Cost of Higher Ed...

I follow the discussion on Higher Ed costs partly because I am an academic and partly because the costs of sharing need to be factored into any knowlede sharing model. Since Higher Ed is a primary knowledge sharing entitity, its cost structure should be interesting to knowledge folks.

Michael Feldstein, an Oracle employee and education blogger has a blog article about the cost of education and its relation to earning. He raises some great points and concludes the cost of an college degree might be in a bubble that could burst. I disagree.

I think the cost of college has risen dramatically compared to median income (check out Feldsteins graphs for some sobering illustrations). But I do not think many of the people that argue Higher Ed is at a tipping point are factoring in some significant variables. Some breif thoughts on the costs of Higher Ed:

• Feldstein argues that an Associates Degree would take until age 29 to pay off. This is bad math. I think he's taking the average cost of a Bachelor's and halving it to get an A.S. degree. Most people get their A.S. degrees at technical and community colleges. The non-profit versions of these schools are some of the most cost-effective options available in the whole world.

• Few pay MSRP. Very few students pay the stated tuition price for their education. A lot of analysts for college costs simply look at the stated price for tuition at at college and use this number. Each school has a discount rate. Many private schools have average discount rates in the 30-40% range. Knock off 35% from tuition rates and the equation changes.

• Some of college cost is self-induced. Students want better/bigger dorm rooms, lounges, pools, organized activities, athletic programs for all levels (e.g. clubs), coffe bars, and fast Internet. These ammenities cost schools a lot of money. If you do not provide these features, students respond by not choosing your school.

• Administration costs have skyrocketed. In Derek Bok's book Underachieving Colleges... he notes how the numbers of faculty has stayed consistent per capita over the decades but administrative positions have exploded. Dirty secret that no one in academia will address. Businesses add people when they can demonstrate the people add value (e.g. revenue) to the system. Not so with Higher Ed.

I do not think we can lay blame on one area. But we do need to examine the costs of Higher Education. We need models that reflect the complexity of the Higher Ed ecosystem. Maybe providing a range of cost options would work. It sure works for consumer products. Feldstein's off to a good start. But we need to factor all the variables before we can make simplistic assumptions about whether college still pays off...not to mention the fact that a better educated public is something that no one seems to be factoring.

Does Academic Writing Style Prevent Knowledge Application

Rachel Toor has an excellent article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (online) which discusses the writing style of academics. This article explores some of the problems with academic writing and prescribes some solutions from Orwell, who evidently recognized the pompous and unclear nature of academic writing during his day.

While this subject might initially seem tangential to KM, I think it is central to the gap between practitioners and academics. I am not advocating we turn complex research or ideas into bulleted lists. But the passive and obfuscating writing style that academics use is not conducive to knowledge sharing. Fellow academics will admit to not reading journals as thoroughly as they should (and they are the primary audience!). It is rare to find practitioners who read academic articles.

The solution? Reward the idea and the application of the idea, not how complex we can make the idea sound. This might actually be possible as journals lose their print foothold (read dominance) and are forced to consider alternative audiences, channels, and revenue models. However, if we stripped away some of the complexity behind the description of academic ideas, maybe many of the ideas would look a little silly and underdeveloped. But that's ok. Because we could widen the audience and succeed in building upon and applying ideas across disciplines. The comments to Ms. Toor's article seem to support the idea that even academics understand the problems with their writing. But I really don't see change coming. Many people have gotten tenure with silly or underdeveloped ideas cloaked in pretentious sounding language.

Steve Jobs...one advisor Obama missed at landing...

The iPad and nationalized Health Insurance seem to have some strong similarities. Primarily, no one knows how useful or functional the thing will be. Both should have users asking the question "do I really need this thing?" Opinions over the iPad, like Washington, seems to be highly polarized.

Of course, this is where similarity ends. One was poorly packaged and sold to the public and one seems to be a hit already. Steve Jobs used a great marketing and hype machine to convince people that the iPad is something special. iPad specialness remains to be seen. But Obama could have taken a page from Steve Jobs' playbook: make it attractive, advertise it as functional, and make people think it is the best thing on the market.

The largest difference in my compare and contrast is the non-believers. iPad critics will write a few blogs, sigh how Apple is a cult of brainwashed people, and ultimately not buy the iPad (until ver. 3.0 comes out). Critics of healthcare recognize the importance of this bill to all users. So they are drawn to action for getting it right and getting input from all parts of healthcare.

Two important products. A huge set of important users. After the debut of the healthcare bill it seems to have fallen off the news cycle. Meanwhile, iPad stories are everywhere. Maybe we should change our coins...In Apple We Trust.