As strange as it may sound, the lectures at universities is not the only thing students are looking for from a university.<p>I can sneak into most universities' general education classes for a semester and no one would notice or care. Why aren't students doing that instead of taking on debt? Or for that matter my not take all your courses online for mostly free?<p>1) it's extremely hard to finish a course when no one is pushing you to do your work. You may be able to finish a few abut not 4 years worth.<p>2) Employers(society) put a lot of weight on where someone got their degree. Students are looking at a university's reputation.<p>3) University is a social experience in addition to an educational one.<p>4) Many Students need additional help to learn in addition to the lectures.<p>There are more but I'll stop there.<p>So given the previous, you need to charge enough to recreate some of the other things that students need from a university. It's probably a few thousand a year but that's after automating as much as possible. It's not impossible but it's a lot harder than just putting a few lectures online.
Make a significant number of courses much more self-study oriented with pass/fail exams to demonstrate basic understanding.<p>Move towards projects (mostly individually done, but at least 1-2 larger student-team efforts) that are heavily guided and curated by 2-3 professors/teachers with the goal of requiring real effort and a portfolio-worthy finished effort.<p>Most professors at my institution barely, if even then, pull this off for MS students. Most undergrads are lost in the noise . . .<p>We ask too little of students and I kind of feel like we insult them with "check-list" courses. Students who struggle seem very passive to me - when I chat with them individually, I sense most are ambitious, but not particularly vested in the <i>practice</i> required for success. But they mostly bloom if nudged into a "just get going and try hard" effort mode.
expected students' courseloads should be selected by track allowing for part or full-time jobs, tracks can transition periodically (preferably with job placement help) . this should also normalize a 6-year degree.<p>University should include a course on participating in remote environments, with the option of being department specific. this should standardize the tooling across all departments to the best of its abilities. courses should exist for teachers to keep up to date with remote technologies<p>departments should have core courses, a couple of electives, and then prioritize interdisciplinary cross-listed courses combining any two departments. cross listing courses would replace general education requirements and would happen at the end of your time in school rather than the beginning. English with a graphic design focus, environmental science with a physics focus, history with a maths focus, public planning with a library sciences focus. for students who choose to be single disciplinary education, they should be designing their own independent and group study courses to close out their degrees.<p>every department should offer an introductory survey course targeted to students who are unsure of their discipline, that counts towards the graduation requirements<p>after your first year group work should be heavily prioritized<p>tutoring centers for every department. all books used by a department's core courses available in the tutoring centers.<p>create environmental career division students are working with lower division students<p>on transcripts for every class placed the student's grade and the average grade for the class, or alternatively don't provide letter number grades.<p>Courses of over 40 participants should be completely remote. There's no difference in taking a 300-person course online and taking a 300-person course in a room.<p>People should be able to rotate which season their summer is in. Capacity limits may apply to courses. Or students should be able to have vacation time, like as in a job
Online only. $10/month for unlimited access to lectures. No schedule, monitored testing, fully accredited. The ivory tower would come crashing down.