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How to start a school with your friends

prigoose.substack.com

31–40 of 78 posts

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#31

I always wondered why no one creates new universities in the US. It seems like in the 1800s every rich guy started their own university, many with unique missions. The existing university model in the US seems like it's ripe for disruption so I'm surprised no one has tried to create their own.

Good teachers are expensive, but on top of that, so are all the facilities. Being accredited is required for Pell Grants and student loans. Can’t be accredited without a lot of horse shit like fully staffed research libraries loaded with books no one will ever read. Yet another higher ed racket

Who decides these standards and what right do they have to do so?

Also, are employers really looking into if a prospect's school was accredited or not?

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#32

I always wondered why no one creates new universities in the US. It seems like in the 1800s every rich guy started their own university, many with unique missions. The existing university model in the US seems like it's ripe for disruption so I'm surprised no one has tried to create their own.

I'm guessing it's at least partially too high risk from a students perspective. Much of the point of an established university is credentials, a new one cannot give the same recognition. This means that to attract new students, and build a reputation, you have to have some other draw; either some world renowned experts, or cheap (even free or scholarships) tuition. Probably both. And if you want your graduates to be…

I forget his name or even when an where it was or how it ended but some kid wanted to start his own school. People were skeptical to say the least but he put in the work.

It turned out more than a few professional teachers were more than a little bit tired of how things work in the usual institutions. You can't even call it new ideas I think, they knew exactly what was wrong. The funny part was that that automatically became the main selling point.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or predatory/misleading payment schemes, a la Lambda School

What is predatory and misleading about it? I just looked it up and it's 17% of your next two years income. Seems pretty simple to me.

We should extort grown-ups to pay for the younglings. 1-2% of your earnings forever.

That way we get professionals who aren't a pack of hyenas looking to put the squeeze on everything an everyone. Those will rip you appart like a sheep with no effort at all.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#34

This is such a refreshing inversion of the ‘edtech’ trend—rather than trying to scale education through software, FractalU scales motivation through community. Makes me wonder: instead of designing better UIs for MOOCs or LLM tutors, maybe the real unlock is designing better social containers for learning.

> the real unlock is designing better social containers

FTFY.

Note - a lot of the classic social containers have been systematically disappearing since the 1970s in anything but rural areas for a variety of reasons. I'm not qualified to hypothesize the causes, but I do see the effects.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is predatory and misleading about it? I just looked it up and it's 17% of your next two years income. Seems pretty simple to me.

We should extort grown-ups to pay for the younglings. 1-2% of your earnings forever. That way we get professionals who aren't a pack of hyenas looking to put the squeeze on everything an everyone. Those will rip you appart like a sheep with no effort at all.

About 1-2% of earnings forever, tech workers will be on a path for this anyway, it just won't pay for younglings at all. Suppose you need a bunch of certs to remain accredited in a competitive field. Several of the relevant certs are always expiring on any given year, the costs go up but the wages don't, and the field just gets more competitive so you need all the certs and a degree. If wages also go down because of AI, if you find it difficult to retire.. then yeah, even when you've paid in full for your education once already, you're kind of doomed to keep renting it. Employers tend tend to pay this (for now), but if you're ever not employed you'll have eat the costs yourself as a prerequisite for ever getting employed

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should extort grown-ups to pay for the younglings. 1-2% of your earnings forever. That way we get professionals who aren't a pack of hyenas looking to put the squeeze on everything an everyone. Those will rip you appart like a sheep with no effort at all.

About 1-2% of earnings forever, tech workers will be on a path for this anyway, it just won't pay for younglings at all. Suppose you need a bunch of certs to remain accredited in a competitive field. Several of the relevant certs are always expiring on any given year, the costs go up but the wages don't, and the field just gets more competitive so you need all the certs and a degree. If wages also go down because of…

I neither have a CS degree nor have ever got a single certification and it's never hurt my ability go get SWE jobs, so I really don't know what you are talking about.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#37

I always wondered why no one creates new universities in the US. It seems like in the 1800s every rich guy started their own university, many with unique missions. The existing university model in the US seems like it's ripe for disruption so I'm surprised no one has tried to create their own.

Trump?

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 1-2% of earnings forever, tech workers will be on a path for this anyway, it just won't pay for younglings at all. Suppose you need a bunch of certs to remain accredited in a competitive field. Several of the relevant certs are always expiring on any given year, the costs go up but the wages don't, and the field just gets more competitive so you need all the certs and a degree. If wages also go down because of…

I neither have a CS degree nor have ever got a single certification and it's never hurt my ability go get SWE jobs, so I really don't know what you are talking about.

You may never be affected, it depends on what you do and how we as an industry decide to approach credentialism in the future. From the standpoint of many vendors though, it's just another possible source of revenue, so they aren't going to just leave the money on the table if they can find any way around it. Employers already have LOTS of applications for every job and are happy to filter with useless bullshit whether it makes sense or not.

I'd say it's currently the worst for SecOps people, senior data-engineers working closely with infrastructure, cloud engineers who specifically prefer to not focus on one platform, etc. Three main clouds each offering many cert levels, plus the major vendors in your adjacent spaces, it can add up pretty quick.

And just to be clear.. keeping up with changes is something I do consider table-stakes for working with tech. But I really do not like the hassle/expense of yet another bullshit administrative burden forever when life is full of such things as it is.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#39

I always wondered why no one creates new universities in the US. It seems like in the 1800s every rich guy started their own university, many with unique missions. The existing university model in the US seems like it's ripe for disruption so I'm surprised no one has tried to create their own.

Peter diamondis and ray kerzweil tried with singularity University but the accreditation process priced to much.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#40

I always wondered why no one creates new universities in the US. It seems like in the 1800s every rich guy started their own university, many with unique missions. The existing university model in the US seems like it's ripe for disruption so I'm surprised no one has tried to create their own.

The goal is never learning. You don't need to go to a university to learn effectively.It is credentials.
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