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How to start a school with your friends

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Re: How to start a school with your friends

#51

Post by alexashka »

yupitsme123 wrote: post #14

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.

Because we already have too many.

You should ask why we don't close them instead.

Would the world be a better or worse place if all university business programs were shut down tomorrow? Follow the thought regarding advertising, marketing and psychology.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#52

Post by dangus »

CrazyStat wrote: post #15
jbellis wrote: post #9

Love to see it! Wonder how to reconcile the description of almost-negligible admin overhead with this description of a similar effort that warns, "We wanted to keep costs extremely low, so we had parent volunteers do all admin for the school. It's going really well, but it's an insane amount of work." From my experience both teaching kids and organizing things, that seems like a much more likely outcome. https://x.co…

FractalU isn't a school. It doesn't need to keep records, comply with miles of state regulations (employee and volunteer background checks, record keeping, mandatory exams, ...). It doesn't need to be able to demonstrate to other schools (or universities) what the students achieved. It doesn't need to demonstrate to the state that it's actually teaching the students something. It doesn't handle any money, so it doesn…

As a note, they do handle money. They charge $600 for a course on how to replicate their community elsewhere. I don’t know about tuition for other courses because the links are broken.

Some skepticism for me creeps in the more I peruse the fractal sites. Course links for the summer semester are broken, and a lot of the working content seems to be somewhat self-indulgent, reading more like a normal unremarkable friend group.

The MLM/cult vibes I’m getting are that the main purpose and monetary incentive seems to be in the mere existence of the “community” itself, and selling that aspiration as a $600 course. The website for the course (fractalcampus.com) is a bog-standard tech startup marketing landing page including “as seen on…”, testimonials, and other calls to action to buy this $600 course.

Notable with that course, we are talking about a paid course being sold where the only person with a true success story is the person selling the course. The Boston iteration seems to only consist of a weekly dinner so far.

Doesn’t that sound familiar, like every other influencer selling a self-help course we’ve ever seen?

I think if the paid course and stated analogy to YCombinator wasn’t a part of it I would be more enthusiastic, like, “yeah this thing is awesome, a real community that goes deeper than small talk, you’re all getting together and learning from each other and truly engaging.” But then the more I think about what they’re actually doing as actions rather than words, the more I feel like this whole thing isn’t 100% honest.

The founders’ biographies support the idea that they are a tech couple who exited with lucrative equity and are now landlords as their main job and that this is a glorified real estate course. “Co-living” is just a drop-in word for “landlord.”

“FractalU isn't a business or a nonprofit. In fact, it's not a formal organization at all.”

I’d put five bucks down that there’s an LLC or trust involved somewhere.

Idk, maybe I’m reading too deep into this, but there are a lot of scams in this world and I think this might be one of them.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#53

Post by aleph_minus_one »

dangus wrote: post #50
colechristensen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the question: who cares about accreditation? I'm not trying to be flippant, this is an actual question. Sure, getting a higher degree at another institution will have that requirement, as would a professional certification (medicine, law, professional engineering), but those are relatively narrow scopes. Isn't it true that in most cases nobody is going to care or even know enough to check accreditation?

Maybe this is news to people in the software industry, but a whole bunch of highly regulated (for good reasons) industries like medicine, teaching, and industries reworking professional licenses industries like civil engineering. You don’t want someone designing a bridge, performing open heart surgery, or flying a plane with 300 people on it who were trained by unverified schools.

> You don’t want someone designing a bridge, performing open heart surgery, or flying a plane with 300 people on it who were trained by unverified schools.

The risk tolerance varies a lot between people.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#54

Post by ndriscoll »

jbellis wrote: post #9

Love to see it! Wonder how to reconcile the description of almost-negligible admin overhead with this description of a similar effort that warns, "We wanted to keep costs extremely low, so we had parent volunteers do all admin for the school. It's going really well, but it's an insane amount of work." From my experience both teaching kids and organizing things, that seems like a much more likely outcome. https://x.co…

It sounds like this approach is more like home school pods whereas the person you quoted was trying to actually form a "school" and keep the state happy? If the focus is just on teaching, what kind of admin work is there to do? Since she says parents volunteered, I assume this is for kids, and operating under a homeschool model (i.e. the parents just tell the state they're the instructor) would be a viable way to avoid regulatory burden even if you hire an outside tutor/instructor.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#55

Post by dangus »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #53
dangus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is news to people in the software industry, but a whole bunch of highly regulated (for good reasons) industries like medicine, teaching, and industries reworking professional licenses industries like civil engineering. You don’t want someone designing a bridge, performing open heart surgery, or flying a plane with 300 people on it who were trained by unverified schools.

> You don’t want someone designing a bridge, performing open heart surgery, or flying a plane with 300 people on it who were trained by unverified schools. The risk tolerance varies a lot between people.

Sure, but you can logically figure out why many of those professions sought professional licensure and accreditation in the first place.

It’s the same concept as “regulations are written in blood.”

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#56

Post by corimaith »

typewithrhythm wrote: post #21
yupitsme123 wrote: post #14

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…

Also in the 1800s it was primarily other rich guys going in as part of their social upbringing, so it would be more like friends setting up a new social club.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#57

Post by baruz »

yupitsme123 wrote: post #31
monero-xmr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Who decides

Councils formed by the currently accredited schools decide.

> what right

The government started relying on these accrediting bodies with the GI Bill in 1952. They did not want the GIs to spend the money on bad educations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation...

> are employers really looking into

Didn’t yours? If they’re not body shops, companies will rely on the reputation of the school or pick out people from their own school. Unaccredited schools typically have poor reputations and usually churn out “graduates” who can’t attract the money to start businesses and hire people from those schools.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#58

Post by wtroughton »

The_Amp_Walrus wrote: post #30
CrazyStat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FractalU isn't a school. It doesn't need to keep records, comply with miles of state regulations (employee and volunteer background checks, record keeping, mandatory exams, ...). It doesn't need to be able to demonstrate to other schools (or universities) what the students achieved. It doesn't need to demonstrate to the state that it's actually teaching the students something. It doesn't handle any money, so it doesn…

a school is an institution that teaches people your definition of "actually a school" seems to arbitrarily include a lot of reporting and paperwork and commerce that have nothing to do with the bit where you teach people stuff

Education does not operate in a vacuum. Many students are incentivized by the social accreditation of completing a program. Institutions need some way to qualify that teaching is actually being done. Whether it be an examination, a certification, or bringing a project to completion.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#59

Post by AbstractH24 »

yupitsme123 wrote: post #14

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.

America did try this with moderation with all the online certificate programs and self-directed learning in the 2010s.

It would be interesting to look at the impact, success, and failure.

Re: How to start a school with your friends

#60

Post by evklein »

yupitsme123 wrote: post #14

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.

Learning isn't really a virtue of the culture. Most people go to school to get ahead of others. As such, there's two prongs that determine the worth of an education: is the institution accredited, and how prestigious is the institution/degree? The answer to these questions for FractalU is "no" and "not prestigious at all."

Not that that's a bad thing for FractalU. They seem like they know what they want it to be, and they're happy with it in its current state. I certainly think it's a great idea, though admittedly it does only really cater to a specific niche of people. In a better culture that values education I could see this almost being a universally enjoyed activity.

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