Three thousand non-science major undergraduates at the University of Chicago have taken this class since 1996, and learned the science behind the forecast for a human influence on Earth's climate. The story combines physics, chemistry, biology, and Earth and atmospheric science.
The content of this class is now being served to the internet world at large. You can watch video lectures followed by quizzes to stimulate your understanding, and work your way through tutorial exercises letting you get hands-on with interactive models and simple mathematical ideas. You can work at your own pace, on your own time. You don't get University of Chicago credit, but it's free, and if you complete the exercises you can download a certificate of accomplishment signed by me.
Read it at Open Climate Science 101
Open Climate Science 101
By David Archer
(h/t Tom Hickey at Mike Norman Economics)
The trend is clearly towards classes being offered free online and my intent is to support that movement (despite the potentially negative effects for professors salaries/employment). Climate change will remain a primary concern for the foreseeable future. A better understanding of the basics will improve the dialogue and chances of working towards a positive resolution.
Yesterday I offered Noah Smith’s blog post, College is mostly about human capital, not signaling and mentioned that my own bias favors that view. Well, in an attempt to provide both sides of the story, here’s Bryan Caplan:
I say that Japanese college students are signaling conformity. If smart, hard-working, ambitious Japanese normally go to college, a smart, hard-working, ambitious Japanese who doesn't go to college signals that he's weird. In a notoriously conformist society like Japan, signaling conformity is probably even more important than it is in the U.S.
But what's wrong with Noah's story? Lots.
Read the rest at EconLog
Toga! Toga!
If Congress doesn't take action before July 1, many federal student loans will jump from a 3.4% rate to 6.8%, effectively doubling rates. The debate surrounding this issue has caught the attention of those in education, politics, and beyond. Many have taken to Twitter, sharing the latest updates, opinions, and musings. We've discovered 25 of the most informative and insightful Twitter feeds that you can check out to learn about what's going on in the student loan debate, right as it happens.
Read it at Online College Courses
25 Key Twitter Feeds for Following the Student Loan Debate
By Staff Writers
Related posts:
Zero Hedge - Student Debt Bubble Delinquencies Surge
James Bianco - Consumer Credit – Worse Than You Think
Mark Cuban - The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon
To replace Mom, young adults need to form new relationships. Close friends. Romantic partners, and eventually a spouse (which in turn leads to kids, another motivator). But it is very difficult to form these relationships fast(which you need to do in order to start a career fast) without sacrificing quality; if you're just randomly searching, it takes a long time to find friends and a lover who really click with you, especially if you're a smart person who clicks best with other smart people.
This is where college comes in. College is an intense incubator where smart people meet other smart people. The large number of leisure activities and the close quarters in which people live facilitate the formation of friendships and romantic relationships, while the exclusiveness of college makes sure that the people you're meeting are pre-screened to be the type of people with whom you are most likely to click. In the U.S., the "college experience" includes parties, trips, clubs, athletic events, religious fellowships, communal drug use, study groups, endless late-night conversations, and more esoteric events like the one pictured above. In Japan, it includes "go-kon" (group blind date) parties, "nomikai" (pub nights), and clubs. American college works better, but it's much the same sort of thing.
Read it at Noahpinion
College is mostly about human capital, not signaling
By Noah Smith
Having been afforded the privilege and opportunity to spend my four years of undergraduate “study” at a private university (Washington University in St. Louis), this story certainly fits with my bias. That being said, now five years removed from college, I believe in the importance of building human capital during those years even more than when I began.
During college I joined a fraternity (Alpha Epsilon Pi) and was part of a pledge class that included 20 other guys. At a recent reunion, it dawned on me that approximately 75% of my “brothers” were enrolled or had already completed graduate school. A similar percentage could be applied to my female cohort as well. This relates to the topic of “perspective” which Noah aptly describes as follows:
Before I went to college, I never knew people who went into the finance industry, or joined tech startups, or worked for the World Bank, or did sound engineering for movies, or taught English in foreign countries. In college I met people who did all of the above, and seeing them taught me a lot about the set of possibilities for human life. Simply knowing one's career choice set is a hugely important part of choosing the right career. And it's surprisingly hard to do. College is a great way to gain career and life perspective; if you go from high school straight to the workforce, you are basically assured of not meeting as diverse a group of high achievers.
Through all those “endless late-night conversations” I learned about perspectives and possibilities that may otherwise have never crossed mind. I witnessed and experienced intense passion and motivation towards an array of goals and relationships. By the end of the four years we (especially I) had all grown immensely together in ways that could not be taught in any classroom. Therefore I have to agree with Noah:
College is really about human capital, of the kind not conveyed in classes - motivation, perspective, and networking. Rather than a hideously, inefficiently expensive signaling mechanism, college is an ingenious technology for building the kinds of human capital that are scarce among smart people in rich countries.
First, the basic paradigm through which the economics profession sees itself and presents itself to society needs to change. “Rather than teaching economics 101 as an indoctrination in method, they should teach it as a course in philosophy of science where the subject is economics and its assumptions, and the tradeoffs and the flaws as well as the strengths are explored on behalf of the student,” Johnson says.
Second, economics must lose its fascination with deduction and reincorporate context into the profession. “Understanding the context of institutions, understanding economic history, and particularly the history of economic thought (where the subject is economic thinking embedded in the real context of the problems and vested interests of the day, the various challenges, the state of technology), would help people to develop a more humble and realistic of what economic thinking is all about,” Johnson says.
These changes will make it much more difficult for economists to forget that economics really is about “politics, politics, and politics,” Johnson says. “At the core, economics is about politics and about power, and the question for the economists is whose power are you going to serve as an expert.”
Read it at INET Blog
What are economists for, anyway?
By The Institute for New Economic Thinking
Although in many ways I adhere to the operational aspects of Post-Keynesian/MMT/MMR economics, this Fall I will begin attending the doctoral economics program at George Mason University. A primary reason behind my decision is a view similar to that of Robert Johnson regarding the importance of institutional analysis, a background in economic history and consideration of how politics and power affects economic decisions. While some readers may view GMU as serving the wrong powers, I believe the professors are very open to questioning the assumptions underlying various economics positions and I intend, at times, to challenge their views. Hopefully my experience over the next few years adheres to these suggested changes and I look forward to one day incorporating them in my own classes.
Right now there is a never ending supply of buyers. Students who can’t get jobs or who think that by going to college they enhance their chances to get a job. Its the collegiate equivalent of flipping houses. You borrow as much money as you can for the best school you can get into and afford and then you “flip” that education for the great job you are going to get when you graduate.
Except those great jobs aren’t always there. I don’t think any college kid took on tens of thousands of dollars in debt with the expectation they would get a job working for minimum wage against tips.
At some point potential students will realize that they can’t flip their student loans for a job in 4 years. In fact they will realize that college may be the option for fun and entertainment, but not for education. Prices for traditional higher education will skyrocket so high over the next several years that potential students will start to make their way to non accredited institutions.
While colleges and universities are building new buildings for the english , social sciences and business schools, new high end, un-accredited , BRANDED schools are popping up that will offer better educations for far, far less and create better job opportunities.
As an employer I want the best prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper.
Read it at blog maverick
The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon
By Mark Cuban
(h/t Abnormal Returns)
In A Free Market in Education I previously highlighted some of these opportunities for non-traditional education. An important source often forgotten in these discussions is the role of blogs. A majority of the blogs I follow and link to on this site represent university professors of economics and related subjects. These blogs have been and continue to be an immensely powerful resource for my personal education. Hopefully this blog will be a non-traditional educational source for many others in the years to come as I pursue my own goal of becoming an economics professor.
“Skillshare is solving a serious problem in the world right now: an education system that isn’t speaking to its students or taking advantage of the passion and skill that our fellow community members possess. Skillshare’s vision is to democratize education by empowering anyone to be a teacher.”
-Danya Cheskis-Gold
Read it at Forbes.com
Those Who Can, Skillshare
by Jesse Thomas
A friend and former classmate, Danya Cheskis-Gold, was recently interviewed about a relatively new educational venture called Skillshare. With our traditional educational system often struggling to provide an innovation-inspiring environment, Skillshare seeks to vastly expand the educational opportunities for all ages. Encouraging individuals to both teach and learn unique skills is a fascinating market-based approach to improving education within our society. Definitely check out the website...you may find a class to take for free or make some money teaching!
Update: While the President attempts to stem the tide in rising student debt, a few professors from respected universities are providing an even better solution...free-online courses. Aswath Damodaran (NYU) is offering his corporate finance and valuation courses this semester to anyone online. The links and necessary info to register can be found here: My small challenge to the "university" business model. Separately, David Evans (UVA) and Sebastian Thrun (Stanford) are teaching computer programming and how to build an online search engine in seven weeks. Information for their course can be found here: Udacity.
Towards the end of 2011, the number of posts on this blog trailed off as my schedule became busy. Apart from finishing the second to last semester of my Masters in Public Administration program, I was working on applications for PhD programs (which I hope to begin next fall). During this time a couple major events in my life occurred as well. On a positive note, I got engaged to an amazing woman and enjoyed a wonderful vacation with much of her family. On a sadder note, my family lost an incredible woman with the passing of my grandmother.
The start of a new year presents an opportunity for a fresh start to blogging and a chance to add some new features to the blog. Beginning this weekend you will see the first installments of my quote of the week and a weekly post highlighting my top reading recommendations. As the year progresses I also intend to post some book reviews. Hopefully this year will provide greater freedom time-wise to increase the frequency of posts detailing my own thoughts and observations. As always, I encourage readers to either post comments or e-mail me directly with questions, comments or suggestions.
As I look to improve my own blog, the beginning of 2012 marks the return to blogging of Dr. Francis Fukuyama at The American Interest. Fukuyama has spent time at several “institutions dedicated to public policy: the State Department, the Rand Corporation and the Rand Graduate School, George Mason’s School of Public Policy, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and now Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.” He has taken the past two years off from blogging, in part, to write the first volume of his book, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution. Although getting through this monstrous book may appear a daunting task, the effort is very rewarding for anyone sharing an interest in the history of political economy.
While I encourage following Fukuyama’s blog, I want to specifically draw attention to his first post of the year titled “Why Public Administration Gets No Respect But Should.” Much of the information I read on blogs or in the media, and even comment on here, is more directly related to public policy. Discussions tend to revolve around which policy is best and, as Fukuyama points out, ignore how easily or effectively a given policy can be implemented. Sheer impracticality of implementation renders many of the most well thought out policies ineffective.
As I approach the completion of my Master’s in Public Administration and head towards a PhD, the importance of public administration is certainly a belief I share. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, I think most Americans (probably most people) will agree that government (on any level) could be more effective and efficient. Improving education in public administration and incorporating these topics into policy conversations will go a long way towards improving governance. I fully intend to be part of this effort in the years ahead.
Happy New Year!
