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Originally Posted by Green Plastic
-Disruption of higher education
Quote:
Originally Posted by ToothSayer
Higher education is obviously completely broken, but it's a powerful system with deep historical roots and trillions of dollar in vested interests; how is online education going to compete?
USA higher education continues to produce very high quality research and very high quality grads. In no time in human history did more people have access to higher education than right now. Why is it "completely broken"? Because almost everyone has access and there is credential inflation? That is basically the story of structured education for hundreds of years and it will continue as we all niche down and become super experts during longer and longer structured study. Is it the cost? About 1/2 the grads graduate with 0 debt and of those that graduate with debt, median debt is cheaper than a new Toyota, hardly a huge price for 4 years of higher education. People just like to complain about it.
People were always able to get courses and books and videos to self-educate and online education is nothing different, just a new medium of delivery. The reality? They have absolutely abysmal completion rates.
Online education is like gym memberships. People pay for Duolingo in hopes of learning a new language, but hardly anyone actually learns. Not a bad business model.
There is one startup in this space I think is interesting. They partnered with one Cali university and pay the tuition for a student and the student repays based on their income % after graduation for X years. They have good rules built in to prevent people from gaming their program. It does sound like indentured servitude but this is likely where things are heading. It gives people something immediate while getting them into more expensive long term debt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Green Plastic
-Co-living. I think it will be a huge trend for young people, partially out of necessity, and it's already growing quite a bit.
As cost of housing grows, more and more people will be forced into these situations. Group housing is cheaper for the renter, but also more profitable for the landlord. It will be interesting how this develops as housing is very regulated and there are strict footage minimums and dweller limits in a lot of bigger jurisdictions. This is why we generally do not have capsule motels or Japanese style housing situations. (tiny houses built on tiny lots, etc.)
Here in NYC, I was reading some analysis on housing density. The exact same buildings generally housed a lot more people 50-100 years ago than they do today. Part of it is regulation and part of it is family size and living expectations/norms.