Timothy Smith writes The Echo Boom Bomb, a blog featuring financial, economic and socioeconomic analysis of the Millennial generation (also known as Echo Boom Generation or Generation Y). The Echo Boomers or Millennials are people born between 1982 and 1995. Mr. Smith currently advises corporations and organizations on how to market products, services and ideas to the Millennial generation. Mr. Smith recently interviewed Dr. Raymund Paredes Texas Commissioner of Higher Education and Salman Khan of Khan Academy
Interview With Dr. Paredes
Many media have finally recognized the education bubble and the potential that it may hurt our economy more than the housing bubble. However, two experts in the field of education know this and are trying to change the way we see education – Dr. Raymund Paredes and Salman Khan.
Dr. Raymund Paredes is the Texas Commissioner of Higher Education (you can read his full bio here) and we spoke briefly about the challenges and opportunities with the educational system.
Tim: What are some problems in higher education that we’re currently facing?
Dr. Paredes: I’m concerned about public higher education and some of the problems are different than those in private higher education. I think one of the biggest challenges is being more cost efficient and adopting technology and delivering high quality education at the same or lower cost. Currently, state funding for education is in decline.
The second major challenge facing all education is completion rates: some students enter higher education and never finish their programs. And these completion rates are coming under greater and greater levels of scrutiny.
Tim: How can we address these problems?
Dr. Paredes: We have institutions engaging in innovative ways of teaching, for instance, some institutions will record the fifteen best lectures in their field and all the students will use those videos for their course material. You can reproduce that material for thousands and thousands of students and supplement those videos with online tutoring, reducing the cost of higher education. We’re going to have to increase our use of free online courseware like the Khan Academy.
We also need to use our current facilities more effectively; consider the drop off over the summer. We know that many students are working full time and part time, but if they’re working they can go to school full time. We need to either reduce or hold down the costs.
Tim: What about the time frame for a college degree? Isn’t it too long?
Dr. Paredes: We need to expand tuition rebate programs so if we have students who can handle the course load we ought to give them an incentive to do that; expand tuition rebate programs so we reward students who finish programs faster. We also need competency based programs, as there’s no evidence that a student needs 15 weeks to master a subject – they may be able to master it much faster. If they can master it faster, then they should be able to move on to something else.
Tim: Let’s look at a difficult question – the need for education (i.e.: Liberal Arts). I’ve heard some critique that education fails to match up with the skills needed in the market place. How do you address critics that say education in these fields is becoming unnecessary?
Dr. Paredes:The answer to that is easy. First of all we’re not training people just for work. We’re training people to be good citizens. We’re training people to be ethical. We’re training people to be effective in a global culture.
Second, as far as liberal arts, I agree we need to infuse more marketable skills into the liberal arts programs. For instance, students in English can take courses in technical communications and learn how to create online reports or corporate communication. Regardless of what their majors are, students need marketable skills. Keep in mind that a lot of presidents of Fortune 500 companies are liberal arts majors – some of these are marketable.
A third point we need to do a better job to show students where the jobs are.
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I appreciate the time that Dr. Raymund Paredes took to discuss these issues that are of growing importance and he makes many excellent points about our current education system. These issues cannot be solved “in the future” – they must be resolved now before this bubble pops (one important note here is that medical school is immune from the education bubble). As I noted in Is the Educational Bear Stearns Collapsing ?, the education bubble is looking like the housing bubble more and more everyday with rising tuition prices, a declining market value, and more debt being used as the answer to solve the growing expense issue.
Interview With Salman Khan
This invites the second interview with Salman Khan of Khan Academy Khan Academy is free. Yes, you read that correctly – Khan Academy is free. It teaches numerous topics through video instruction and plans to expand. It might offer a solution to the dilemma we currently face – free education that anyone can access while possibly helping schools improve and lower educational costs. Salman Khan addressed what Khan Academy can offer and where he wants it to go.
Tim: There’s been a lot of talk about the unemployment rate of college graduates (the AP reported 53.6% of college graduates under 25 were unemployed or underemployed). As we consider education, what opportunities do you see for education’s future?
Salman Khan: I think the core issue with the unemployment rate is that we’ve told everyone that if you want a good job the key is a college degree. What we see is a huge disconnect between what the employers are looking for and what colleges are offering or providing their students. For instance, the less practical degree paths are not held in as high of regard and can create too many unknowns for employers. So there’s opportunity in proving what you know and when you have credentials like that you have someone who can signal better to employers.
Tim: Several teachers have mentioned that students are often distracted by impertinent material in classrooms, such as the teacher’s clothes or the emotions of the instructor on a given day. Your videos show material on a simple black background, free from distractions. What feedback have you received about this unique approach to education?
Salman Khan: I did that inadvertently and the feedback has been positive. We have had researchers tell us that it lacks distractions. If you look at other educational content, sometimes it’s hard to hear them, sometimes it’s hard to see them, while there’s a certain focus to the videos. There’s no distraction of computer graphics, though we do have images relevant to what we’re covering and people appreciate that.
Tim: What has been your favorite moment in building the Khan Academy?
Salman Khan: I think it’s been the power we’ve been able to attract. A year ago I knew it that I could do the Khan Academy for a non-profit, but it was open to debate as to whether we could attract the power and potential that Google or others can attract. Now we’ve proven that we get the best people that money can’t buy and it’s been amazing to work with these people who want to devote themselves to this effort.
Tim: Ten years from today where do you see Khan Academy in its impact?
Salman Khan: I’d like to see it all across the world in different languages. Anyone at any age can go and learn while the system learns about the learner, providing an efficient lesson and learning experience with exercises, games, videos, and simulations. We want to build credentials and reputation in the future and I hope that forms the core of what can happen in the typical school – help them become more project based.
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Both Dr. Paredes and Salman Khan offer solutions to the problem we find in higher education – an outdated model that doesn’t always connect students to employers (or give employers what they need) and a system that’s growing in cost, while failing to offer more opportunities to students. While the AP statistic shows the scary number of unemployed or underemployed college students, it doesn’t account for their student loan balances. Ultimately, if we don’t act on these solutions to this growing educational problem, this bubble could create a larger mess than the housing bubble.
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Tim Smith sent me a follow-up on Doctor Paredes, his proposal for a $10,000 bachelors degree. That is about what Holy Cross cost, exclusive of room and board, in the early seventies.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.
Originally published on Forbes.com on August 16th, 2012