LikeLike

LikeLike

Mr. Trachtenberg [former president of GWU] convinced people that George Washington was worth a lot more money by charging a lot more money. Unlike most college presidents, he was surprisingly candid about his strategy. College is like vodka, he liked to explain. Vodka is by definition a flavorless beverage. It all tastes the same. But people will spend $30 for a bottle of Absolut because of the brand. A Timex watch costs $20, a Rolex $10,000. They both tell the same time.—New York Times

GWU didn’t improve its offerings. They were already good. All it did was hike the tuition—and demand for its education soared.

LikeLiked by 1 person

LikeLike

>Let’s have the discussion that Coursera should have started long ago.
Crap. How about YOU putting together a free high-quality class, without charging anything, and then start asking for stuff?

LikeLike

LikeLike

There’s a semantic issue with the word “certificate” here. Coursera uses certificate to mean the PDF presented to a learner with a verified identity at the end of a course. But that’s a narrow use. The common definition of certificate would just mean a piece of paper (or other document) attesting to an accomplishment or qualification. The Statement of Accomplishment meets that common definition. I was using the common definition in my blog entry, but I can see how that can be confusing and muddle up the dialogue!

Unfortunatly, certificates aren’t technically worth anything even with identity verification in most cases. A few institutions offer CEU credit for select courses taken under a verified identity, but in all those cases, the student must pay an extra few hundred dollars to get the CEU credit—that’s above Coursera’s fee for identity verification. I know of no institutions that offer undergraduate or graduate credit for Coursera courses, although Arizona State and EdX are launching a credit program in the fall. And given that classes vary so widely in quality and depth—from the equivalent of half-day professional seminars to the equivalent of graduate-level courses—the value that any certificate (verified or otherwise) would have to a prospective employer is questionable. Taking and completing the courses may show a prospective employer or school that you’re pro-active and interested in learning, but that’s about it. And in that sense, a Statement of Accomplishment and a Verified Certificate are of about equal value from my perspective.

I think a better model for verification is encouraging students/learners to take standardized tests that are recognized by the educational systems of their countries—for example, Advanced Placement exams in the United States. Another option is proctored exams that have been approved by accredited universities or accrediting organizations. Saylor.org employs the latter model for several of its courses, which you can read about here.

LikeLiked by 1 person

Higher priced education is not a Veblen good. One gets a meaningfully better education, more networking, and more opportunity as a result. Moreover, most people aren’t allowed to buy them. You can’t go to Stanford this year, or any year, whether you have the money or not.

One of the reasons one goes to Harvard, and not community college, is so that one doesn’t end up making screamingly obvious mistakes like this when trying to engage in commentary.

LikeLiked by 1 person

I wonder if that’s one of the ideas behind the change, although my guess is that it’s for more practical financial reasons. I suppose I won’t know until Coursera speaks up.

LikeLike

LikeLike