It is unclear how the research that generated all of this
technology will continue to be produced since the same institutions that
generate most research are the ones that will be destroyed. It is also unclear who will assess students
or answer their questions since the new mega MOOCs will be operated without
human intervention. In fact, the only
way to reduce the marginal cost of adding more students to zero is to simply
eliminate human labor.
Carey’s extreme representation of higher education
celebrates every billionaire investor and denigrates every current
professor. Although, one can agree with
many of his criticisms of their current state of undergraduate education, the
medicine is far worse than the disease.
It is also unclear who will pay, train, and house the global online
superstar professors. After all, the great courses coming out of
MIT, Stanford, and Harvard are being supported by the same hybrid universities
Carey wants to eliminate.
Like many higher ed reformers, Carey appears to be
blissfully unaware of the casualization of the academic labor force and the
adaptation of business-oriented management and budgeting. From the billionaire high-tech innovator’s
perspective, public institutions are inherently corrupt and ineffective, and so
they must be replaced by platforms driven by speed and capital.
In response to this vision, UC President, Janet Napolitano, offered a defense of public research universities in a book review she wrote
for The Washington Post. What is curious
about her analysis of Carey’s book is that she fails to take on his sustained
attack on the quality of undergraduate education at research universities. One reason for this lapse might be that she
did not actually read the whole book, but another may be that she has no
response. Like so many university
administrators, she rarely talks about how to improve the quality of
undergraduate instruction, and when she does discuss undergraduates, the topic
is almost always about tuition, financial aid, and enrollments.
Since research universities are not making the quality of
undergraduate instruction a major priority, it is easy for outside groups and
pundits to dismiss the value of the entire higher ed enterprise. As the current debates over the funding of
the University of California show, higher education institutions need to
examine how they can support their research and
teaching missions. This means that calls
for increased funding have to be coupled with clear indications of how the
money will be spent.
