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👉 The Unbundling of Harvard Has Begun

COVID19 has driven universities online but they can't compete with modern influencer-lead alternatives

Brett Goldstein

Jul 13, 2020

Yo! ✌️ I’m Brett! I am a Product Manager, User Psychology consultant and former Cognitive Science researcher. Social Studies is a semi-weekly newsletter for tech workers looking to stay up on the news and build more human-centered products.

I synthesize the most important developments in tech (with a special focus on Tech Twitter) and share frameworks from psychology, economics, and other social sciences to better understand them.

✨ What Happened on Tech Twitter Last Week

Here’s the main story:

📉 The education bubble reached a tipping point - Harvard announced all classes would be online but tuition would not be lowered. More students are reconsidering the value of higher education than ever before.

🤯 What the hell is going on? - David Perell wrote that the abundance of information on the internet has been eroding the value of higher education for some time.

📚 Education will need to be reimagined - Online education is in its infancy. The best programs will adapt to the new medium rather than copy and paste from the old IRL format.

🎓 The unbundling of universities has begun - A new crop of (social) media celebrities like Erik Torenberg and David Perell are unbundling universities by creating communities and programs around specific subject areas.

📉 The education bubble reached a tipping point

Harvard announced that it would continue 100% online learning in the Fall but keep tuition prices the same - more universities are expected to follow suit.

Zak Slayback 🇺🇸 @zslayback

Harvard just announced that all classes will be online for 2020-2021. Tuition will remain $50,000.

There’s been a growing bubble in higher education for some time, but this may be the tipping point. The cost of tuition has been rising for years, but the value hasn’t.

Chris Hockley @chris_hockley

@balajis Multi-generational households seem like fairly accessible leverage against runaway education, childcare, and healthcare inflation.

As universities shift to online education until the pandemic is over, the value of higher education will take a serious nosedive.

This is causing many American college students to consider taking gap years or deferring enrollment indefinitely. In turn, many universities (particularly mid and lower-tier where the value is less clear) will likely face financial hardship.

Nikhil Krishnan @nikillinit

This week I asked Get Real members about their thoughts on Harvard going virtual. This response was super interesting

Also last week, the federal government made moves that confirmed growing sentiment that university degrees are becoming increasingly less important for successful employment.

Austen Allred @Austen

In case you missed it: Soon having a college degree will not be a requirement for federal employment. It's time to roll back all the regulations that require degrees; there are so many ways to gain the same skills.

usatoday.comTrump signs order prioritizing job skills over college degree in government hiringDonald Trump is overhauling federal hiring practices so that government can hire workers based on talent instead of educational level.

Keep in mind, this is all happening against the backdrop of continuous stories of individuals achieving incredible success despite lacking a traditional college education.

Austen Allred @Austen

Remember: You can read all the same books as any student (or even any professor) who has any kind of degree. No one needs to give you permission or a piece of branded paper for you to become an expert in anything.

Traditional colleges have put 44 million people in debt while online bootcamps have literally turned homeless into home owners. If you’re an incoming college freshman looking at $50K for Zoom lectures for at least 4-6 months, what would you pick?

🤯 What the hell is going on?

To understand why this is all happening, you should read David Perell’s piece “What the Hell is Going On?”

Here are a few key points:

Traditional higher education (as well as commerce and politics) is built on information scarcity. You pay to get access to information in universities that is impossible to get elsewhere.
Thanks to the internet, we now have information abundance, which means you can now access any information you want for free.
This dramatically erodes the business model for higher education, particularly for mid and low-tier institutions that don’t have a strong brands.

Dave Perell writes:

We’ve entered a digital, two-way, information-rich world where millions of people can produce and distribute content at scale. We need to recalibrate our collective compass.

Brett Goldstein @thatguyBG

COVID19 feels like an accelerant for the upending of higher education @david_perell talked about in What The Hell Is Going On Why pay $50K for tuition when information is everywhere. perell.com/blog/what-the-…

📚 Education will need to be reimagined

If you watch the earliest movies, you’ll notice that they are essentially just video recordings of plays. Years later, directors began creating films that were more native to the format (where which the camera was moved around shot to shot).

This is the transition we’re beginning to make with online education. One-to-one translations of in person lectures to Zoom isn’t how remote learning should be done. Universities will need to reimagine education for this new medium to keep up.

Ana Lorena Fabrega and David Perell have some great thoughts here:

Ana Lorena Fabrega @anafabrega11

Remote learning isn’t working. Teachers are burned out. Parents are stressed out. Students are “zoomed” out. What’s going on? @david_perell and I address this topic in this week's episode of Show & Tell 👇

🎓 The unbundling of universities has begun

As universities continue to lose their relevance, students will seek alternatives. This spells immense opportunity for startups looking to unbundle the university experience.

Erik Torenberg shared an abstract view of what this could look like:

Erik Torenberg @eriktorenberg

Unbundling the university: - liberal arts - technical education - summer camp - dating market - sports - co-living - salons - hedge fund - 4 year vacation - flirting w/ marxism - coming of age - alumni network - credential - prestige - insurance policy - identity - coming of age

Erik Torenberg @eriktorenberg

The credential is the last element to be unbundled from college: - education (MOOCs) - networks (accelerators) - credentials (stay tuned) My bet: P2P credentials If I trust you & you say X is the best young person you've worked with, that means more to me than a Harvard degree

Companies like Udacity, Udemy, and Masterclass are earlier examples of this unbundling - take educational content and make it widely accessible for a fee.

Entrepreneurs like Erik Torenberg and David Perell have a new approach: build education-based communities on the backs of (social) media empires.

Benjamin Crane @_benjamincrane

Prediction 🔮 Media Companies replace Educational Institutions 🎥 It’s all just “content and conversation”, after all 🍿

Erik runs a podcast and a venture fund. He’s also the founder of On Deck, a modern alternative to MBA programs that helps entrepreneurs meet cofounders and start companies.

Erik Torenberg @eriktorenberg

If you’re in an MBA program or considering one and want to be founder, consider @beondeck instead. It’s a better network and 100x cheaper.

David Perell runs a popular blog and podcast. He is also the founder of Write of Passage, an alternative to creative writing programs.

David Perell @david_perell

College kids: Don't pay $50,000 for Zoom classes. Use your time to start an online business. Live at home, spend as little money as possible, and find a side job if you need to.

perell.comDon’t Go to College This Fall — David PerellCollege students: Don’t go to school this fall.  Use your time to start an online business. Live at home, spend as little money as possible, and find a side job if you need to. How do you start? Build your skills, identify a problem, and find a software-based solution. If you

While this unbundling has been happening for technical education (e.g. engineering, design) for some time, Erik and David’s “schools” are emblematic of more of what’s to come. Many more entrepreneurs will likely follow in their footsteps unbundling other subjects.

I launched Social Studies (currently as a newsletter) with the idea of unbundling Social Science education from universities and applying it to business.

Brett Goldstein @thatguyBG

Psychology is the most underrated major in tech. UX, growth, management, etc all boil down to understanding how people think.

The Theil Fellowship approach of getting would-be college students to start companies instead is also continuing to grow in popularity in the venture community. The 1517 fund announced last week it would make $50K investments in students building companies instead of going back to school.