the nearly-free university & the neofeudal higher education cartel

Guest blog post from OfTwoMinds.com of Charles Hugh Smith with an interesting take on Higher Ed.

The blog post was titled as 'The Nearly-Free University' and is sure to stir up some opposition to the complimentary course provisions from the likes of NYU (Read Damodaran), Stanford, and MIT who contribute to Open Course Ware motion (read OCW consortium).

http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov12/nearly-free-university11-12.html

Although this is a radical point of view, it is not a radically new opinion because a similar opinion was presented by NYU's Aswath Damodaran here where he argued that the monopoly based university business model is a failure.

The guest post is highlighting a new trend, which will take time to establish. The displacement of this cartel will take significant time - may be even decades. However, if debt were to shape up the US as it is attempting to shape up the EU region, then the displacement may be expedited.

As an extension to this vision, it is possible that higher education in US will have majority of foreign buyers. Already, there are rants, which are going viral, about 'Asians in the library'

Although the government is actively dissuading the foreign buyers (amounting to $23 billion in just tuition fees) through a policy-oriented attack, they will still come in hoards. Read an article from The Economist here with a sub-text that shutting out foreign brains is a good way to foster mediocrity.

Enjoy the read. Leave a comment or two if you like.

robbed by the FCC...

Yes, the American consumers consumers were robbed by the FCC from cheaper Internet-access and communication charges. Instead, the FCC ended up making the two telecom giants get a tighter grip on the consumers than ever before with the spectrum auction's results.

Mobile-phone companies have long opposed open access. Verizon even sued the FCC last year in a bid to block a move toward open access. It failed, then did an about-face, promising to open its network to third-party devices and applications in the future.

Verizon wireless was awarded the largest chunk of the spectrum auction and also, allowed to make a decision about accessibility to its spectrum by others. This is not in line with what Google tried to petition against.

The Economist notes:
"ONE of the dirtiest tricks played on American consumers is the way their country’s mobile-phone companies force them to use phones sold through the companies’ stores, then lock them into two-year contracts with punitive cancellation fees. Asians and Europeans—who can take their mobiles from one provider to another, and use them on different networks around the world—shake their heads in amazement at Americans’ meek acceptance of such anti-competitive practices."

As it is the interest-rate cuts have been making me skeptical about allowance for market forces to thrive by themselves. The spectrum auction fiasco further disturbs me as bureaucratic intervention and incestuous relationships have created this broad daylight robbery from the consumers!