The "commoditization" of higher education

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Lawrie Miller, Oct 31, 2002.

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  1. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    I originally posted this short missive to another thread a day or two ago, but the issues raised are, in my view, among the most significant higher ed. is likely to face in the first half of the new century. They deserve a more focused airing, hence this new thread.

    The commoditization of education should not be resisted, but embraced. Certification is the bread and butter of education institutions and is by its very nature the keeper of standards in higher learning. For the vast majority of higher ed customers, certification is education. Here we see the separation of outcome from process.

    The customer's concern is utility and accessibility. Changes are already afoot and augur the coming of a new paradigm, where the goal is efficiency and economies of scale in education, with full utilization of new technologies, that will bring to everyone wherever they may be, opportunity, value and quality in higher learning.

    As noted, DL market is overwhelmingly about certification, convenience and utility. Generic MBAs, MPAs, M.Ed., LLMs, and other trade degrees abound. The mass of the market is already "commoditized".

    To reflect that, I designed the master's listing page on my web site to resemble a market "bucket shop" selling discount degrees as if they were knocked off airline tickets. I have billboards with chalked prices and sale tags. No one is smiling. Not too big on Parody and social commentary round these here parts, huh?

    Learning is assessed in terms of demonstrable outcomes, and certification is the mark by which the conferring institution attests that the student has learned. That is, that the student has qualified at a specific level, indicated by the award. Isn't that what qualifications are, attestations as to the accomplishment and learning of the student?

    I do not think there can be any doubt about it. If one were to say, in this context, that there is certification, and then there is learning, then what we are discussing is a new issue, namely one of misrepresentation and fraud, where an accredited institution attests to a level of learning and accomplishment the student does not in fact possess. Now, that is a whole other debate that demands detailed and verifiable evidence of wrong doing.

    In the real world certification drives the education industry. It is the product the education industry sells. Most of its customers are driven to seek certification to use as a tool with which they might better their lot. If they learn along the way, well that's cool. By definition, certification attests that indeed, the holder has learned and has acquired the requisite demonstrable skills. The modern societal requirement for certification, compels the many to seek that which hitherto had been the province of the few. Now that's really cool.

    "Comodiditization" of the wares of the education industry then, should not be feared and resisted by the vested interests of that industry, it should be welcomed and encouraged. Yet the pedagogical quacks and Luddites are ever hard at work, undermining innovation and the promise of cheap affordable higher education for all.
     
  2. Andy Borchers

    Andy Borchers New Member

    I recognized that the commoditization of education is happening - in part of the higher education world. Schools like UoP with 125,000 students and TESC with 18,000 students aren't small. They serve part of the higher education market - but they aren't the entire market.

    When you say "For the vast majority of higher ed customers, certification is education. " you are partly right. There is a segment of the market that is oriented this way. But there are millions of students enrolled in traditional higher education that aren't oriented this way. If all students wanted certification, not education, why would thousands of students elect to pursue traditional PhD degrees - and spend 7-8 years in the process? Why would top MBA programs (such as Stanford and Harvard) have the huge number of applicants they have? They could go to your website and pick a much less expensive program - but then many students aren't looking for certification - they seek education and other benefits from such schools.

    Consider, for example, the Big 10 schools (Michigan, Indiana, etc.). They enroll many times the number of students that even UoP has. And the Big 10 schools aren't aimed at certification as opposed to education. Big 10 schools are among the best in the world - they add to the body of knowledge through research, they graduate students who go on to achieve in the world.

    Do grads of DL programs do the same? I'm sure many do go on to success. As for research - DL schools don't tend to do much of this. But the success of DL institutions doesn't invalidate the sucess of traditional institutions.

    As for adult learners - the typical focus of the DL market - there are options. Here in the Detroit area a mid-career adult that wants to earn an MBA has an array of choices. They can go DL and get certification from many institutions. But then they can go to mid-tier AACSB accredited schools - like Oakland Univeristy, Wayne State or University of Detroit. Or they can go to very well recognized MBA programs like University of Michigan or Michigan State.

    Students have choices - some may go the commodity route, some may choose to go other ways. Commodity education is here to stay - but it isn't the only way. Are there differences? I think so - but then each of us has to consider this for ourselves.

    Regards - Andy


     
  3. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Re: Re: The "commoditization" of higher education

     
  4. Jason D. Baker

    Jason D. Baker New Member

    Lawrie,

    Your post reminds me of the proclamations by Arthur Levine, President of Teachers College, Columbia University. A few years ago he wrote a piece for The New York Times entitled The Soul of a New University that you can read by following the link. I've heard Dr. Levine speak at a few functions where he has presented an expanded version of the ideas found in the Times article. My favorite was when he described his most significant experience with "distance education" -- listening to a professor teach while sitting in the back row of a large lecture hall filled with five hundred students.

    Somewhere in my files I have a paper entitled "The Remaking of the American University" that he presented at a Blackboard conference a few years ago. Although I don't recall agreeing with all of his predictions, his description of the forces buffeting higher education was quite useful. If you're interested in hearing the views of someone who is in the educational establishment and yet doesn't sound like an traditionalist, I encourage you to check out Dr. Levine's work.

    Jason D. Baker
    http://www.bakersguide.com
     
  5. Andy Borchers

    Andy Borchers New Member

    Re: Re: Re: The "commoditization" of higher education

    Lawrie - One more thought. Talking about DL and traditional education markets may not be totally relevant given the potential for substitution of one for the other. Many students (especially those located in major U.S. cities) are potential customers of both.

    There are, however, some people that can't access traditional education - such as those with high travel profiles, military, etc.

    Regards - Andy

     
  6. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I think that some historical context is relevant to this discussion:

    In medieval times, universities were professional schools that taught students theology, and less frequently law and medicine. The "liberal arts" were service subjects, preparatory to studying *higher things* like divine revelation.

    In subsequent centuries the liberal arts kind of took over, and became the 'higher things' themselves. Universities existed to educate gentlemen, and largely served the upper classes. Until the early 19'th century, England only had two universities.

    During all this time tradesmen remained tradesmen and the skilled trades were the province of guilds and later the unions.

    Now universities have become the road to the trades. In most cases students don't study in order to become monks or clerics. They don't study to become gentlemen and ladies. They study because they want to be hired in what once were skilled trades type positions.

    I think that a lot of the "top tierness" of Oxbridge and the Ivy League is because they seem at least superficially to participate in this historical tendency the least.

    It also casts some light on the social prestige still associated with the Ph.D. The Ph.D. is (theoretically at least) all about the *higher things*, namely research. Pure scholarship, learning for its own sake. Very significantly, it bestows *titles* on its graduates, just like being born an earl.

    "Dr." is almost as cool as "Sir".
     
  7. Christopher Green

    Christopher Green New Member

    Another thing...

    I also find that with every job change I make people expect me to have a degree that is specific to that new job. With the proliferation of educational options and vocational options it is becoming that education take place constantly, continually... the market expects us to give up our private time for this so that we can get by in our "public" time.

    Chris
     
  8. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Thank you for the info and the link, Jason. I will read this. Now I might have at least one reference I can cite in support of the obvious.

    Jason:
    he described his most significant experience with "distance education" -- listening to a professor teach while sitting in the back row of a large lecture hall filled with five hundred students.

    Lawrie:
    I like him already.

    Lawrie Miller
    http://geocities.com/ba_in_4_weeks/
     
  9. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: The "commoditization" of higher education

    True, but I still think that in practice the demarcation is real. I have no doubt that one day there will come the Great Mind Meld, when distance and traditional modes of learning coalesce, but not now.
     
  10. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    A most erudite and insightful exposition, if I may say so, Bill. I will plunder it shamelessly.
     
  11. Tracy Gies

    Tracy Gies New Member

    By definition, a commidity is something that can be traded or exchaged for commercial or other gain. In that sense, aren't degrees from the top schools much more commoditized than those from lower-tier schools (including DL schools)? Admittedly, this is a supposition on my part, but it seems to me that the majority of students who choose to pursue a Harvard MBA, for example, do so because they know it is worth more than most other degrees on the job market. It is a most valuable commidity, and it is pursued as such.
     
  12. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Not supposition. I do not see how that self evident fact could be disputed, yet it is disputed. Life is a great mystery.
     
  13. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I think that Harvard, Oxford and Stanford sell entry into the contemporary aristocracy. (Or that social segment that would like to see itself as such.) They sell the ability to transform their students into superior sorts of people.

    State colleges like San Jose State sell job skills that graduates can take up North First Street and (until recently) get a job with a Silicon Valley firm. It prepares the contemporary equivalent of blacksmiths and barrel makers.

    Part of what makes a top tier university top tier is that so many of the subjects it teaches are not blatently occupational.

    Harvard will award you a Ph.D. in Akkadian and Sumerian, ancient near eastern art, biblical history, Byzantine Greek, classical philology, eighteenth century literature, Indian philosophy, Pali or Welsh.

    Obviously these are all fine subjects, entirely worthy of study. But there's also a sense that if you have to ask how you will make a living after you graduate, you shouldn't be there in the first place. These are subjects appropriate for gentlemen of means.

    I think that's a big part of what people are buying.

    Perhaps it's kind of an anti-coommoditization commodity, selling the mssage that "We are above all that".

    But while the great majority of universities offer the vocational subjects, I think that if you look for the "high toned" subjects, you will find that the more of them a school offers, the higher the school's perceived quality.

    I'll even hazard a guess that's why some schools bother offering what are probably money losing programs in the first place. Because without a sense that the school has its eyes set on higher things, their cash-cow career offerings would seem much more mundane.
     
  14. Professor Kennedy

    Professor Kennedy New Member

    Bill:
    "Until the early 19'th century, England only had two universities."

    I am not being fussy but in a forum like this with many citizens from North American and Australia, the word 'England' is often (in Australia - almost always) taken to mean the 'United Kingdom and its constituent parts.'

    Therefore, I wish to point out, respectfully, that from the 15th century onwards, Scotland, then an independent country, had four established universities: Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Aberdeen.

    In the great European enlightenment (1750-1800) Scotland and its universities played a major part - indeed, the period is known as the 'Scottish Enlightenment' because of its unique contribution (David Hume and Adam Smith spring to mind).

    The Scottish universities took in a wider social class than the aristocracy, though still priviliged. Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations spoke of Oxford professors having 'long given up the pretence of teaching' (he was a student there after Glasgow, 1740-1746).
     
  15. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Some might think it no mere accident of geography, that the map of Britain resembles a reclining man, with Scotland where the head and brain would be, and the South East of England, the rump where one would do one's business.


    Lawrie Miller
    author: BA in 4 Weeks and Accelerated Master's Degrees by Distance Learning
    http://geocities.com/ba_in_4_weeks/
     
  16. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Pre-cisely, Lawrie!

    Although there is a recent 608 page attempt to change this view.
    "The Creation of the Modern World: The British Enlightenment"
    by Roy Porter. (2000)

    "[T]he British enlightenment may not be an "untold story," but it is an important story that is often underemphasized in the history of the enlightenment. The essence of Porter's argument is that Britain did, in fact, have an enlightenment as vibrant and relevant as those more studied enlightenments in France and Germany."
     
  17. Andy Borchers

    Andy Borchers New Member

    Re: Re: Re: The "commoditization" of higher education

    Your statement about a "premium commodity" here is inconsistent. If you can differentiate a product - the product isn't a commodity.

    What is a commodity? Consider 100 bushels of a certain grade of wheat on the Kansas City exchange. As a commodity - you can't tell the difference between one bushel and the next. There is a difference between MBA programs - in fact people like Business Week and USNews rank them.

    Regards - Andy

     
  18. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: The "commoditization" of higher education

     
  19. Andy Borchers

    Andy Borchers New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The "commoditization" of higher education

    Ok Lawrie - try this - are there any products that aren't commodities? I have to say that I'm hard pressed to think of many products that aren't as differentiated as education. Given the large number of schools and the lack of standardization it is hard to argue.

    As for top tier instutions being a "ferrari" - consider this:

    Harvard enrolls about 1500 students in their MBA programs. Other top schools like Columbia enroll 1000. If you take the top 30 schools there are easily 15-20,000 students enrolled.. Given the two year life of a student in a top tier MBA program you're looking at 7500+ grads from top schools per year.

    Add to that the number of graduates from the other 320 AACSB schools - and you have a hefty percentage of the 115-120,000 MBAs awarded annually in recent years.

    Hence, non-commodity - quality MBA programs are far from being a "Ferrari". They take a sizable chunk of the market. DL may be growing - but there are lots of folks that choose a different road. It isn't the cheapest. It isn't the fastest. It isn't a commodity. It is a nationally regarded MBA. I'd argue that such programs are different than commodity programs on many grounds - quality of students, quality of instruction, reputation and more.

    This doesn't deny a role for DL MBAs - it just makes clear that there are other options.

    Just for kicks I looked around the web for a definition of a commodity. Whatever education is - in the broadest sense of the word it isn't a commodity:

    "commodity

    Definition 1

    A physical substance, such as food, grains, and metals, which is interchangeable with other product of the same type, and which investors buy or sell, usually through futures contracts.

    Definition 2

    More generally, a product which trades on a commodity exchange; this would also include foreign currencies and financial instruments and indexes.

    " (from investorwords.com).

    Regards - Andy
     
  20. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The "commoditization" of higher education

    Andy:
    Ok Lawrie - try this - are there any products that aren't commodities?

    Lawrie:
    Yup, brand name products.

    You know, I don't think there can be any argument about this. Seems you posted a "gotcha", it BIT YOU, and it was quite funny.

    Andy:
    Just for kicks I looked around the web for a definition of a commodity. Whatever education is - in the broadest sense of the word it isn't a commodity:

    Lawrie:
    THE PRODUCT IS THE PROGRAM, ANDY, THE MBA OR OTHER PROGRAM, THAT IS THE COMMODITY. THAT IS WHAT YOU OBJECTED TO. READ YOUR OWN POSTS.

    Lawrie:
    Are you seriously arguing that "commodity" does not more generally encompass any mass market undifferentiated product, like generic DL degree programs? How many dictionaries did you have to search to find one that did not include the above definition or something very similar? I found that sort of definition in every dictionary I inspected. Every one. Let's have some candor, here.

    Look, you tried to score points rather than debate the issues and you fell on your face. It was humorous. You're embarrassed and trying to save face. I understand, I am not going to hold your feet to the fire. Move on.




    FROM MERRIAM WEBSTER'S COLLEGIATE
    <commodities futures> c : a mass-produced unspecialized product <commodity chemicals> <commodity memory chips>
    2 a : something useful or valued <that valuable commodity patience> b : CONVENIENCE, ADVANTAGE
    3 obsolete : QUANTITY, LOT
    4 : one that is subject to ready exchange or exploitation within a market <the sensitive female singer-songwriter as a viable pop commodity -- Elysa Gardner>


    FROM The American Heritage
    com·mod·i·ty
    PRONUNCIATION: k-md-t
    NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. com·mod·i·ties
    1. Something useful that can be turned to commercial or other advantage: “Left-handed, power-hitting third basemen are a rare commodity in the big leagues” (Steve Guiremand, [Long Beach, CA] Press-Telegram June 2, 1995). 2. An article of trade or commerce, especially an agricultural or mining product that can be processed and resold. 3. Advantage; benefit. 4. Obsolete A quantity of goods.


    FROM Cambridge Dictionary of American English
    commodity
    noun [C]
    anything that can be bought and sold


    FROM Online Plain Text English Dictionary
    Commodity (n.) That which affords convenience, advantage, or profit, especially in commerce, including everything movable that is bought and sold (except animals), -- goods, wares, merchandise, produce of land and manufactures, etc.


    FROM Webster Dictionary
    1. Convenience; accommodation; profit; benefit; advantage; interest; commodiousness. [Obs.]

    2. That which affords convenience, advantage, or profit, especially in commerce, including everything movable that is bought and sold (except animals), -- goods, wares, merchandise, produce of land and manufactures, etc.

    3. A parcel or quantity of goods. [Obs.]

    A commodity of brown paper and old ginger. Shak.
     

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