University of Phoenix degree is working for you. Working in higher education and not faculty, I had heard many jokes about online degrees – especially from Phoenix. I believe at this institution, you would be overlooked for most jobs because your degree would be deemed “not real.” It’s a shame.

Bill Gates has made predictions before that are given respectful attention, but he’s wrong more often than he’s right. I think he misses big on this one by ignoring the bleak social future his “vision” would create. If “location-based” institutions are more expensive to maintain, then the cost of attending them will continue to be higher. With increased availability of cheaper alternatives he describes as inevitable, people with less money will have no choice but to choose them (assuming they don’t get scholarship from the likes of Mr. Gates). They will get an education, but for many of the reasons given in the comments above, it will be substantively inferior overall. Still, they’ll get an education of some sort. And, they’ll be disadvantaged in the job market forever more. Education has always been marketed as the great way for people of modest means with ambition and intelligence to change their fate. It seems to me that we’re already far down the road to a future where there will be increasing class divisions cemented with an educational system that helps created it. On one end will be (and maybe already are) the super-rich who can afford to send their offspring to pricey colleges and universities with a golden future virtually assured even if they’re borderline morons. On the other extreme, just above the exploited immigrant classes, will be the products of online schools destined for permanent underclass status. Where’s the hope there? Great. Just great.

When he begins talking about higher education he specifically talks about self-motivated students. There are a lot of things you can learn online for free by watching a recorded lecture, viewing a web tutorial, or reading lecture notes but that is not an efficient or effective approach for typical college students. Well designed online courses do not simply push out information to self-motivated learners. Well designed courses include collaboration, formative & summative assessment, and absolutely require faculty participation. To suggest you could pull that off for $2000 for a four year degree is amusing.

Bill Gates is well known for being spectacularly wrong when it comes to making bold predictions (his book “The Road Ahead” is full of them); add this prediction to the list. Of course most of us understand and welcome the fact that technology will continue to have a shaping influence on higher education in this country, but “placed-based education” will still remain significant and relevant five years from now and well beyond.

I’m going to have to disagree with Bill Gates on this one…http://ericstoller.com/blog/2010/08/07/disagreeing-with-bill-gates/He doesn’t understand how physical campus student involvement relates to persistence and degree attainment. Bill’s a multi-gazillionaire who went to elite schools. He doesn’t seem to understand socio-economic class issues and web accessibility at all.

this is a typical Gates croak of crap that is just sheer commercialism and huckster peddling; campuses will never be replaced and in fact will surge in the next few decades and particularly so as community of scholars and as those who really should be there are squuezed out of the mix and put on Gates’ web and on-line instruction; this will be particularly true of graduate education and as all of the problems and damages of the virtual generation keep rolling in faster and faster.I actaully attend “high tech” seminars at MIT, Harvard and else between 1965 and 1970 on what people were going to do with all of their leisure time because only 5% of the populations would be working and working would be a priviledge. Tney were right about the leisure but they may be correct about the 5% of the population working if they keep going in the directions they are to put the economy in the crapper. So many things and view started in the 60′s are going to sink this country in the next 20 years if peple do not start wising up and particularly the young who have been screwed 10 times over and are getting palmed off with tecnology and online education …read Herbert Marcuse, he predicted it with his concept of repressive desublimation; ironical how he is predicting who is putting things in the crapper and elites histroically are like that.

I would like to ask Mr Gates whether the Human Resource office at Microsoft or the Gates Foundation give the same credence to on line learners as they do to place based graduates when it comes to hiring decisions especially highly regarded ones.

The essence of his point is correct, I think.Community Colleges, 4-year suitcase campuses, and other schools without social anchors such as on-campus residential students lack the peer interaction that is so enriching (WAS so enriching to my now antique upbringing) to a liberal education.But what do I know? I was a Sputnik Child, had a real liberal education, taught in CCs, universities, in classroom and offline.Real teaching is done in small groups, or 1:1 like Oxford. The rest is compromise with resources.

Anyone who has closely and seriously followed Bill Gate’s career from his paper tape BASIC days, publicly called ‘atrocious’ by Kemmeny, will realize that Bill does not value truth (attack on Dr DOS, denying a monopoly prior to convictions…) that his marketing methods are in other ways predatory (Works, IE, …) and finally that he is neither learned nor bright (“The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.”*, and the lovely “I have to say, it’s kind of fun to be the underdog.”).Probably all of us can recall that every new version of MS operating systems were advertised as faster and more secure. Risibly and completely false, at least until Balmer took over, and even then a questionable claim.There is little evidence to think he is not mendacious, vindictive, untruthful and rightly worried about his reputation tanking.So, if Bill, Jr. says something will happen in five years I think two things,1. It is probably not true.2. I wonder where he stole the idea from.* Gates, Bill; with Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Rinearson (1996-11-01). The Road Ahead (revised ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0140260403 P. 295 (only according to Wikipedia but I remember seeing the risible sentence in the book almost 15 years ago).

I think (#17 nsteiger) hit it. This isn’t going to eliminate the positive physical aspect, just diminish it’s importance.Technology is a tool; purely a tool. Learning how to use a given tool properly is clutch to using it effectively. My family and I have had atrocious online classes, but we have also had classes that were better than the in-person variety. As an example; last semester my evening class met online some weeks and our discussions online (via a forum in blackboard) bested the interactions the 11 of us had in class in a circle.All tools have upsides and drawbacks. If you want to focus on the persistent increase in quality, then understanding how technology can honestly improve or supplement learning requires understanding the tool and its potential first, something I have a hunch many (not all, and maybe not most) are lacking.

People learn differently, and I don’t object to online learning. I’ve done some of it myself and it’s been valuable. But place-based colleges do offer more than parties. My own undergraduate experience was valuable not only for my education, but also for many new opportunities that gave me new skills, confidence, and work experience. I was a peer-tutor, wrote for the student newspaper, had an internship in Washington, DC, worked in the library, managed a dorm information desk and a dozen staff. I also lived apart from my parents for the first time, made new friends who had different cultural backgrounds, ventured into a big city for the first time on my own, and watched other people as they tried and failed and made mistakes in life and love. This personal growth was at least as valuable as the information skills I acquired in college. I remember before I left for college, my dad told me that the most important thing I would learn is where to find the answers to questions. Bill Gates seems to be saying that all the answers are on the Internet, but many aspects of personal growth come from being in a new place with new people, with the shared goal of learning.

Mr. Gates knows about as much about higher education as I do about creating software.

Distance learning at full price tuition, using the dulling “Blackboard” software? Ack!! Ack!!!There is nothing more horrible than sitting at home repeatedly going though this. And then, too, department wants to get picky about advising as if it is a dance card and everyone is too busy doing “important” work.

There is a large segment of global societies for whom this would be true. These are those for whom traditional education would not be possible due to 1) high costs and un-affordability 2) inaccessibility to campus locations, 3) personal responsibilities over full-time jobs, or over the care of children and family members, and even 4) those who have fallen in-between the cracks, not feeling ” part of the mainstream”, but nevertheless wanting to pursue some kind of education for trade, occupation, or special interests. Educational Technology and E-Learning are, in fact, increasingly levelling the playing field FOR ALL. It is enabling education yearners to partake in non-formal educational programs that can lead to trades and occupations. E-Learning is gaining respectability even among professionals and executives who are generally products of traditional schools, but who now wish to pursue online certificate programs or job-related courses for professional growth, to meet job requirements, to prepare for higher level responsibilities, or to increase competetiveness in the market. But I do not believe that traditional schools are losing their value, at least among the markets these traditionally target, particularly the highly advanced technical, scientific and higher level professional studies. Traditional schools remain with the best scholarly minds, experts and specialists. They provide the avenues for social, human interactions, collaborations and exchange which would not be possible, in full, via e-learning. Moving forward, however, we should hope to see increased blending of both traditional and non-traditional systems considering expected massive losses in subject matter expertise due to faculty retirements. To enhance instructional delivery even with diminishing volumes of faculty expertise,for example, traditional schools may need to increasingly adapt e-learning in delivering appropriate contents to classrooms while faculties may shift some roles to facilitating/developing student skills in critical thinking, self-expression, debate and leaderships in discussing digitized coursewares. In this way, educational technology would complement human expertise in delivering highly skilled students prepared to immerse in fast changing and continously challenging work environments. On the other hand, there is a long span for growth and improvements needed in electronically/digitally delivered coursewares. This includes more interactivity in course materials, more digital tools that heighten the levels of social connections, interactions, collaborations and feedback mechanisms among course subscribers.These remain critical to sustain/retain student interest, motivation, focus, engagement, and a sense of belonging to a group. Today, these continue to challenge digitally or electronically delivered educational programs. Ultimately, the combined best resources and features of both traditional schools and e-learing/distance study systems may be harnessed to provide the widest range of educational programs and delivery systems possible, GIVING EVERYONE THE OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS TO EDUCATION, regardless or despite of individual circumstance.

Wow, all these criticisms of Gates and not a single pot shot at Negroponte, one of the world’s biggest snake oil salesmen? The Media Lab at MIT was supposed to “invent the future” under Negroponte’s leadership, according to the 1988 book by Stewart Brand. Yet with all the money MIT and sponsors poured into it, it’s had almost zero impact on our lives (anybody remember the “wearable computer”?). Who among you can name a single contribution to our everyday lives that came out of Media Lab research? And don’t mention the One Laptop initiative — while it may have thrown a bunch of laptops into third world countries, I’d like to see the research evidence that it’s changed even a single life.

Online education does have huge potential to provide students with the education that might otherwise be unavailable to them because of limited finances, limited time, or other competing factors. I think students can learn a lot at regular residential college outside the classroom, as suggested by many of the commenters, but much or all of that can also be learned in other places, like the workplace, church work, volunteer opportunities. Colleges in general may do a great job of education without having or needing a monopoly on learning. Gate’s idea of a $2000 degree seems unrealistic to me. I think residential colleges won’t go away because they offer very special kinds of educational benefit, but online will continue to grow providing huge opportunity to millions.

Bernard Schuster
Arrive2.net
Twitter.com/arrive2_net