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Ask HN: Do you think higher education is seeing a permanent shift due to COIVD?

by mdrabla on 8/16/20, 12:22 AM with 4 comments

It's no secret that many of the uni's are in bad shape with bloated administrative costs. Do you think enough of them will fail to create a sustainable change in tuition costs/structure of higher education?

  • by Donthatme on 8/17/20, 11:18 AM

    I personally don't think so. I see roughly two categories:

    1) Professional type degrees such as health related occupations (medicine, dentists, nurses, etc) and engineering (mechanical, chemical, etc). These are occupations where you more or less need a relevant degree, and the salary has more or less priced in the cost of that degree.

    2) Jobs that require a degree as a screening mechanism. These are jobs that do not require highly specialized skills, but pay better than local average/better than minimum wage. There are usually a lot of interest in these jobs. A college degree acts as a filter to reduce the hiring pool to a manageable size. A lot of people in this group see the cost of college as a type of investment (large, upfront investment, long term higher annual salary).

    Coding related jobs is somewhat an exception to these groups. While a lot of big companies are more likely to want a degree, there has historically been a lot of opportunity for a self-taught developer to find a job. I think the vast majority of jobs still fall into one of the two buckets, however.

  • by muzani on 8/16/20, 8:34 AM

    Unis have been in a bubble for decades - what they sell is no longer worth the price tag. COVID seems to be a catalyst for this. But even with MOOCs and bootcamps, there isn't anything that replaces a university as a certification body.

    Going to MIT and following a MITx class, you can learn roughly as much, but the person who went to MIT is still far more certified. The difference is so big that MITx, which is free, might even act as a sales funnel to MIT.

  • by giantg2 on 8/16/20, 1:08 AM

    I don't think so. Any drop in supply will only be temporary so long as the demand stays the same. Other colleges will expand. Colleges don't have a lot of incentive to keep prices low due to the ease of getting student loans and the prestige factor (people want a degree with a good name to get a better job).

  • by vsskanth on 8/16/20, 3:17 AM

    If international students drop a lot, you will start seeing massive disruption in US higher education.

    This has partly happened due to covid and will fully manifest once tensions with China escalate.