Mark Belling is a conservative radio talk show host in the Milwaukee area. In my opinion he's one of the best, and he has a solid resume--has filled in for Rush Limbaugh in the past.
He argues here that colleges and universities are killing themselves. I think he has a plethora of solid points.
At any rate, here's his take:
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Canceling school is the beginning of the end for many universities--Traditional campuses are the next dinosaur institutions
Is the traditional four-year university the next institution to be driven under by disruptive technology? As Uber and Lyft have killed the taxi business, Netflix and the streamers are killing cable and satellite TV, free online media is wiping out traditional newspapers, as print magazines go under, are universities like UW-Milwaukee, Madison, Marquette and the rest the next dinosaurs?
It is better than 50-50 that half of American universities will cease to exist in 20 years as we know them today. The beginning of their end is going on right now and they don't even know it. The decision to suspend in-person education this spring and likely cancellation of it at many universities this fall is the most disastrous decision these schools could make. They are literally inventing the model that will kill them.
If online learning is as viable as regular teaching in a brick-and=mortar classroom, why do we even need these existing universities? There are already many universities running entirely online degree programs and their students seem quite satisfied. If UW-Madison bars students from campus this fall, they will merely be offering the same program as the existing online schools.
But there's a big BUT coming. The online schools don't have to maintain hundreds of acres of campus, all those lavish buildings or most of the other physical expenses of a school like Madison, or Marquette, or Lakeland, or Carroll. All they have to do is hire faculty and a bunch of Zoom cameras and their spending is done. Without the burden of maintaining campuses and buildings, they can put all of their resources into actual teaching.
Here's what will happen. The online schools will start bidding wars to hire the best teachers. The ones that are really good and teach in degree programs students actually want will command huge salaries. How does Marquette compete with them?
The online universities don't have the cost of maintaining student unions, sports teams, police forces, campus malls or all of the other amenities of traditional schools. But, given that the traditional schools won't be offering any of that stuff this fall either, they have lost all of the advantages of having that stuff in the first place.
What's Wisconsin without Badger sports, the student unions and campus life? It's just a sprawling mess of empty buildings in a city that has legalized rioting.
Here is a list of the other factors that will doom these schools.
1. GERM PHOBIA. We are treating the COVID overreaction as the new normal. We are culturalizing people to social distance every time the latest bug comes through. This will make the concept of dense campuses with tens of thousands of residents unattractive to a new generation that is being taught to view their fellow human as a mashup of germs.
2. DECLINING ENROLLMENT. The trend we see in elementary and high schools is about to hit the colleges. The millennial generation has had far fewer children than any other American generational group. There will simply be fewer total students to go to universities. There is no way around the reality that with fewer overall customers, some schools will close.
3. THE THOUGHT POLICE. Radicals are terrorizing conservative and even moderate students (and faculty). An incoming Marquette freshman has even gotten death threats after posting a pro-Trump video. With this kind of repression going on, many young people will simply decide that traditional universities are hostile and unwelcoming to them. Many will opt to learn online where the goon squads can't reach them. Offering Catholic values was once a selling point for a school like Marquette. Abandoning those values and becoming hostile to them eliminates the selling point and creates one more reason to not go.
4. COST. Many young people now in high school, and their families, have seen the crushing amount of student loan debt carried by millennials. They will decide it is simply not worth it to borrow $80,000 a year to go to a place like Marquette.
5. WORKPLACE CHANGES. As we move to an economy that is more tech-driven, there will be a growth of specialty schools that eschew traditional liberal arts programs and train people directly for the types of jobs our economy needs. Secondly, we are already seeing extreme shortages in the skilled trades. The need to put up buildings, service HVAC equipment and install roofs is not going away. Many young people will see tremendous opportunity and pay in these fields because of the worker shortage. They will skip college and instead go into these fields.
6. BLOAT. The existing colleges and universities are grotesquely overstuffed with administrators and the faculty teaching load is disgracefully light. With enrollment about to crash, competition about to increase and new online schools that have none of those costs, the traditional universities will never be able to cover their expenses.
7. PROPAGANDIZING. Many parents and students don't want to put up with the sewer of political correctness that has displaced actual teaching at glorified indoctrination camps like Madison. Online schools that skip the ideology and focus on the teaching will have tremendous appeal to the half of this nation that doesn't hate America.
Conclusion: The traditional university is the buggy whip about to be made obsolete by the car. The decision to essentially abandon in-person learning for a year will kill off whatever advantages the traditional schools once had. Maybe schools like Harvard and Stanford can hang on. UW-Oshkosh? Marquette? Ripon? They look to me to be dinosaurs wandering a world about to render them extinct.
It is better than 50-50 that half of American universities will cease to exist in 20 years as we know them today.
(Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show.)
He argues here that colleges and universities are killing themselves. I think he has a plethora of solid points.
At any rate, here's his take:
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Canceling school is the beginning of the end for many universities--Traditional campuses are the next dinosaur institutions
Is the traditional four-year university the next institution to be driven under by disruptive technology? As Uber and Lyft have killed the taxi business, Netflix and the streamers are killing cable and satellite TV, free online media is wiping out traditional newspapers, as print magazines go under, are universities like UW-Milwaukee, Madison, Marquette and the rest the next dinosaurs?
It is better than 50-50 that half of American universities will cease to exist in 20 years as we know them today. The beginning of their end is going on right now and they don't even know it. The decision to suspend in-person education this spring and likely cancellation of it at many universities this fall is the most disastrous decision these schools could make. They are literally inventing the model that will kill them.
If online learning is as viable as regular teaching in a brick-and=mortar classroom, why do we even need these existing universities? There are already many universities running entirely online degree programs and their students seem quite satisfied. If UW-Madison bars students from campus this fall, they will merely be offering the same program as the existing online schools.
But there's a big BUT coming. The online schools don't have to maintain hundreds of acres of campus, all those lavish buildings or most of the other physical expenses of a school like Madison, or Marquette, or Lakeland, or Carroll. All they have to do is hire faculty and a bunch of Zoom cameras and their spending is done. Without the burden of maintaining campuses and buildings, they can put all of their resources into actual teaching.
Here's what will happen. The online schools will start bidding wars to hire the best teachers. The ones that are really good and teach in degree programs students actually want will command huge salaries. How does Marquette compete with them?
The online universities don't have the cost of maintaining student unions, sports teams, police forces, campus malls or all of the other amenities of traditional schools. But, given that the traditional schools won't be offering any of that stuff this fall either, they have lost all of the advantages of having that stuff in the first place.
What's Wisconsin without Badger sports, the student unions and campus life? It's just a sprawling mess of empty buildings in a city that has legalized rioting.
Here is a list of the other factors that will doom these schools.
1. GERM PHOBIA. We are treating the COVID overreaction as the new normal. We are culturalizing people to social distance every time the latest bug comes through. This will make the concept of dense campuses with tens of thousands of residents unattractive to a new generation that is being taught to view their fellow human as a mashup of germs.
2. DECLINING ENROLLMENT. The trend we see in elementary and high schools is about to hit the colleges. The millennial generation has had far fewer children than any other American generational group. There will simply be fewer total students to go to universities. There is no way around the reality that with fewer overall customers, some schools will close.
3. THE THOUGHT POLICE. Radicals are terrorizing conservative and even moderate students (and faculty). An incoming Marquette freshman has even gotten death threats after posting a pro-Trump video. With this kind of repression going on, many young people will simply decide that traditional universities are hostile and unwelcoming to them. Many will opt to learn online where the goon squads can't reach them. Offering Catholic values was once a selling point for a school like Marquette. Abandoning those values and becoming hostile to them eliminates the selling point and creates one more reason to not go.
4. COST. Many young people now in high school, and their families, have seen the crushing amount of student loan debt carried by millennials. They will decide it is simply not worth it to borrow $80,000 a year to go to a place like Marquette.
5. WORKPLACE CHANGES. As we move to an economy that is more tech-driven, there will be a growth of specialty schools that eschew traditional liberal arts programs and train people directly for the types of jobs our economy needs. Secondly, we are already seeing extreme shortages in the skilled trades. The need to put up buildings, service HVAC equipment and install roofs is not going away. Many young people will see tremendous opportunity and pay in these fields because of the worker shortage. They will skip college and instead go into these fields.
6. BLOAT. The existing colleges and universities are grotesquely overstuffed with administrators and the faculty teaching load is disgracefully light. With enrollment about to crash, competition about to increase and new online schools that have none of those costs, the traditional universities will never be able to cover their expenses.
7. PROPAGANDIZING. Many parents and students don't want to put up with the sewer of political correctness that has displaced actual teaching at glorified indoctrination camps like Madison. Online schools that skip the ideology and focus on the teaching will have tremendous appeal to the half of this nation that doesn't hate America.
Conclusion: The traditional university is the buggy whip about to be made obsolete by the car. The decision to essentially abandon in-person learning for a year will kill off whatever advantages the traditional schools once had. Maybe schools like Harvard and Stanford can hang on. UW-Oshkosh? Marquette? Ripon? They look to me to be dinosaurs wandering a world about to render them extinct.
It is better than 50-50 that half of American universities will cease to exist in 20 years as we know them today.
(Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show.)
