Step One: Outsourcing the Grading
I seriously doubt that the outsourcing of education will end here:
Prices vary per course, but Virtual-TA estimates the program costs a university about $12 per student per assignment. Six assignments for 20 students would cost $1,440. EduMetry graders receive from $500 to $1,000 a month, depending on hours worked, according to GlobalPost, a news service.
At one point, I might have worried about these sorts of jobs going overseas, but I've been looking at the cost of a University education (I have a teenage daughter a couple years away from that) - and the costs are absurd. The next logical step is streaming video to multiple locations from a single good professor - and when that happens, the cost of an education might finally leave the stratosphere.
Can't happen too soon, IMHO...
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Comments
Re: Step One: Outsourcing the Grading
[HKN] May 4, 2010 3:37:12.470
why go to school and graduate at all? When all the jobs go overseas you better move ...
Re: Step One: Outsourcing the Grading
[James Robertson] May 4, 2010 6:46:08.033
Prices will find their level. At the moment, in the US at least, University prices are way, way too high
Re: Step One: Outsourcing the Grading
[W^L+] May 4, 2010 16:32:05.392
That's supply and demand at work. Nearly everyone wants a college education, so prices will rise until that obstacle reduces the number of students.
Demand would be lower if we admitted that the purpose of college isn't job-training*, but training independent thinkers who can challenge assumptions. The runoff would flow into trade / technical schools, where those who only want a job should be going anyway. In either case, graduates need jobs, and our economy hasn't been producing them in sufficient numbers.
* Employers would have to change their hiring processes, and I don't see that happening.
Re: Step One: Outsourcing the Grading
[James Robertson] May 4, 2010 17:27:56.032
Actually - a lot of what's driving cost up is the way the loan system works. It effectively sets a "floor" that Universities know they can get.
Same Thing
[W^L+] May 4, 2010 17:45:36.582
That's effectively the same thing. Most families that have college students (mine included) are stretched to the breaking point, and some are now finding that even with every possible grant and loan dollar, they still can't send little Johnny or Julie to college.
And most college graduates (including me) are trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. At some point, the combination of the two is going to make college attendance untenable for many that would otherwise have gone.