The Linguist On Language

I see that President Obama is committing more money to education. He especial y wants more students to attend col ege.

I am not convinced that universities and col eges are best places to educate our societies in the arts and humanities. These institutions are often bastions of privilege. Professors can pursue obscure studies on subjects of little interest except to their peers, in other words, other people who are pursuing research on subjects of little interest. Students can get "credits" on courses that contain very little of what an average person would call knowledge.

I think it is time to look at other models that take advantage of 21st century technology and social interaction via the Internet. I think that what we are on to at LingQ, although we are just at the beginning, wil help to create a real y universal "university" where anyone who is real y interested can learn, and can learn from the most motivating and talented teachers. Learners, teachers, and content wil converge and be discovered on the Internet. Those learners who are not motivated need no longer be subsidized, and those teachers who just want to study some obscure subject for the sake of being reviewed by their peers, and who are not interested in their students, wil have to support their habit by themselves.

Universities want to raise fees because of the economic crisis. Their endowment funds and other sources of income are down. They wil either have to get more funding from the government or charge more in fees, or increase the size of classes. In most countries the fees for public universities are a fraction of the true cost of going to university. I wonder, if students had to pay the ful cost, let us say, over $25,000 per year, how many students would stil attend universities, especial y if they could achieve the same educational results for less money.

I know there are issues of credentials, but I think these issues can be dealt with separately and more cheaply.

Many of the courses offered at university, especially in the arts and humanities, are of little practical use. Much of the knowledge contained in these courses can be acquired by reading books. iTunes University is offering more and more courses online. A recent report points out that students get more out of spending time on their iPods than in lecture hal s. If it is language learning, there is LingQ and other online resources.

The average length of a university year is eight months, so that means that the university costs about $3,000 per month. The average student takes five courses, so the true cost is about $600 per month per course. Most students are undecided as to what courses they want to study, and even if they are decided, they often cannot get into the courses they want. They often end up having to take unpopular courses, given by a professor who does not want to teach, just to get their credits. Yet someone is paying $600 for each student to take each one of these courses.

Now let's assume that one of these courses is a foreign language. Typical y a student taking, say, Italian, would have 3-5 hours of class a week, plus access to a language lab. Now if I had the choice between spending $600 a month to attend a university language class or getting an iPod and learning the language via the Internet at places like LingQ, I know what I would do, especial y if I had to pay the money myself, or could pocket the money, as long as I achieve certain learning targets.

But it is not just languages. Most students study "liberal arts" or "humanities" at university.

The last statistic I saw showed that only 20% of university students studied engineering or science.

A humanities learning providence fund

How about a new approach to arts learning? We know that the majority of university students in North America study arts and humanities. The US spends $25,000 a year per postsecondary student, compared to $10,000 per year per K-12 student.

At the combined elementary and secondary level in 2005, the United States spent $9,769 per student, which was 38% higher than the OECD average of $7,065. At the postsecondary level, U.S. expenditures per student were $24,370, more than twice as high as the OECD average of $11,821.

I assume that in Canada the costs are less, probably around $20,000. Assuming an average of five years at a post-secondary institution, this would amount to $100,000 per student.

Now what if, say in Canada, on graduating from high school, every person got a humanities educational provident fund of $50,000, which they could use to purchase educational services, books, online courses, coaching, courses at different centres of learning or whatever, over their lifetime.

And what if this money could also be used for in-depth testing for the purpose of obtaining degrees, certificates, diplomas and the like. This money would earn interest and could be used at any time in the life of the citizen, but only for wel -defined educational expenditures.