Possibly more information than you wanted. I teach at a community college. Typically people think of Stanford or Large State University when they think of higher education. Around 1/3 of all higher education students are community college students. The smaller, regional state universities make up a large portion too.
The last part of your last sentence caught my attention. We don't measure only the students who actually finished the class. Anyone who is registered after the drop/add period is counted in the statistics. A student who drops my class next week (this is the first week of class at my college) is counted as a failure on my part.
Now at my college I'm dealing with a segment of the population that the big universities don't deal with. Two-thirds of our students place into pre-college math classes. Tonight is the first day of class for my elementary algebra class. It's at the 8th - 9th grade level. The class is a blended one. It meets once a week in person and is online the rest of the time.
My experience is that 60% of the students took this class because it doesn't meet as often as the face-to-face sections and therefore they think it is easier. The remaining 40% took it out of time necessity. Their life situation is such that they need more flexibility on when/where they learn. Around 30% of the class will pass with little to no active help on my part. 50% will fail and 20% will pass due partially to my efforts.
I have devised a model for higher education that incorporates MOOCs and retains the need for teachers; though fewer of them. In my talks with the Office of the Chancellor several years ago there was no interest in pursuing my ideas. I do believe higher education is going to evolve but I don't think MOOCs alone are the way to go.
Speaking for myself, I did city college then transferred to UC. The difference in the quality of education was minimal, but the difference in the quality of the students was pretty significant. Even then, there were many very intelligent people who could get good grades but seemed to be going through the motions and learning at a pretty superficial level.
I think there are a few things that benefit a society as a whole: roads/power/infrastructure, fire/police depts, arguably healthcare, arguably a standing military, others--I think education is definitely one of those. Education can mean different things to different people, but I tend to think of it as the ability to efficiently obtain the information/expertise necessary to pursue large goals.
For example, if I want to build a new kind of car, there's all kinds of stuff I need to learn. Traditionally, I might go to a university known for doing good car research and I might learn enough to get a degree. The knowledge I've acquired in the pursuit of this degree does not necessarily represent the optimal knowledge mix for achieving my goals. Therefore, I've always viewed 'school' in general as a subpar use of my time--probably why I did so crappy in school. Instead, I've been interested in the minimum viable education needed to achieve my specific goals. This doesn't mean a superficial study of the topics, it means narrowing the focus to the areas that are key for accomplishing specific goals.
MOOCs seem to be a great way to do this--a happy medium between a linear education and random internet research. An additional benefit is that it can bring high quality education to the whole world for little to no marginal cost. Like I said, I think education lifts all boats, and this applies to educating the world as a whole also. The world will still need teachers, but it will be less of them, as you suggest.
The last part of your last sentence caught my attention. We don't measure only the students who actually finished the class. Anyone who is registered after the drop/add period is counted in the statistics. A student who drops my class next week (this is the first week of class at my college) is counted as a failure on my part.
Now at my college I'm dealing with a segment of the population that the big universities don't deal with. Two-thirds of our students place into pre-college math classes. Tonight is the first day of class for my elementary algebra class. It's at the 8th - 9th grade level. The class is a blended one. It meets once a week in person and is online the rest of the time.
My experience is that 60% of the students took this class because it doesn't meet as often as the face-to-face sections and therefore they think it is easier. The remaining 40% took it out of time necessity. Their life situation is such that they need more flexibility on when/where they learn. Around 30% of the class will pass with little to no active help on my part. 50% will fail and 20% will pass due partially to my efforts.
I have devised a model for higher education that incorporates MOOCs and retains the need for teachers; though fewer of them. In my talks with the Office of the Chancellor several years ago there was no interest in pursuing my ideas. I do believe higher education is going to evolve but I don't think MOOCs alone are the way to go.