This is just absurd. Non-accredited, branded schools will provide better education for less money? Really? I assume he's referring to the growing for-profit college industry.
Yet for-profit colleges are actually the biggest culprits driving up the student debt. Students at for-profit colleges run up more debt, are more likely to drop out, and are more likely to end up under-employed than those at traditional universities.
This paragraph also bothers the crap out of me:
> The competition from new forms of education is starting to appear. Particularly in the tech world. Online and physical classrooms are popping up everywhere. They respond to needs in the market. THey work with local businesses to tailor the education to corporate needs. In essence assuring those who excel that they will get a job. All for far far less money than traditional schools.
Yes, students need relevant, modern, education, but education that is "tailored" to corporate needs is a little worrisome. Extremely targeted education might be sweet for the corporations hiring the graduates, but it sucks for the students themselves.
Economists draw a distinction between general human capital and specific human capital. General capital includes things like math and critical thinking, skills that can be applied in a variety of situations. Specific capital includes things like how to use a particular piece of software or knowing which forms need to be filled out for a requisition.
General capital benefits employees because the employee is free to take his capital and go elsewhere; the skills are transferable. This is what we see in silicon valley where companies acquire startups just for their employees.
Specific capital, on the other hand, benefits the employer since the capital is only valuable to a specific industry or company so the employee is limited in where he can take his skills.
Everyone needs a mix of general and specific capital. But the balance has implications for the economy as a whole.
One of the things that traditional universities have been pretty good at is general capital. This provides flexibility and resiliency to the economy. People can move between jobs and even careers, from dying industries to growing ones. They can fill jobs that hadn't even been invented when they were in school. And they can actually acquire specific capital more readily (the "ability" to learn).
Shifting focus to specific capital by allowing companies to control our educational system threatens to turn the entire country into one big company town, and that's a little frightening.
EDIT: Typo