Online for Higher Ed in California Event

A forum on online education will be held on January 8th at UCLA (Kerckhoff Grand Salon, 9-3). The ambitious title is the following: “Rebooting CA Higher Education: Leveraging innovations in online education to improve cost effectiveness and increase quality.” Here is the schedule of speakers:

January 8, 2013 9:00am to 3:00pm UCLA Kerckhoff Hall, Grand Salon
● Darrell Steinberg, California Senate Pro Tem Setting the Stage / Keynote 9:10-9:25
● Jeff Selingo, Editor at Large, Chronicle of Higher Education Online Educational Delivery Models 9:25- 9:35
● Phil Hill, Educational Tech Consultant & Analyst Scaling Education, Maintaining Quality 9:35-10:05
● Candace Thille, OLI Carnegie Mellon; Mo Qayoumi and Ping Hsu, San Jose State University; Michael Feldstein, Educational Tech Consultant & Analyst

Moderated Online Provider Panel 10:05-11:45
● Sebastian Thrun (Udacity); Burck Smith (Straighterline); Daphne Koller (Coursera); Phillip Regier (ASU Online); Andreea M Serban (Coast Community College); Chari Leader Kelley (Learning Counts); Don Kilburn (Pearson); Ray Cross (University of Wisconsin Colleges/ UW Extension), Steve Klingler (Western Governor's University)
Student Experience 11:45-12:00
● Student Representatives: Andrew Litt, UCLA; Martha Harding, College of the Canyons CA University/Policymakers Perspective 12:00-12:30
● Keith Williams, Interim Director UC Online; Barry Russell, Community College Vice Chancellor, Academic Affairs; Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, UC Regent, CSU Trustee; John Welty, Chair CSU Online

Moderated Faculty Panel with Questions to Providers 12:30-1:30
● Michelle Pilati, President, Community College Academic Senate; Diana Wright Guerin, President, CSU Academic Senate; Robert Powell, Chair, UC Academic Senate; Bob Samuels, President of University Council AFT; Lillian Taiz, President, California Faculty Association

In the advertisement for the event, it states the following: “The purpose of the panel discussion is to raise the awareness and discuss key issues regarding the potential for online education to lower the costs for higher education in California. We face a crisis in California in our ability to fully support public higher education. As a first approximation, the state should focus its attention on arresting the growth of the cost of education while maintaining or even increasing access and quality, not by simply urging educators to “do more with less,” but by enlisting their active participation in and contribution to innovative approaches. In accomplishing this goal, California could foster a working coalition that would be capable of attacking even more ambitious targets.” Although it is clear here that the frame for the conference is the idea that online education can make higher education more cost effective, I plan to use my time to show how the move to distance education will most likely only increase the cost of instruction.

What is interesting about this event is that it brings together groups that don’t normally talk to each other, and while I think that many of these stakeholders are well intentioned, I also believe that good intentions can lead to some very bad collective results. This event is free and open to the public so please come if you are able.

The One-Dimensional University: The Destructive Marriage of Technology and Administration

Close to fifty years ago, Herbert Marcuse wrote One-Dimensional Man, a radical criticism of contemporary society that has much to say about the current world around us. Marcuse’s central claim was that technological automation extends science’s domination over nature to a social domination over individuals. This domination occurs through a “total administration,” where managers oversee the rationalization of the social status quo through the elimination of all criticism and the provision of desired social goods. Perhaps, what we are seeing at the University of California is only the logical extension of Marcuse’s insightful analysis.

Not only does it appear that administrators have taken over the university, but they are promoting a form of education that transforms students into passive memorizers of standardized information. With the push to move students through the university system in an efficient and cost-effective manner, education is reimagined as an automated human assembly line. Meanwhile, students in large classes are socialized to internalize fragmented information without any possibility of interacting with knowledge in a critical or creative manner. All of these tendencies open up the door for an online education program that envisions mass producing standardized courses to an anonymous student body.

While this degradation of education increases, the university becomes a place of tax-exempt capital accumulation and a research wing of the military-industrial complex and the pharmaceutical-medical complex. As biology is turned into genetic code and culture becomes digital code, we find Marcuse’s warning that every aspect of society is being re-interpreted through the language of functionality and instrumentality. After all, the academic evolutionary psychologists and neuroscientists now tell us that we are nothing but biological computers programmed by nature. Here, we have become things (computers) as things are given the power of people. For Marcuse, this confusion between subjects and objects is the end result of total technological rationality.

The lasting image of this transformation of education into administered functionality may be the representation of a campus police officer pepper spraying prone students with an attitude of total indifference. In the alienated world of planning, management, and calculation, there is no space for tension, dissent, or difference. Or maybe, the new logo for the university is an even better representation of the truth of how the administration sees the students: here the management replaces pepper spray with urine as it reimagines the university to be the giant Urinal of California. I say it is better to be pissed off than pissed on, and we need to do everything in our power to retake the university from the hands of administered technological rationality.

The Seductive Mechanical Reproduction of the University

UC has released a new advertisement for new online program, and it is quite revealing. In fact, if you Google UC Online, you will most likely see the ad appear at the top of the page (I wonder how much this cost the UC). The sales pitch begins with the following: “Sign up today to learn more about the new, exciting, and fully online experience now being offered by University of California. Taught by the same instructors that have provided a top-tier education to some of the world’s best and brightest, these online courses immerse you in the world of high academic standards that, previously, could only be found on a UC campus.” Yes, it is new and exciting and just like the real UC experience. However, it is unclear still who will teach the courses or what academic standards will be applied.

The ad continues by putting down the real UC education: “Because our courses are online, they offer a level of flexibility that doesn’t exist in a more traditional college setting. Where and when you learn is up to you. What you learn makes this opportunity unique.” In other words, unlike those traditional universities (like the University of California), education in the online courses will be flexible, personalized, and unique.

The ad next shifts to a more threatening and dubious claim: “Many of our courses are great for fulfilling prerequisite or transfer credit requirements, such as the following; “Pre-Calculus 1A, Pre-Calculus 1B, General Psychology, General Chemistry, Introduction to Writing & Rhetoric,Intro to Probability & Statistics for Business.” So for people who are not yet matriculated into the UC system, they can start to earn credits and fulfill perquisites. This sounds like a good deal, but is it really? (On a separate page, you find the following disclaimer: “Please note that registering for any of the UC Online classes does not admit you to a University of California campus. Also, participating in this educational program does not in itself provide preference in admission to the University of California.”)

If you click on the Pricing link, you discover that the courses come at a steep price: Intro to Fresh Water: Processes and Policies $1,750 Pre-Calculus 1A $1,400 Pre-Calculus 1B $1,400 Beauty & Joy of Computing $2,100 Principles of Internet Citizenship $2,100 Intro to Writing & Rhetoric $1,400 General Psychology $1,575 General Chemistry $1,575 Intro to Probability & Stats for Business $2,100 Global Climate Change $1,050. The cost for 10 courses would be $15,050, and I do not see any mention of financial aid here.

So the way the university is going to expand access is to charge students more to get less and offer them less support for the hope that they can maybe use the credits in the future. This ad for a pricey possible education also contains a picture of an attractive blond female student wearing glasses as she holds her laptop near a fuzzy whiteboard. Welcome to the brave new world of the UC commercial!

Doing Online Right

Several of my recent posts have dealt with the negative aspects of the UC move to place courses online, but I want to clarify that many faculty members are currently using digital technologies in an effective manner. For example, many uc teachers are having their students produce web sites and analyze a wide range of web-based contents. There is also a growing use of digital courseware and class management systems, and many faculty employ online class discussions. Moreover, we are witnessing efforts to use digital and multimedia textbooks as we teach our students how to access and assess digital media. Finally, we already have thousands of classes that are either totally or partially online.

One reason the Regents may not know about the high level of digital activity in the UC system is because the Regents are not educators, and they have little knowledge of what really goes on in university classrooms. Unfortunately, the latest Regents meeting revealed that many of the UC administrators also do not know about the use of digital technologies in the UC system: we have online extension programs, we have networked classrooms, we have digital labs, and we have digital libraries – in fact, we may be one of the world leaders in high-tech education, but what we do not have is a replication of the University of Phoenix.

If you listen to the end of the discussion about online learning from the last Regents meeting, you will hear the exasperated Berkeley Chancellor Birgenou exclaim, “I have no idea what you people are talking about.” From my perspective, this was the new former Chancellor’s best moment. Yes, the Regents actually have no idea what is going on in the very institution they are supposed to be directing.

Online Instruction, Budget Transparency, and the Cost of Education

For the last ten years, UC-AFT has been fighting a battle with the University of California over budget transparency. One of our main concerns has been how much it actually costs to educate each individual undergraduate student and how much funding does each student generate in state and tuition dollars. So far the Office of the President has refused to make these calculations because they do not think you can or should separate teaching from research and administration, and even though the new rebenching funding model does try to account for the different costs structures related to undergraduate vs, graduate vs. professional education, the university still insists that it would be too costly and time-consuming to really determine the cost of educating different types of students. However, the push for online education should motivate UCOP to change its strategy because the Regents and the state are under the false impression that distance education can solve the university’s fiscal problems.

The main reason why the Regents and the governor are misguided is because they do not know that the highly-impacted, lower-division courses that UC wants to move online may be the only thing that really generates a profit for the university. For example, in looking at my first- and second-year students’ transcripts at UCLA, I calculated the average, yearly direct instructional cost for a typical lower-division undergraduate student. I found that since students in their first two years at UCLA tend to take 8 large courses (averaging 200 students) and 2 small classes (averaging 25 students) each year, and half of these courses are taught by lecturers, the total direct instructional cost per year is $1,950 (an if we add 20% for benefits, it costs $2,340). (UC brings in $16,000 per undergrad student in combined tuition and state funds).

Here is how I made this calculation: since the average full-time lecturer salary is currently $60,000 and the full load is 8 courses, each of the courses cost $7,500. If a lower-division student takes four large lecture classes (averaging 200 students) with a lecturer, the cost per student for each course is $37.50. In the case of senate faculty teaching lower-division lecture classes making $100,000 for four courses a year, the cost for the four large lecture classes is $500 per student. If we then do the same calculation for small classes of 25 students, the cost for a course taught by a lecturer is $300 and the course taught by a senate faculty member is $1,000.

One can argue with this methodology, but what should be absolutely clear is that it is virtually impossible for the online program to deliver education for less money. Although the Regents and the Governor bemoan the fact that universities have failed to follow other “industries” by reducing costs through technology, what they do not see is that costs have been reduced by the use of large classes and non-tenured faculty. However, UCOP does not want to make this argument because its entire budgetary structure is based on half-truths and abstract calculations.

Making matters worse is the fact that the UC has already spent a lot of money on the online pilot program, and studies have shown that universities constantly under-estimate the real costs of distance education. For example, in his article “The Costs and Costing of Online Learning,”, Greville Rumble looks at the actual costs of using online courses at research universities. His main finding is that previous research on this topic failed to take into account all of the related expenses: “One of the problems with many of the studies now available is that they report the broad results, not the detail. It is therefore difficult to know what has been included and what excluded, and so whether the costings undertaken are comprehensive. Experience suggests, however, that all figures need to be treated with care. What does seem clear is that the costs of developing a course are being pushed up—and significantly so whenever media are used in a sophisticated way. If so, and if cost efficiency is an important consideration, then savings may need to be looked for in delivery.” Rumble here argues that one of the main cost drivers in online courses is the development of the class material.

In fact, his research shows that if universities want to produce a high-quality educational experience, they have to spend a great deal of money: “The high costs of developing internet courses are confirmed by Saba, who suggests that commercial software companies developing courses for online instruction or publishers are spending at least $500,000 to fully develop a multimedia course.” It is important to note that when universities present the cost of new online programs, they usually do not account for the initial costs of course development.

Rumble also believes that although these new programs are often used to save labor costs and faculty time, the opposite often happens: “A high proportion of the costs of developing materials is labor costs. All the research shows that it takes more academic time to develop media that will occupy a student for one hour, than it takes to develop a one-hour lecture—although how much more time is difficult to quantify. Sparkes reckoned that it took from 2 to 10 hours to prepare a lecture, from 1 to 10 hours to prepare a small group session, and from 3 to 10 hours to prepare a video-tape lecture; however, it took at least 50 to 100 academic hours to prepare a teaching text, 100 hours to prepare a television broadcast, 200 hours to develop computer-aided learning, and 300 hours to develop interactive materials—to which in all cases one needed to add the time of technical support staff.” There are thus a lot of hidden costs involved in developing online courses, and these expenses rarely show up in presentations on the cost-effectiveness of computer-mediated education.

Universities also sometimes underestimate the expenses related to delivering online courses: “In general none of the studies undertaken to date adequately factor in the costs of overheads. Although, the costs of putting in equipment directly associated with the projects (e.g., servers) are usually taken into account, as are the costs of software licenses, college operating budgets do not usually reflect the full costs of maintaining networked services.” It turns out that it is very hard to calculate the total cost of software licenses, network maintenance, and equipment for online programs, so universities simply make a guess and present it as a fact.

Furthermore, universities have a hard time predicting the number of staff and administrators they will need for a new online program: “Much depends on the context—the time spent agreeing that a group of enthusiasts can develop a project will be very different to that required to change an institution’s direction. Indeed, developing an IT [information technology] strategy is likely to be expensive.” One thing that we can be sure of is that the use of online courses drives up the cost of administration and staff while further squeezing instructional budgets. I hope to make this argument to the Regents and Governor Brown to show them the folly of the online fiscal panacea.

The UC Regents, Governor Brown, and the Online Hail Mary

During the most recent UC Regents meeting, one theme that continued to raise its ugly head was the specter of online education as the great economic cure for all that ails the university. The UCLA Faculty Association blog gives the following summary: “Regents chair Lansing pushed for more progress on online education. Others, including Lt. Gov. Newsom, were also impatient about UC progress on online education. One of the student reps was not so convinced that online education was quite the panacea that some Regents seemed to think . . . Governor Brown reflected on the discussion of online education. Tradition is a Good Thing but UC might be going the way of the Post Office and print newspapers in the face of digital developments. The proposed UC budget would increase by 9% and unless there are tuition increases the state can’t afford such projections. UC has to assume budget squeezes and find new ways to deliver services. Maybe this is more threatening than when the Regents faced Angela Davis teaching on a campus. Why can’t the Regents have experts come and talk about such matters at the next meeting? Lansing agreed to that idea and it was ordered. Lt. Gov. Newsom (if I recognized his voice) seemed to want to help design the session. Provost Dorr was criticized for not moving the online matter along faster. Chancellor Birgeneau of Berkeley said that in fact we are well engaged in online education and that the Regents seem unaware of it. (“We are leading the world.”) Gov. Brown pointed out that the Berkeley examples are not for credit. There was back and forth about what was for credit and what wasn’t. It was decided that the presentation for the next meeting will also include what UC is doing now on online education.” So it looks like the next Regents meeting will contain a presentation and discussion of the current state of the online project and what we can expect in the future for UC digital education.

This push to solve the university’s funding problems through online education needs to be put in a broader context. Recently we have witnessed many of the most elite universities in the United States jumping onto the MOOC (massive open online courses) bandwagon, and we need to ask, why are they doing this? After all, schools like Stanford, MIT, and Harvard are defined by their selectivity and high costs, and so it seems strange that they would want to promote a form of education that is open to the masses for little if any cost. Perhaps, these institutions just feel that more people in the world should be exposed to their expert knowledge, or maybe they are following the new media business model of built it, let them use it, and then charge them once they become hooked.

I would like to pose a more critical and realistic interpretation: elite universities are promoting online education, which will lead other schools to commit financial and educational suicide. To be clear, I am not arguing that this plan is an intentional plot or conspiracy; rather, following the law of unintended consequences, many good intentions can result in a destruction of the common good. Call it the inverted invisible hand: universities and individual faculty members want to do good by making their intellectual property available for free, but the end social result is that the business model for higher education is destroyed.

Just as local newspapers have been undermined by Craigslist and the music industry has been devastated by Napster and iTunes, higher education may be heading down the path of economic self-destruction. By embracing low-cost, high-access instruction, non-elite schools will lose their competitive advantage; moreover, the idea that the masses can be taught online, while the elites continue to receive valued credentials from residential institutions may result in the formation of a digital ghetto for the majority of non-wealthy Americans.

My first piece of evidence of how online education leads to institutional suicide can be found in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article aptly entitled, “UC Online Strives to Compete in an Era of Free Courses.” In discussing how the University of California system is failing at its attempt to develop an online educational strategy, we are informed that, “Online education was going to revolutionize the University of California system, drawing thousands to the selective institution's online courses and bringing in new revenue to help allay budget cuts. That was the pitch for UC Online, started two years ago with the belief that millions in seed money could easily be raised from foundations or other private sources to get the bold effort off the ground. But UC Online now appears to be struggling, even as other highly selective colleges rush to offer their courses online at no charge (and, unlike the University of California, with no credit).” In the case of the UC system, the move to online courses was seen as a way of dealing with devastating state budget cuts, but after pouring several millions of dollars into this project, the system has still not found a way to cash in on its digital panacea.

Not only has the UC system failed to make money on its online initiative, but we learn that they have actually lost millions: “University of California officials failed to rustle up those private donations and were forced to take out a $6.9-million loan from the system's Office of the President last year to prop up the effort, with strong opposition from faculty members who did not want university money used for the project.” Like so many other institutions of higher education, the faculty are here pitted against an administration that is spending millions on an online initiative while traditional courses are being eliminated and class sizes are being expanded. Instead of using scarce resources to improve the quality of undergraduate instruction, the UC is trying to get non-university students to take expensive online courses: “It needs to attract at least 3,000 non-UC students this year and add 1,000 more each year until it reaches 7,000 non-UC students to pay back its loan on time, said DoQuyen Tran-Taylor, project manager for UC Online.” In other words, as UC students pay more for less education, non-UC students are being recruited to repay the debt of a struggling online project.

The Chronicle points out that one reason why the UC initiative may be failing is that it cannot compete with the elite universities, which are giving their courses away for free: “The pivotal question is whether people will choose to shell out money for UC Online courses rather than for already-established online programs or one of the many free online courses, known as massive open online courses, or MOOC's, offered by a growing number of well-known colleges.” It appears that the answer to this question is that elite universities have successfully used MOOC’s to undermine the competition and prevent cash-strapped public schools from reaping the benefits of the digital gold rush.

Once again, I do not think that this is an intentional strategy, but it reflects the inability of some higher education institutions to consider the total ecology of their economies. Although the UC thought that private high-tech donors would seed their online program, the reality is that the big money has moved to private online ventures: “UC Online has raised only $748,000 in private financing for the project—through a Next Generation Learning Challenges grant by the Gates foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Private companies leading free online-education efforts, meanwhile, have been raking in investment cash. Coursera, for instance, boasts more than $22-million from investors.” In this new form of privatization, private companies are funneling their money to private institutions because they see a much higher potential for large profits; meanwhile, public institutions are scrambling to find ways to monetize their online programs.

Returning to the University of California, we discover that as private seed money is drying up, the costs of developing an online program continue to escalate: “UC Online spent $4.6-million on developing the project in the 2011-12 academic year, and expects to spend about $7-million this year in additional development and marketing efforts, said Shelly Meron, a University of California spokeswoman. An 18-month contract with the course-management software company Blackboard took up a significant portion of that spending—$4.3-million . . .” Thus, at the same moment that the university is facing reduced state funding and swelling enrollments, money that could be used to hire more teachers or house more classes is being sent to a private company to develop online course infrastructure. One has to wonder why the UC system could not have developed its own open source course programs and why the administration is bent on pursuing this high-cost strategy.

On a positive note, the MOOC revolution may force universities to determine what value they actually deliver to students. Instead of joining a race to the bottom, universities like the UC system should defend the importance of the residential educational experience. Not only do students on our campuses learn how to live on their own and navigate through competing social interests, but universities remain one of the few places where our citizens can engage in deep and important conversations concerning the most important aspects of their lives. In contrast to online courses, university classes force students to encounter new ideas and people; however, universities often undermine this experience by not providing a high-quality learning experience. The solution, then, is not to turn to a lower form of social interaction and instruction; instead our universities have to prove their worth by recommitting themselves to undergraduate education.

In short, instead of shifting their resources and attention to a fantasized digital cure, our universities need to focus on providing high-quality instruction to undergraduates. Furthermore, in place of building new entertainment centers and food courts for students, universities should hire more full-time faculty to provide effective in-person learning environments. A real race to the top would mean that we start to engage students in a meaningful life offline and online. As the elite private universities tell the masses that they can settle for an inferior educational experience, our public universities must push for high-quality higher education for all.

We Won the Battle, Now the War

As Democrats celebrate their hard-earned victories, now is not the time to let down our guard. In the next couple of weeks, there will be tremendous pressure for President Obama to sign a very bad deal. He will be told that the only way he can avoid extending the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy is if he agrees to severe cuts to social security, Medicaid, and Medicare. He will also be pressured to reduce the scheduled cuts to the defense budget, and thus, he will be asked to repeat Bill Clinton’s famous triangulation that brought us welfare reform, Wall Street deregulation, and NAFTA.

President Obama has already shown that he would go for the “Grand Bargain,” and after his electoral victory, he may sign off on a deal that will accomplish some of the most desired goals of the Republican party. To fight this quick move to the Right, go to:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/tell-president-obama-to-end-the-bush-tax-cuts.