Bill Gates: College Should Cost $2,000

Hillicon Valley - 9 August 2010

Bill Gates thinks that done right technology could go a long way to reducing the ever increasing cost of going to college and university. At the recent Technonomy conference held in San Francisco Bill Gates suggested that technology could reduce that cost of a post-secondary school education down to $2,000.

"College, except for the parties, needs to be less place-based," he said. Moving more learning activities online can bring down the soaring cost of a college degree. "Only technology can bring [college tuition] down, not just to $20,000, but to $2,000," he said, citing price tags as high as $50,000 for a year of college. Gates predicted that technology could soon make place-based learning five times less important for college and university students.

Source: Hillicon Valley

 

online college has not even begun to hit its stride yet. Big name universities like Drexel, have implemented online majors within the past 5 or so years. The drawback is that you aren't getting the classroom atmosphere and everything else that goes with it. Face to face group discussions are now handled via forums or conference chats. for working adults like me tho, online classes are A+. You can begin a MBA, M.S, PhD, all through online learning, at colleges that are nationally ranked now, so you don't have to worry about quality.

 

That might be true for most majors, but there are still many, many majors that require hands on learning. To name a few: chemistry, biology, engineering. You can't learn about that stuff online. How can you really mix chemicals with a computer simulation?

It would be nice if you can get a college degree for that little. Though in the field I'd like to get my master's and PhD in, I don't see how that's entirely possible.

 

lectures online and have the students attend the labs.

 

I agree. But they could just set aside a week or so where they would have to got to the college/university to do all the Lab work.

 

Right. But, what happens if you're going to an online college that's not in your state? Which nowadays makes sense. You'll have to do the labs completely on your own. You won't have your teacher/other students to help you out.

And what happens with classes like human anatomy, when maybe they only have their labs open at a certain time and you can't make it due to work or other obligations?

I think online degrees are awesome for many areas of study, but remain impractical for more of the applied/physical sciences and other types of degrees.

 

Im with you on that. If they can have sec to sec responses like you do in the classrooms then yeah Im game. however , i like being in the classroom and hearing and seeing the teacher explain the subject and I can immediately ask a question and immediately get a response or someone asking a question and i hear it and hear the response. that is true learning

 

Also what drives up the costs are the addition of classes that are not needed. Less credits would mean people could get working in their field and pump money into the economy.

 

good point

 

You take the class at a college near you and send them the credit. People do this often when they transfer colleges or do transient.

This isn't new. We already have this now. You take it next semester like people do now or go to another college like I did for human anatomy and physiology. My class was on a Sat.

 

I hate havbing to take the GRE to get in grad school. It is a big sham. Think about it....if you have your undergrad degree with a good GPA why do I need to prove myself again.

I heard that if colleges dont take the GRE as a standard for the grad school then there is some kind of repercussions. Im not sure what it is or are but it was something like not being accepted as a accredited school .

Im not sure what it was but it was good to hear and it sounded like extortion or some kind of muscle like the mob going at you for protection money.

 

I agree Bookworm, in many ways online courses are impractical. Those subjects you mentioned would really be a struggle to do online. Especially engineering, where a lot of the work is group work.Personally I dont think Engineering could ever go online..Employers would just laugh at you because it is a practical course that requires team work, not sitting behind a computer screen. The other courses are more feasible in my opinion, but I think your eduction would suffer if you studied some vocational courses online.

Also, the university experience makes you grow as a person because you get to meet people from different cultures. I know I changed as person after completing university. It made me more liberal.

 

exactly. online has its advantages but it can hurt the interpersonal skills that are needed in life.online will destroy the personl growth that is needed. I hate to put it on this level but it is true. for me I was an still a shy person. back then I was very shy. to get a date I just started asking every female out just to destroy my shyness. I was bum rushing females " yo whats your name whats your name" after rejection and success learned and gotten better. I made a lot of friends and what not. so online would killed that kind of growth

 

Another thing: If employers had to choose between an online graduate and a college graduate, I think they would go for the latter.

 

that's like saying an employer would be more inclined on hiring someone, from a prestigious institution like Yale, than someone from say....John Baptist Holy Roller College...

you are calling into play the practices involved in the application of academics, and that goes beyond online/on campus.

from what I understand, based upon my own personal experience, employers don't just go off what a piece of paper says. If it were that easy, everyone at my institution would be Ivy grads.

 

:smt023 Whenever I hired anyone, I never considered where they got their education. Experience, personality and attitude are far more important to a lot of employers than educational background. I hired several people who had no college degree over applicants who did have, based primarily on the direct experience they had in the position they were applying for and because I could see their attitude, work ethic and personality would be a better fit. There were also a few times I hired recent graduates who had no experience, but whose attitude impressed me. My theory was you can teach anyone to do a job, if they actually want to learn, and I was never disappointed in anyone I hired.

 

Interesting..
In the UK, upon graduation, the institute you went too is the most important thing. Banks are especially fussy, they just wont interview people from certain institutes. Its an unwritten law.Generally the Investment Banks look at the top 5 institutes in the UK.

 

Institutions still do have reputations in the states, I won't lie about that. Penn State has some pull and notoriety, that a smaller college won't have. But, it's not like that alone, is the deciding factor in getting a job or not. PSU graduates thousands and thousands of students a year after all. It's a combination of everything in the end.

I did read that areas like Wall Street, do tend to look for Ivy guys tho, but that's one very minute aspect of job market.

 

That's really interesting Madiba. I do know that some Ivy League schools do make a difference in certain fields, as Petty indicated. I worked in the medical field and where a physician earned his degree and where he completed his fellowships was the first thing that was considered when we recruited. However for non-physician positions that wasn't an important consideration. Even with nurses and physician assistants, it wasn't something they gave weight to as long as they had the necessary education, licensure, and experience.

 

yeah lets be honest about it..... we arent going to a doctor who went to pheonix online univeristy compared to a person who went to yale.

when it comes to being a teacher for highschool to me a person going to yale would be a fool to do so because he would not be getting the bang for the buck. a person can go to an unknown but good school to get a teaching degree and be a great teacher versus someone who went to yale and did not have to pay as much for the education.