The recent scatter-shot of pronouncements from the McGuinty government on The Future of Ontario Universities (and CAUT/UWOFA's reliably hysterical reaction to same) is a good opening for a FUBar on a topic dear to our hearts; whither PSE?
The article by William Watson makes a point that has always seemed immensely sane to me: let some Ontario Universities go private/non-profit, rather than expect a Central Planning approach to produce something good.
However, if one believes that even the US's best-PSE-on-earth system is not delivering value for dollar any more, this makes less sense, and Schumpeter, among others, clearly believe that. This seems based on the observation that the cost of a BA has been going up faster than damn near everything else - but ignores the other side of this; the ROI on a BA.
One active front in this discussion centers on technological change in PSE, which is mostly centered on more intensive use of online - social media - remote learning - etc. Enter the famous but scary MOOC's.... (Massive Open Online Courses - I had to look that up) (see article 1 and article 2). The govt bureaucrats love that one, just think of all the money to be saved. Jonathan Rees (a history prof) is sceptical, but his doubts arise from a particular view of the purpose of PSE that is not shared by said bureaucrats, I suspect.
So: What's up for the future of PSE, and should we all be thinking about what our lectures would look like on a video screen? 'Slivinski's Greatest Hits in IO' has a nice ring to it, but would you hire someone with a transcript full of MOOC's? Ay, there's the rub....
See you @ the FUBar.
