Online Education

Filed in archive Uncategorized on December 8, 2011

© Sean MacEntee

President Barrack Obama was looking for ideas on Online Education to help make American colleges less expensive and more productive? a meeting with college leaders this week. Could something comparable be in the works to push reform in higher online education? Race to the Top started in 2009, when the administration was looking for smart ways to spend stimulus dollars. Those related challenges are front and center for everyone from Occupy protesters to business leaders concerned about American competitiveness and expert opinion on what Obama or any president can do about the problem varies, from very little to quite a lot on online education. Where you stand depends on where you think the cause of online education lies - with inexorable economic forces that make it virtually inevitable college costs will rise faster than inflation, or with inefficiencies and shortcomings in higher online education itself that government policy could help correct. Still, the federal government spent $50 billion in grants to college students last year and more than $100 billion in loans, not to mention the billions more in aid to states and research in online education adding up lot of carrots. The online education structure also helped at least dilute, though not avoid, criticism that Washington was stepping on the states' toes.