In a different dimension but quite related to our previous post ‘How Human Contact is Becoming a Luxury‘, Seth Godin post ‘Toward abundant systems‘ takes the example of college admissions to show how the world moves from an Industrial Age’s world of scarcity into a Collaborative Age’s world of abundance. But is it the right example?
“Space on the Harvard campus is highly valued and also scarce. But if we can break education out of the campus/scarcity mindset and instead focus on learning, learning at scale, learning that happens despite status not because of it–then we can begin to shift many of the other power structures in our society.”
It is true that the availability of free or very cheap online courses is an opportunity to scale the acquisition of knowledge. Still, admission to renowned university campuses remains more competitive than ever (in part because it is now global). The reason is probably that a major value of university is the human connection and network – something not so easy to scale – and for which a limited group of students is more adapted as it creates a denser relationship network.
Alumni groups still play important roles in society and in the professional world. While globalization may diversify universities of origins, those social groups are still very influential because they remain limited in size. Therefore, while access to knowledge becomes abundant, access to the social connection of university campuses becomes increasingly a luxury.
This aspect is probably not accounted for sufficiently in the development of online education programs. Developing the community and the alumni group can also be done virtually but this requires a lot of effort and possibly some face-to-face real-life interactions. This will remain, and while this can be made more efficient, it will always be a limit to scalability for educational institutions.
