Reality Check

The ongoing pursuit of the cheapest and least intrusive higher education alternatives continues apace.

The parallels between the MOOC provider's expansion and the college sports empire.

The advent of Internet-enabled mass access to college level educational content offers a number of opportunities to both consumers and providers. Consumers can shop for any number of content items online from a wide array of providers, choosing products based on the subject, the prestige of the provider, and the subsequent value of participation. Providers will have access to large potential markets with low overhead expense and most importantly without an obligation to validate the preparation and capabilities of the consumers or guarantee a level of successful completion.

Long-time observers of the public university scene recognize ritual behavior as an essential component of institutional process. Among the many rituals of public university governance, open trustee board meetings have a special place. Everyone looks forward to the board meeting as a theatrical forum where talented individuals play ritualized parts according to well prepared scripts.

Universities, like other high profile service organizations, continuously seek visibility and preeminence to validate their claims of significance and advertise...

Imagine a small, developing country of perhaps 3 million people. Like many other small developing countries, our imaginary nation is...

The determined effort to ensure that everyone has a post-secondary credential of some kind spawns a wide range of new educational products. Traditional suppliers of higher education seek an appropriate response. Should they try to commercialize their brand by also publishing courses online? Should they partner with an aggressive and effective for-profit or foundation-funded not-for-profit enterprise to leverage faculty intellectual property into credential producing products for large audiences? Should they offer academic services to validate learning acquired through non-traditional means leading to credentials or college degrees?

Whether it goes by the name of exaggeration, half-truth, misrepresentation, distortion, or dissembling, lying is endemic in all of education.