As Journal Boycott Grows, Elsevier Defends Its Practices

A petition effort to boycott Elsevier, the journal publisher, was inspired by a blog posting by Timothy Gowers (en la foto del TCHE), a prominent mathematician at the U. of Cambridge.

By Josh Fischman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 31, 2012

A protest against Elsevier, the world's largest scientific journal publisher, is rapidly gaining momentum since it began as an irate blog post at the end of January. By Tuesday evening, about 2,400 scholars had put their names to an online pledge not to publish or do any editorial work for the company's journals, including refereeing papers.

The boycott is growing so quickly—it had about 1,800 signers on Monday—that Elsevier officials on Tuesday broke their official silence to respond to protesters' accusations that they charge too much and support laws that will keep research findings bottled up behind a company paywall.

"Over the past 10 years, our prices have been in the lowest quartile in the publishing industry," said Alicia Wise, Elsevier's director of universal access. "Last year our prices were lower than our competitors'. I'm not sure why we are the focus of this boycott, but I'm very concerned about one dissatisfied scientist, and I'm concerned about 2,000."

She added that her company improves access rather than impeding it, and said that Internet downloads from some journals increased by as much as 40 percent when Elsevier added them to collections it sells to libraries.

Protesters disagree, and say Elsevier is emblematic of an abusive publishing industry. "The government pays me and other scientists to produce work, and we give it away to private entities," says Brett S. Abrahams, an assistant professor of genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "Then they charge us to read it." Mr. Abrahams signed the pledge on Tuesday after reading about it on Facebook.

Those views highlight a split that could spell serious trouble for journal publishers, and for researchers. Price complaints are not new, but some observers say this is the first time that the suppliers of journal content—the scientists—are upset enough to cut the supply line. But, if publishers are correct, those scientists could cut themselves off from valuable research tools.
The Boycotters' Complaints

According to the boycotters, Elsevier, which publishes over 2,000 journals including the prestigious Cell and The Lancet, is abusing academic researchers in three areas. First there are the prices. Then the company bundles subscriptions to lesser journals together with valuable ones, forcing libraries to spend money to buy things they don't want in order to get a few things they do want. And, most recently, Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works Act (HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes of Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely available.

The complaints surfaced on January 21 in a blog post by Timothy Gowers, a prominent mathematician at the University of Cambridge who has won the Fields Medal, math's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. "Why do we allow ourselves to be messed about to this extraordinary extent, when one would have thought that nothing would be easier than to do without them?" he wrote. "It might help if there were a Web site somewhere, where mathematicians who have decided not to contribute in any way to Elsevier journals could sign their names electronically. I think that some people would be encouraged to take a stand if they could see that many others were already doing so."

Within days, just such a Web site surfaced. It's called The Cost of Knowledge, and biologists, social scientists, and others began signing the pledge along with mathematicians.

Sean M. Carroll, a prominent cosmologist and senior research associate at the California Institute of Technology, signed the pledge and added on his own blog that Elsevier charges "amazingly exorbitant prices to university libraries—and then makes the published papers very hard to access for anyone not at one of the universities."

Senior scholars like him, and Mr. Gowers, arguably have little to lose by turning their backs on well-regarded journals. But the protest has also reached junior scholars like Mr. Abrahams of Albert Einstein, who has yet to gain tenure.

"I have three papers I'm hoping to submit in the next 12 weeks. One was destined for Cell, and another for Neuron," also published by Elsevier, he said. "It would have been a real feather in my cap to publish there. But I won't, based on this week's discussions." His work, focused on identifying genes related to autism, will go other places. "There are other good journals. And, long term, I'd like my library to be able to use its limited resources to better ends" than high journal prices, he said.

That could signal real problems for Elsevier, says Kevin Smith, director of scholarly communications at Duke University Libraries. "Librarians have long complained about prices and bundling journals together, and nothing has changed," he says. "Now it's not just the customers who are complaining. It's the suppliers."

Academic librarians may buy journals, but it's the scientists who produce and submit articles that make them worth buying, he says. "If they are upset, there is a chance they may change the system."
The Company Responds

Ms. Wise, from Elsevier, says she understands why libraries complain about prices. "Globally, the amount of research that's published and needs to be read is going up every year. But library budgets are not keeping pace."

That is why her company offers a variety of packages and pricing schemes to libraries, and negotiates discounts based on institution size, type, and usage patterns. And while Elsevier in the 1980s and 1990s did increase prices steeply year after year, that has stopped. "We got it wrong then. But we've improved and have become good citizens," she said. So much of the community ire comes from past reputation, not present practice, she said.

Individual academics often do not have accurate notions about prices and the value of journals, particularly when they are sold in groups, said Thomas Reller, the company's vice president for global corporate relations. "They don't have access to library usage figures. They see journals that they don't use, and wonder why the library has them. It's because other people are using them, but the individual doesn't know that."

Indeed, Mr. Gowers wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle, "I don't have detailed facts at my fingertips: So many people have complained about Elsevier that I am inclined to believe that there is something to the complaints." He also agreed that libraries are not forced to buy bundles of journals but said "that the costs of buying journals individually are so high that it's not far off compulsion."

Mr. Reller counters, emphatically, that the way to look at prices is per use, or download, of the individual articles, and that viewed that way, "access to published content is greater and at its lowest cost per use than ever."

Elsevier officials declined to provide specific examples of its journal prices, saying they were negotiated privately with individual institutions.

Ms. Wise said that it's also a misconception that publishers like Elsevier make scientists pay to read their own work. "What publishers charge for is the distribution system. We identify emerging areas of research and support them by establishing journals. We pay editors who build a distinguished brand that is set apart from 27,000 other journals. We identify peer reviewers.

"And we invest a lot in infrastructure, the tags and metadata attached to each article that makes it discoverable by other researchers through search engines, and that links papers together through citations and subject matter. All of that has changed the way research is done today and makes it more efficient. That's the added value that we bring."

The company's support of the Research Works Act is driven by its investment in those products, she added: "It's not a disavowal of the National Institutes of Health or of open access. We are just trying to avoid inflexible regulations." The company was the first and largest contributor to PubMed Central, the NIH repository of free, full-text articles, Mr. Reller pointed out.

Those arguments, however, are lost on senior scholars like Mr. Gowers, who told The Chronicle that researchers can now evaluate and review one another's papers on open Web sites. "That would be far cheaper than anything a commercial publisher could hope to offer, and just as effective," he noted.

Nor does the Elsevier infrastructure impress younger scholars like Mr. Abrahams. "It could disappear tomorrow, and I'd never notice that it's gone," he said.

Firmer Proposals on Accreditation

By Doug Lederman, Inside HigherED, February 1, 2012 - 3:00am

Sustain the link between accreditation and access to federal financial aid.

Set a national minimum standard for states to follow in ensuring consumer protection in higher education.

Consider structuring accreditation so that it is judged based on institution type or mission rather than geography, and so that accreditors can more easily distinguish between colleges of varying quality.

Define a common set of data that the federal government would collect and share with accreditors, both to minimize reporting burden and to assure consistency. The data might include licensure, job placement and completion data -- the latter collected "through a privacy-protected national unit record system."

Those are among the recommendations contained in a second draft of the report that the U.S. Education Department's advisory committee on accreditation is preparing for Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The draft, which was circulated among the panel's members last month (after a public meeting in December) and obtained by Inside Higher Ed, goes significantly further than last fall's first draft in endorsing specific changes to the U.S. system for assuring higher education quality and protecting students and taxpayers. The previous draft primarily listed many possible approaches and generally declined to pick and choose among them.

But the new version still stops well short of prescribing a clear vision for how the complex and multifaceted system should work, and leaves many questions undecided.

It answers one of the most fundamental questions unequivocally, though, rejecting arguments (made most strongly by one of the panel's members, Anne Neal) that accreditation should no longer be the main gatekeeper for colleges to gain access to federal financial aid funds.

"Accreditors are the most experienced source of information about academic quality and should continue to establish and assure consistency with academic quality standards in the determination of eligibility," the panel states, noting that 10 of 13 members backed this recommendation in a straw poll. "The responsibility for evaluating how well an institution is accomplishing its educational work can and should rest exclusively with the institutions and/or the accrediting bodies," rather than becoming more directly a government function.

But language elsewhere in the draft report is likely (not that it takes much) to set off concerns among private college officials, particularly, about a more aggressive federal and state role in judging institutional (and educational) quality. The panel describes the federal government as having an interest not just in judging colleges' "financial stability/compliance" with federal rules and laws but also "quality assurance," including "promoting the improvement of education and the institutions that provide it."

And it likewise cites states' responsibility for determining "educational quality," recommends a "federally convened process" in which state leaders and others would seek to develop a "common understanding" among states about how they should protect consumers, and says states should work together to "ensure consistent and coherent application of critical standards" to ensure that "critical quality assurance/eligibility expectations are met." That consistency is increasingly necessary, the panel writes, in an era when so many institutions provide education across state boundaries.

Accrediting agencies should be more differentiated in their assessments of institutions, the panel states. "That is, the same level of scrutiny and intensity of review is given to accreditors and institutions with longstanding competent performance on quality indicators as is given to fragile, unstable, low-performing, rapidly expanding or changing, or newly approved institutions or programs," the committee writes.

While the panel declines to dictate exactly how this should change, it suggests that the current state of higher education "may call for a system of accreditation that is aligned more closely with mission or sector or other educationally relevant variable, than with geography," and provides more choice to institutions, and that accreditors should be given more latitude "to distinguish among programs or institutions with more varied levels and durations of review, such that the greater review effort is addressed to accreditors and institutions that present greater potential cause for concern and those whose circumstance may call for additional, supplemental, or heightened review."

The report talks at length about the burden imposed on institutions by the varied strands of the quality assurance process, and suggests that collection of data be coordinated to minimize the burden -- but also to increase the meaningfulness of the information collected. While many college officials might applaud the idea of centralizing data collection that is now done by accreditors, states and the federal government, the panel's assertion that the U.S. should collect more data on completion and career-related outcomes (though not specific student learning outcome measures, the document states) is likely to set off alarm bells among some college officials.

And Republicans in Congress -- who stopped a proposal to create a federal database of student-level academic records in 2005 -- don't seem any likelier to support the idea now, despite the committee's tentative endorsement.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/02/01/us-panel-offers-draft-recommendations-revamping-higher-education-accreditation#ixzz1l8VU9dHg
Inside Higher Ed

Elsevier Publishing Boycott Gathers Steam Among Academics

January 30, 2012, 6:50 pm

By Josh Fischman

The eminent mathematician Timothy Gowers vows to do no work for Elsevier.

Elsevier, the global publishing company, is responsible for The Lancet, Cell, and about 2,000 other important journals; the iconic reference work Gray’s Anatomy, along with 20,000 other books—and one fed-up, award-winning mathematician.

Timothy Gowers of the University of Cambridge, who won the Fields Medal for his research, has organized a boycott of Elsevier because, he says, its pricing and policies restrict access to work that should be much more easily available. He asked for a boycott in a blog post on January 21, and as of Monday evening, on the boycott’s Web site The Cost of Knowledge, nearly 1,900 scientists have signed up, pledging not to publish, referee, or do editorial work for any Elsevier journal.

The company has sinned in three areas, according to the boycotters: It charges too much for its journals; it bundles subscriptions to lesser journals together with valuable ones, forcing libraries to spend money to buy things they don’t want in order to get a few things they do want; and, most recently, it has supported a proposed federal law (called the Research Works Act) that would prevent agencies like the National Institutes of Health from making all articles written by its grant recipients freely available.

Hal Abelson, a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an open-publishing advocate, signed the pledge and wrote that “With the moves of these megapublishers, we [are] seeing the beginning of monopoly control of the scholarly record.” Benjamin R. Seyfarth, an associate professor in the School of Computing at the University of Southern Mississippi, wrote that “nearly all university research is funded by the public and should be available for free.”

The idea has echoed around the academic blogosphere, picking up endorsements. Elsevier itself has remained silent, though it may release a statement on Tuesday. There are occasional defenders in the blog comments, such as this response to the blog Crooked Timber’s rallying cry for the boycott: “As a neuroscientist, Elsevier journals are an important factor in publication choice. Losing a crucial set of publication outlets to a poorly informed rally against this company will certainly damage the integrity of the scientific record in my field.”

Obama Plan Links College Aid With Affordability

By TAMAR LEWIN, The New York Times, Published: January 27, 2012

President Obama is proposing a financial aid overhaul that for the first time would tie colleges’ eligibility for campus-based aid programs — Perkins loans, work-study jobs and supplemental grants for low-income students — to the institutions’ success in improving affordability and value for students, administration officials said.

Under the plan, which the president outlined on Friday morning in a speech at the University of Michigan, the amount available for Perkins loans would grow to $8 billion, from the current $1 billion. The president also wants to create a $1 billion grant competition, along the lines of the Race for the Top program for elementary and secondary education, to reward states that take action to keep college costs down, and a separate $55 million competition for individual colleges to increase their value and efficiency.

The administration also wants to give families clearer information about costs and quality, by requiring colleges and universities to offer a “shopping sheet” that makes it easier to compare financial aid packages and — for the first time — compiling post-graduate earning and employment information to give students a better sense of what awaits them.

These proposed changes would all require Congressional approval.

With student-loan debt now outpacing credit-card debt — and becoming a rallying point in the Occupy movement — the administration has for some time promised to address the issue, knowing its potency with voters in an election year. The president met privately with a group of college presidents in December, and has been collecting examples of colleges that have kept their costs from spiraling upward.

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Mr. Obama turned up the heat, alluding to the plan without fleshing out details.

“Let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down,” he said.

Even without specifics, that raised hackles in higher-education circles.

“When we hear things like a shift in federal aid, it causes our antennas to go straight up,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education. “Anything that smacks of price controls is of great concern on many levels, especially at a time when states are cutting their budgets — and if the effect of this is to limit tuition, what else would you call it but price controls?”

Ms. Broad said that she and university presidents across the nation shared the president’s commitment to affordable higher education, but that it was not so easy to keep tuition down at a time when institutions must also absorb state budget cuts, increase enrollment and bolster financial aid for the growing number of families who need it.

The administration officials who spoke about the proposals did so on the condition of anonymity, and on the condition that details not be shared until publication.

They stressed that expanding the pool of money for Perkins loans would not require new tax dollars, since those loans are repaid with interest. And even without new money, they said, it would be possible to change the formulas under which colleges receive funds for work-study jobs and Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants — at nearly $1 billion, the second largest federal grant program for low-income students, after Pell grants.

While Pell grants and Stafford loans are larger programs than the ones the administration wants to change, they are federally administered and can be used by students at any college. In contrast, the campus-based programs the administration is proposing to change are administered by individual schools, whose financial aid offices have substantial discretion. About 1,700 colleges and universities now offer Perkins loans, a number that would increase to more than 4,000 in the new proposal.

While administration officials said the Perkins changes would have no impact on the federal budget, other parts of the plan — like doubling the number of work-study jobs, and keeping the interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans at the current 3.4 percent — would be expensive.

The officials said the current financial aid system rewards colleges for longevity in the program, and provides perverse incentives for keeping college costs high. Under their new proposal, they said, colleges would instead be rewarded for lower net tuition prices; restrained tuition growth; enrolling and graduating low-income students; and providing education and training that help graduates get jobs and repay their loans.

Some education experts, however, worry that by tying aid to costs, changes like those proposed might instead lead to lower-quality college education, with larger class sizes and greater use of adjuncts. Furthermore, they worry that public institutions suffering the most from declines in state support — and therefore under the most pressure to raise tuition — could be further hurt by losing access to some federal aid.

As with the original Race to the Top grants, in which the Obama administration used federal money to leverage its education agenda, the White House hopes to use the new college competition to spur systemic state reform that would reduce costs and encourage college completion. To win money, officials said, states would have to maintain their funding levels for higher education and align their entry and exit standards with secondary education and community colleges to help promote graduation on time.

The competition for individual institutions would reward colleges or nonprofit organizations that boost productivity through such approaches as course redesign that exploits new technology; early-college preparation that reduces the need for remedial work; and competency-based approaches to college credit that replace the traditional model of rewarding hours spent in class.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — President Obama called on Congress to approve a financial-aid overhaul that for the first time would tie federal financing to colleges and universities to the success of these institutions in improving affordability and value for students.

Wrapping up a three-day post State of the Union tour that has forecast Mr. Obama’s narrative for his re-election battle with Republicans, Mr. Obama said it was the government’s obligation to narrow the gap between rich and poor. He proposed a $1 billion grant competition to reward states that take action to keep college costs down, and a separate $55 million competition for colleges to increase their value and efficiency.

“I am only standing here because scholarships and student loans gave me a shot at a decent education,” Mr. Obama told the crowd at the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan, where students braved early-morning snow to stand in line to see the president.

“Your president and your first lady were in your shoes just a few years ago,” Mr. Obama said. “We didn’t come from wealthy families. The only reason we were able to achieve what we achieved was because of education.”

Mr. Obama’s proposal would also require colleges and universities to offer students a comparison that shows postgraduate and employment records for their institutions.

As is typically the case when the president speaks on a college campus, the event was high energy, complete with a marching band playing fight songs to warm the crowd up beforehand. And Mr. Obama, who is clearly already in campaign mode, was revved up. He further lit up the crowd with the obligatory “Go Blue” cheer.

“Easy applause line,” he acknowledged.

“We want this to be a big bold generous country where everybody gets a shot,” Mr. Obama told the crowd in the Al Glick Field House. “If there’s anywhere that can teach us about how to bring back manufacturing, it’s the great state of Michigan.”

One night after a Republican debate that saw Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney beating each other up on everything from immigration to personal finances, the president, without mentioning either man, still sought to draw a comparison between his vision for the country and the Republican vision, which he painted as more of a fend-for-yourself one.
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What if the U.S. Tied Colleges’ Financial Aid Resources to Affordability?
By JACQUES STEINBERG, The New York Times, January 27, 2012, 9:27 am

In today’s Times, my colleague Tamar Lewin has a preview of an address that President Obama is expected to deliver at the University of Michigan on Friday morning in which he will call for an overhaul of crucial aspects of the federal financial aid system.

Specifically, the president will ask Congress to link the colleges’ eligibility for campus-based aid “to the institutions’ success in improving affordability and value for students,” Ms. Lewin writes. The proposal, which would require Congressional approval, would apply to Perkins loans, work-study jobs and supplemental grants for low-income students. The amount available for Perkins loans, Ms. Lewin writes, would grow by a factor of 8, to $8 billion, from the current $1 billion.

That increase could have a substantial impact on some students and families. Another proposal by the president is intended to make it easier for families to take the measure of the cost of various institutions. Ms. Lewin writes that the administration will seek to require colleges and universities “to offer a ‘shopping sheet’ that makes it easier to compare financial aid packages and — for the first time — compiling postgraduate earning and employment information to give students a better sense of what awaits them.”

As the president’s proposal begins to take shape, we’d like to begin a conversation on The Choice about it, and the larger issue of the cost of college and the spiraling rise in student loan debt. Please post your comments using the box below.

Meanwhile, what is a Perkins loan? Ms. Lewin provides this primer:

While Pell grants and Stafford loans are larger programs than the ones the administration wants to change, they are federally administered and can be used by students at any college. In contrast, the campus-based programs the administration is proposing to change are administered by individual schools, whose financial aid offices have substantial discretion. About 1,700 colleges and universities now offer Perkins loans, a number that would increase to more than 4,000 in the new proposal.

And how might the program change under the president’s proposal?

The officials said the current financial aid system rewards colleges for longevity in the program, and provides perverse incentives for keeping college costs high. Under their new proposal, they said, colleges would instead be rewarded for lower net tuition prices; restrained tuition growth; enrolling and graduating low-income students; and providing education and training that help graduates get jobs and repay their loans.

Apreciado / Apreciada,

El II Congreso Internacional EDO 2012 “Gestión del conocimiento y desarrollo organizativo: formación y formación corporativa”, organizado conjuntamente por el Equipo de Desarrollo Organizacional de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona y el Centro de Estudios Jurídicos y Formación Especializada de la Generalitat de Catalunya, sigue adelante, teniendo ya confirmadas las 5 conferencias principales.

Aprovechamos este mensaje para recordarle que la presentación de aportaciones completas finaliza el próximo 20 de febrero de 2012. Le animamos a presentar aportaciones en una de las dos modalidades previstas: comunicación libre o comunicación vinculada a un Simposio. En relación a los Simposios, existe la posibilidad de presentar 4 ó 5 comunicaciones organizadas entorno a una misma temática (en este caso debe ponerse en contacto con la organización edo@uab.cat ).
Las temáticas del Congreso son: las comunidades de práctica, la creación y la gestión del conocimiento, el aprendizaje informal, la innovación abierta y el aprendizaje y sociedad en red.
Finalmente, le presentamos a los conferenciantes y las temáticas que abordaran en el Congreso:
Charles Jennings
Duntroon Associates
El aprendizaje social en el lugar de trabajo desde la óptica del 70:20:10
Blog: http://charles-jennings.blogspot.com/
Web: http://duntroon.com/
Victoria Marsick
Columbia University
Aprendizaje informal e incidental en el lugar de trabajo
CV: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/academics/?facid=vjm5
David Gurteen
Gurteen Knowledge Community
Las organizaciones son una conversación
Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidgurteen
Web: http://www.gurteen.com
Mónica de Arteche
UADE - Universidad Argentina de la Empresa
Redes y clústers para la innovación y la transferencia del conocimiento
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/monica-de-arteche/8/b79/8a0
Javier Echeverría
Universidad del País Vasco
El aprendizaje en el marco de la Sociedad Red
Perfil: www.jakiunde.org

Puede consultar todos los detalles accediendo a la web del Congreso: http://edo.uab.es/congressus

Estamos a su disposición para resolverle cualquier duda o aclaración que pudiera plantearse en relación a su participación en el encuentro.

Atentamente,

Comité Organizador del II CIEDO 2012

Contacto: edo@uab.cat (+34)93.586.82.27 -lunes y viernes de 9h a 15h-.

Más información ver aquí 285 KB

Interesante reflexión del editor del Chronicle of Higher Education. Ver otros artículos de Jeff Selingo.

A Disrupted Higher-Ed System
By Jeff Selingo, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 26, 2012, 2:40 pm

The “disruption” of the higher-ed market is a popular refrain these days. Rising tuition prices and student debt have left many wondering if the current model is indeed broken and whether those like Harvard’s Clay Christensen are right when they say that innovations in course delivery will eventually displace established players.

What exactly those innovations will look like remains a matter of debate. One view from Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, envisions a future in which every industry will be disrupted and “rebuilt with people at the center.”

In this recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Sandberg talked specifically about the gaming industry, which has been upended by the popularity of social-gaming venues, such as Words With Friends and Farmville.

But what if we applied her people-centered vision to higher ed?

While amenities and services on campuses have been redesigned in the last decade with students clearly at the center, the core of the academic experience for students today is almost exactly the same as it was for their parents decades ago. While other industries have been able to find productivity gains without sacrificing quality, on most college campuses we still have professors at the front of a room or at a table with an average of 16 students in front of them.

We all know that’s one of the key drivers of rising college costs. Higher ed is people intensive, and for many prospective students and their parents, the professor-centered academic experience is well worth the high price and will be for a long time. It’s one reason why high-quality institutions really have little to worry about.

But we also know that the traditional academic experience isn’t for everyone these days. The students we used to call “nontraditional” are now a majority, yet we have way too many colleges chasing after high-achieving 18-to-24-year-olds at the same time they are trying to keep up with the Jones—those institutions they aspire to be.

It’s among this vast group of aspiring colleges where the real disruption of the higher-ed market is likely to happen. The alternatives are already in play, with the likes of StraighterLine, the Khan Academy, and badges to certify skills.

Now, hardly a week goes by when we don’t hear another announcement that has the potential to chip away at the student market that is currently the lifeblood of colleges on the margins, in both quality and financial health.

Just look at the last month:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it would create MITx, a self-service learning system in which students can take online tests and earn certificates after watching free course materials posted by the university.

StraighterLine, which offers self-paced introductory courses online, said that it would give students access to the Collegiate Learning Assessment and other similar tests, allowing them to take results to employers or colleges to demonstrate their proficiency in certain academic areas.

Apple introduced three free pieces of software that allow students to download or create textbooks, and that permit instructors to create a digital curriculum in iTunesU.

And then this week, the Stanford University professor who garnered plenty of press attention when he taught an online artificial-intelligence course to more than 160,000 students last year, announced he had given up his tenured position to focus on his start-up, Udacity, which offers low-cost online courses.

Sebastian Thrun, who retains a role at Stanford as a research professor, said he had been motivated in part by teaching practices that evolved too slowly to be effective. “Professors today teach exactly the same way they taught a thousand years ago,” Thrun said in a presentation at digital conference in Munich, Germany.

Taken together, those announcements portend one potential future of higher ed that’s more collaborative, social, virtual, and peer-to-peer—and where introductory courses are commodities offered free or close to free. That vision leaves room for a slice of traditional colleges to compete either by essentially moving down market or by validating such learning by being the gatekeeper at the end by offering capstone, upper-level courses and granting degrees.

Right now, the biggest hurdle to many of these new course-delivery ideas is the corner that traditional colleges have on the credential market. That right is conferred on them courtesy of the federal government’s student-aid system, built on accreditation.

But unless traditional colleges figure out a way to incorporate the new players and their ideas, such as MIT did recently, the innovators will figure out a way around the credentialing hurdle that will be acceptable to students, parents, and, most important, employers. And when they do, a part of the higher-ed market will be disrupted and rebuilt with students at the center.

The For-Profit Postsecondary School Sector: Nimble Critters or Agile Predators?
David J. Deming, Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz

NBER Working Paper No. 17710
Issued in December 2011
NBER Program(s): CH ED LS

Bajar documento aquí 243 KB

ABSTRACT
Private for-profit institutions have been the fastest growing part of the U.S. higher education sector.
For-profit enrollment increased from 0.2 percent to 9.1 percent of total enrollment in degree-granting
schools from 1970 to 2009, and for-profit institutions account for the majority of enrollments in non-degree
granting postsecondary schools. We describe the schools, students, and programs in the for-profit
higher education sector, its phenomenal recent growth, and its relationship to the federal and state
governments. Using the 2004 to 2009 Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) longitudinal survey
we assess outcomes of a recent cohort of first-time undergraduates who attended for-profits relative
to comparable students who attended community colleges or other public or private non-profit institutions.
We find that relative to these other institutions, for-profits educate a larger fraction of minority, disadvantaged,
and older students, and they have greater success at retaining students in their first year and getting
them to complete short programs at the certificate and associate degree levels. But we also find that
for-profit students end up with higher unemployment and “idleness” rates and lower earnings six years
after entering programs than do comparable students from other schools, and that they have far greater
student debt burdens and default rates on their student loans.

David J. Deming
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Gutman 411
Appian Way
Cambridge MA 02138
david_deming@gse.harvard.edu

Lawrence F. Katz
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
and NBER
lkatz@harvard.edu

Claudia Goldin
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
and NBER
cgoldin@harvard.edu

Buena parte de la opinión pública sigue respaldando las demandas que levantaron Vallejo, Jackson y cía. La mala noticia es que ya no gustan ni las marchas no autorizadas, ni las tomas, ni los paros. En un escenario líquido, los líderes estudiantiles tienen el desafío no menor de reinventarse en el 2012, leyendo correctamente lo que serán las condiciones objetivas para el año decisivo. Este es el pulso de la calle descifrado por expertos de todos los sectores.

por BERNARDITA GARCÍA JIMÉNEZ, El Mostrador, 26 de enero de 2012
http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2012/01/26/las-amenazas-y-oportunidades-del-movimiento-estudiantil-para-la-batalla-final/

El rechazo a la estrategia de acción de los estudiantes, la mala evaluación de la respuesta del gobierno, la capacidad que tuvo el movimiento para convertirse en una causa transversal y la crisis de legitimidad de los partidos políticos, son algunas de las conclusiones arrojadas por estudios de opinión en 2011. Un año marcado por el conflicto estudiantil que caló hondo en la sociedad y que en 2012 tendrá su segunda parte. Pero ya no bastan los paros, marchas y tomas. La ecuación del movimiento debe ponderar todos los elementos que configuran el nuevo cuadro de condiciones a nivel de percepción ciudadana, ya que es aquí donde se juega la legitimidad y -en definitiva- su fuerza transformadora. Estos son los principales ejes.

ESTRATEGIA DEL GOBIERNO: MAL EVALUADA

Pese a lo que un día fueron los pronósticos más auspiciosos para el movimiento estudiantil en su lucha por una mejor calidad y un acceso menos clasista a la educación, las últimas encuestas revelaron una sensación de desánimo y pesar entre los chilenos respecto a la situación actual de los estudiantes. La CERC de agosto de 2011 mostraba que el 72% de los votantes confiaba en que estos estaban ganando la batalla. Sin embargo, para la última CERC publicada este mes, la cifra descendió a 40%.

La mayoría de los chilenos asocia la situación actual del conflicto con la negativa de parte del gobierno para llegar a un acuerdo: 61% cree que éste no está interesado en resolver el problema de la educación. En diciembre del año pasado, la CEP reveló que un 46% cree que la ausencia de acuerdo entre las partes tiene que ver con la postura del gobierno, un 30% cree que la responsabilidad es compartida y apenas un 22% se la atribuye a los estudiantes.

Estas cifras hablan de la estrategia que escogió el gobierno para enfrentar el tema. “Su error fue subestimar la capacidad del movimiento para manifestar sus demandas. Reaccionó tarde frente a éste, se posicionó desde la figura de ofrecer más de lo mismo y no sentarse a negociar cambios estructurales”, explica Claudio Fuentes, director de la encuesta ICSO. La falta de confianza de la gente en esta estrategia se traduce en las cifras que en septiembre, entregó un sondeo de Cooperativa, revelando que un 60,7% cree que el conflicto no será solucionado por la administración Piñera.

EL DESACIERTO DEL MOVIMIENTO ESTUDIANTIL

La disyuntiva que existe entre la sólida adhesión a sus demandas y el rechazo a sus formas de expresión, tales como movilizaciones no autorizadas, tomas de establecimientos y paros, sitúa al movimiento estudiantil ante una necesidad de reevaluar su estrategia de acción para 2012. Aunque el respaldo a sus peticiones finalizó el año con un 70% de apoyo, según la última Adimark un 39% de la población que se mostraba contraria a las manifestaciones en septiembre, aumentó a un 53% en diciembre. Finalmente, las tomas y paros terminaron por despertar el descontento ciudadano. Para el último mes del año, apenas un 37% aprobaba que los estudiantes se tomaran los colegios y un 79% se manifestó en contra de que se marchara por lugares no autorizados, según la CEP de diciembre.

“Para la opinión pública, sería muy difícil entender que se hicieran de nuevo tomas y paros indefinidos como los que se hicieron. Hay un desafío en cómo expresarse en el espacio público”, afirma Roberto Méndez, director de Adimark, apuntando hacia la necesidad urgente de que para el 2012 ocurra una evolución de los métodos de los estudiantes hacia instancias nuevas. “Va a haber que ampliar el repertorio de acción, abrir las rutas regionales, mejorar las condiciones para que las universidades de región funcionen, con mucha solidaridad y con una estrategia política que fortalezca el movimiento, no las marchas o las protestas”, agrega el sociólogo de la Universidad de Chile, Alberto Mayol.

EL RIESGO DE LOS PARTIDOS POLÍTICOS

Otro de los desafíos que enfrentará el movimiento estudiantil para el 2012 es la apertura a nuevas instancias de diálogo, enmarcadas en espacios políticos y legislativos. “Paralelamente tendrán que actuar en distintos escenarios, esa es la virtud de un movimiento exitoso: combinar una capacidad de presión ciudadana con la articulación de actores del sistema político”, comenta Claudio Fuentes. Sin embargo, el especialista advierte sobre el riesgo que implica canalizar equívocamente estos acercamientos para la imagen del movimiento. “Hay un grupo que señala que te estás prostituyendo si te sientas de igual a igual con un grupo de legisladores. Este es el dilema que enfrenta y que lo puede fracturar”, añade.

A la hora de definir esta estrategia, los líderes estudiantiles deberán tener en cuenta la grave desaprobación con que cuentan hoy los partidos políticos y ambas coaliciones. “Las aprobación o rechazo en las encuestas es lejos lo que tiene más legitimidad de todo el orden político chileno”, señala Mayol. El apoyo en las encuestas es una herramienta que a la larga define quién tiene el sartén por el mango, tiene mayor capacidad de acción y decisión. Actualmente son por mucho los estudiantes los que llevan la delantera en este aspecto.

La falta de apoyo hacia los partidos fue creciendo durante 2011. Según la encuesta Adimark, en enero pasado la Alianza tenía un rechazo de 48%, y un 59% la Concertación. En junio, cuando las encuestas recogieron los primeros indicios del impacto social y político del movimiento estudiantil, las mismas cifras aumentaron a 60% y 68% respectivamente. Para fin de año, el rechazo del oficialismo descendió levemente a 58%, y el de la oposición alcanzó el 73%.

Estas cifras hablan de la crisis de legitimidad que atraviesan los partidos políticos y cómo esto afecta su capital de poder. “Se van a poner de rodillas porque necesitan legitimarse. Van a estar dispuestos a meterse para influir en acelerar las transformaciones”, asegura Alberto Mayol, quien agrega que “los partidos se están muriendo, necesitan oxígeno y el movimiento es un chorro de oxígeno”.

LOS ROSTROS DEL CAMBIO

Otro factor que legitima aún más al movimiento por sobre el sistema político tradicional, con sus figuras y partidos, son las cifras de aprobación que reciben sus principales rostros. En septiembre, el centro de estudios de La Tercera fijó el respaldo a los ex voceros de la Confech, Camila Vallejo y Giorgio Jackson, en 69% y 73% respectivamente, “logrando un nivel de llegada a la opinión pública que líderes políticos querían y que nunca lograron”, explica el director de Adimark, Roberto Méndez.

En diciembre, la última CEP del año precisó el apoyo a la labor de la actual vicepresidenta de la Fech en un 44%, ubicándola como la cuarta figura mejor evaluada a nivel nacional. Mientras, la mayoría de los líderes de los distintos partidos políticos alcanzaron porcentajes bastante menores: Carlos Larraín (RN) un 20%, Juan Antonio Coloma (UDI) un 18%, Ignacio Walker (DC) un 32%, Osvaldo Andrade (PS) un 20% y Guillermo Teillier (PC) un 23%. En este sentido, la crisis que atraviesan los partidos es provechosa para el movimiento, que actualmente cumple el rol de representar los intereses de la ciudadanía. “Existe una crisis de representatividad enorme que no se va a solucionar mientras ellos tanteen las soluciones de arriba hacia abajo. Hay que buscar soluciones desde la gente hacia el mismo sistema y capitalizar el descontento de la gente”, señala el presidente de la Universidad de La Serena y vocero de la Confech, Juan Pablo Páez.

De esta ventaja en las encuestas se desprende el que será otro desafío para los estudiantes en 2012: la capacidad de sus nuevos líderes para posicionarse en la opinión pública, frente a las autoridades del gobierno y al sistema político, así como para coordinar la acción colectiva a nivel nacional, superando los personalismos que Vallejo y Jackson encarnaron durante el primer año de vida del movimiento. “Sin estas figuras tan importantes y tan visibles, probablemente no habría tenido el impacto que tuvo el movimiento. El desafío de hoy es ver si puede funcionar con otras caras o si va a tener que recurrir a las mismas en roles directivos”, agrega Roberto Méndez.

EL POSICIONAMIENTO DE LA EDUCACIÓN COMO PRINCIPAL PROBLEMA

Pese a todo lo que ocurrió en materia de educación durante 2011, hace un año atrás esta no era particularmente el problema que más preocupaba a los chilenos. Según la ICSO publicada a finales de 2010, la delincuencia ocupaba el primer lugar con un 38,2%, seguida por el tema estudiantil con un 21,1%. Doce meses después, desde que comenzaron las movilizaciones, los resultados de la última versión de la encuesta sufrieron cambios considerables: la educación alcanzó el 31,4% de las menciones y la delincuencia disminuyó a un 28,6%.

Algo similar ocurre con los resultados arrojados por la CEP hace un año atrás. En diciembre de 2010, de entre los tres principales problemas considerados por la ciudadanía, la educación tuvo un 38% de menciones, superada por la delincuencia (54%) y la salud (42%). Siete meses más tarde, tras el estallido en las calles y los establecimientos estudiantiles, la educación (44%) fue apenas superada por la delincuencia (47%), y la salud quedó en tercer lugar (41%).

“Un movimiento como el estudiantil es una buena razón para sentarse a pensar. Una de las cosas que el movimiento ha hecho ha sido transparentar para el público que aunque a mí puede no afectarme, hay un problema que es grave”, explica el abogado de la Universidad de Chile, Fernando Atria, respecto a por qué el conflicto despierta la preocupación de la gente por el tema de la educación.

EL GOBIERNO DE LOS EMPRESARIOS

Otro punto en que los expertos coinciden, es que el posicionamiento de la educación como problema central tiene que ver con que el conflicto estudiantil logró cohesionar y movilizar a la sociedad chilena casi en su totalidad, aprovechándose en parte de la crisis de representatividad y convirtiéndose en la nueva alternativa democrática. “Antiguamente, los chilenos se sentían aparte de la posibilidad de opinar o incidir en los grandes cambios. Pero nos dimos cuenta de que el sistema político no era representativo, no daba soluciones. El movimiento dio a entender que cuando la ciudadanía se organiza puede ser escuchada”, señala al respecto el vocero estudiantil, Juan Pablo Páez.

Este posicionamiento de la crisis educacional en la opinión pública afecta la evaluación que hacen los ciudadanos respecto al desempeño de Sebastián Piñera en el ámbito particular de la educación. Según la encuesta Adimark, en Abril de 2011, el 60% aprobaba el desempeño del Presidente en esta materia. En septiembre, esta cifra bajó a 41% y terminó el diciembre en 25%. Dejando de lado cómo el Presidente ha manejado en la práctica el conflicto estudiantil, un factor que lo perjudica es que la gente relaciona su gobierno directamente con el lucro, una de las principales materias a las que aluden las demandas de la Confech. Según la CERC de septiembre, el 71% de los chilenos cree que este es el gobierno de los empresarios, y la ICSO de octubre reveló que el 59,9% está de acuerdo con que el sector más favorecido con las políticas de Piñera es la clase alta.

La figura del Mandatario es antagónica a los valores del movimiento y sus adherentes. “Piñera es todo aquello contra lo que este grupo se está movilizando. Es muy difícil para este gobierno dar cuenta de las demandas del movimiento estudiantil porque el problema central es que este gobierno no lo entiende. Para Piñera y la derecha, que uno tenga que pagar por lo que recibe, es parte de la vida”, añade Fernando Atria.

Más allá de la calidad y del acceso a la educación, que son algunas de las demandas iniciales del movimiento, es precisamente el fin al lucro aquello que convierte a la causa de los estudiantes en un movimiento social de carácter transversal. “Representa la expresión de un malestar muy importante, con una aprobación muy alta de quienes se consideran en contra de un modelo de vida determinado”, explica Alberto Mayol. “Todo lo que ha pasado este período -el tema de las nanas, los videos de denuncias-, tienen que ver con lo mismo. El movimiento despertó la capacidad de reprobar un orden existente”, agrega.

Alex Usher, Higher Education Strategy Associates, January 3, 2012

Hello, all. We're back up and running at HESA Towers, and we're starting the year with a list of things to look for in 2012.

The #1 story of the year in Canadian higher education will almost certainly be labour unrest. The faculty strike that just ended at Brandon lasted a staggering 45 days while at McGill, the non-academic staff were on strike from September to early December. Unions appear to be getting bolshier while money is starting to become tighter - not exactly a recipe for campus harmony.

Budget season won't be pretty. At the federal level, ministries have all been told to present options for cutting budgets by ten per cent (best evidence yet of the Harper machine's media management excellence - the press hasn't caught even a whiff of what's on the way). Transfers are safe, but program spending probably isn't; granting council money that doesn't look like value for money is probably at some risk.

In the provinces, our best guess at the moment is that we will see significant funding increases in Newfoundland and Saskatchewan, real declines in Ontario and B.C., and status quo everywhere else. At least one and possibly two provincial governments will significantly revamp their student aid programs.

On the international stage, it will become clearer that higher education reform in India is a mirage, while in China, sky-high levels of institutional indebtedness plus continuing high rates of graduate unemployment will push the sector into major reform. In Europe, the repercussions of the financial crisis will be centre stage, and it will become clearer that the Bologna process has become more a discussion group than a reform process (albeit a pretty interesting one). In the spring, all eyes will be on the U.K. to see how the largest tuition hike in history affects application and enrolment figures.

Financial pressure on American institutions will ease slightly as state tax receipts rise, but student debt will occupy (so to speak) centre stage and likely play a prominent role in the presidential election. Unlike the rest of the world, the search for solutions to student debt in the U.S. lies squarely on getting institutions to be more cost-effective; expect echoes of that debate to waft north across the border.

Last but not least, there's the ultra-important Human Capital Song Contest, which exactly NONE of you have chosen to enter so far. Either you were all really busy over the holidays or you are collectively lamer than a Malaysian student loan fight song (MP3). I prefer to believe it's the former, so I'm leaving the contest open for a couple of more weeks.

Back to work!

Comentario de Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and professor of economics at Ohio University. Luego de la versión original en inglés, ver traducción automática de Google al castellano.

American Higher Education: an Annual Report Card

By Richard Vedder, The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 21, 2011, 3:52 pm

Paraphrasing Dickens, “These are the best of schools, the worst of schools.” Higher education in America is to be both rightly praised and damned. It has both saints and sinners, angels and demons. If forced to give it a grade, using the more rigorous grading standards of the Golden Era (the 1950s and 1960s), I would give it a “C+.”if I were in a good mood, a “C” if I were in a bad one. Using today’s grading standards, it would do better, maybe a “B-.” But it is certainly not the “A+” sector of the economy that university presidents would lead you to believe.

On a positive note, in some ways the claim that America “has the best universities in the world” is true, as international rankings agree. We seem to be able to do cutting-edge research very well in American universities, albeit at a high price. The fact that we are a significant net importer of students, despite inane immigration and visa laws and regulations, is a sign that the world looks to America for higher-education leadership. To be sure, there are vast human resources wasted doing marginal research in many fields (humanities, social sciences, education, business, etc.) that does little to advance our understanding of the human condition, and that, moreover, few know about or bother to read.

Additionally, on the plus side, I think American has benefited enormously from competition and diversity in higher education, although this is under a huge threat as the federal government tries to extend its tentacles to enforce more centralized control and direction. We have 50 states that subsidize hundreds of universities in diverse ways, giving students choices as to curriculum and campus culture. Historically, we have encouraged diversity of thinking and exposition of novel but often unpopular ideas, but here, again, the authoritarian mindset of some in the academic Establishment is threatening this strength (not only amongst the faculty, but in the student-life area, where on many campuses truly radical ideas are not only permitted but sometimes vigorously proselytized, even occasionally accompanied by the suppression of alternative, more traditional viewpoints).

On the whole, by allowing multiple types of schools and different approaches to organizing them (public, private non-profit non-sectarian, private religiously oriented, and private for-profit institutions), we have increased access and educational opportunity. This is tarnished somewhat by the mediocre academic preparation of entering students, and by the increasingly lax standards within the higher-education milieu (with students averaging fewer than 30 hours weekly on academic pursuits), but still is probably in some ways a better system than found in, say, France or China.

But there is a good deal of bad as well. Higher education is far more expensive than in any other nation in the OECD (see Chart B1.2 here), and costs are rising faster than incomes. Both human and physical resources are underutilized or mis-utilized to a rather high degree. Learning outcomes are probably very modest (the best evidence we have on learning outcomes is the research of scholars Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, research which paints a rather bleak picture), and students do not work very hard. More and more graduates are taking jobs requiring less than a college degree, serving as parking-lot attendants, waiters, bartenders, taxi drivers, etc. Facing a glut of college-trained applicants, employers now are sometimes insisting on a college degree as a way of narrowing down a huge applicant pool. Moreover, the cost explosion is one factor in explaining why, despite massive student financial-aid programs mostly targeted for lower-income persons, the proportion of college graduates from lower-income backgrounds is smaller than it was four decades ago. We are both over-invested and mal-invested in higher education.

Added to all of that are the problems associated with the non-academic trappings of U.S. college life, probably best exemplified by multiple scandals over intercollegiate athletics, but seen elsewhere too. Universities are in the business of feeding, lodging, entertaining, and providing health care, and sometimes these activities absorb as many, or more, resources as funds spent on teaching and research. Moreover, an arrogance seen amongst faculty and other university personnel, even a contempt for the non-academic life, is increasingly making higher education politically more vulnerable in the Real World that provides a majority of funding.

As rapidly rising costs, a diminishing ability and willingness of governments to further increase subsidies, and the disconnection between the labor market and higher education grows, American higher education will face a crisis that will force transformational change. Healthy change will only come when better information on outcomes finally emerge, when incentive systems are reshaped to promote efficiency as well as quality, and as technology-based innovation expands rapidly. And many of these changes will come from outside the traditional institutions dominating higher education today. The Khan Academy and Saylor Foundation open-education efforts are good examples, and I am cheered by the good things done by prestigious schools like MIT and Stanford to further this movement (in particular, MIT’s indication it will offer some sort of credential for success in mastering some of its open-source courses).

21 de diciembre 2011, 15:52

Por Richard Vedder, The Chroncile of Higher Education, 3 de enero de 2012

Parafraseando a Dickens, "Estos son los mejores de las escuelas, la peor de las escuelas." La educación superior en Estados Unidos es a la vez con razón, elogiado y condenado. Tiene dos santos y pecadores, ángeles y demonios. Si se ve obligado a darle una calificación, utilizando las normas de clasificación más rigurosa de la Edad de Oro (1950 y 1960), que le daría una "C +". Si yo estuviera en un buen estado de ánimo, una "C" si yo estuviera en uno malo. Usando los estándares actuales de clasificación, lo haría mejor, tal vez una "B". Pero no es la "A +" del sector de la economía que los presidentes de la universidad se llevan a creer.

En una nota positiva, en cierto modo la afirmación de que Estados Unidos "tiene las mejores universidades del mundo" es cierto, como los rankings internacionales de acuerdo. Parece que somos capaces de hacer investigación de vanguardia muy bien en las universidades estadounidenses, aunque a un precio muy alto. El hecho de que somos un gran importador neto de los estudiantes, a pesar de la inmigración y visados ​​inane leyes y reglamentos, es una señal de que el mundo mira a Estados Unidos para la educación superior de liderazgo. Para estar seguro, hay gran cantidad de recursos humanos desperdiciado haciendo la investigación en muchos campos marginales (humanidades, ciencias sociales, educación, negocios, etc) que hace muy poco para avanzar en nuestra comprensión de la condición humana, y que, además, pocos conocen o la molestia de leer.

Además, en el lado positivo, creo que Estados Unidos ha beneficiado enormemente de la competencia y la diversidad en la educación superior, aunque esto está bajo una gran amenaza ya que el gobierno federal trata de extender sus tentáculos para imponer un control más centralizado y dirección. Tenemos 50 estados que subsidian a cientos de universidades de diversas maneras, dando a los estudiantes opciones en cuanto a planes de estudio y la cultura del campus. Históricamente, hemos fomentado la diversidad de pensamiento y de exposición de la novela, pero a menudo las ideas impopulares, pero en este caso, una vez más, la mentalidad autoritaria de algunos miembros de la comunidad académica está amenazando a esta fuerza (no sólo entre los profesores, pero en la zona de estudiantes de la vida, donde en muchos campus ideas verdaderamente radicales, no sólo están permitidas, pero a veces proselitismo con fuerza, aunque sólo sea ocasionalmente acompañado de la supresión de los puntos de vista alternativos, más tradicional).

En su conjunto, al permitir que múltiples tipos de escuelas y diferentes enfoques para la organización de ellos (públicos, privados sin fines de lucro no sectaria, privado de orientación religiosa, y privados con fines de lucro), que han aumentado el acceso y las oportunidades educativas. Esto es un poco empañada por la preparación académica mediocre de los estudiantes que ingresan, y por las normas cada vez más laxa en el entorno de educación superior (con un promedio de estudiantes de menos de 30 horas semanales en actividades académicas), pero aún así es probable que en algunos aspectos, un sistema mejor que en, por ejemplo, Francia o China.

Pero hay una buena cantidad de malas. La educación superior es mucho más caro que en cualquier otro país de la OCDE (véase el gráfico B1.2 aquí), y los costos están subiendo más rápido que los ingresos. Recursos humanos y físicos están subutilizados o mal utilizados en un grado bastante alto. Los resultados del aprendizaje son probablemente muy modesto (la mejor evidencia que tenemos sobre los resultados del aprendizaje es la investigación de los académicos Richard Arum y Roksa Josipa, la investigación, que pinta un panorama bastante sombrío), y los estudiantes no hacen un trabajo muy duro. Graduados más y más personas están tomando los empleos que requieren menos de un título universitario, sirviendo como asistentes de estacionamiento, meseros, cantineros, taxistas, etc Frente a un exceso de universitarios formados en los solicitantes, los empleadores ya veces se insiste en un título universitario como camino de la reducción a un gran número de solicitantes. Además, la explosión de los costes es un factor en la explicación de por qué, a pesar de estudiante masiva de ayuda financiera, los programas dirigidos principalmente a personas de bajos ingresos, la proporción de graduados universitarios de familias de bajos ingresos es menor de lo que era hace cuatro décadas. Los dos somos más de inversión y la mala inversión en la educación superior.

Añadido a todo esto son los problemas asociados con los símbolos no académicos de los EE.UU. la vida universitaria, probablemente el mejor ejemplificado por múltiples escándalos en los deportes interuniversitarios, pero visto en otros lugares también. Las universidades están en el negocio de la alimentación, alojamiento, entretenimiento, y proporcionar asistencia médica, ya veces estas actividades absorben el mayor número de recursos, o más, como los fondos destinados a la enseñanza y la investigación. Por otra parte, una arrogancia visto entre los profesores y demás personal de la universidad, incluso un desprecio por la vida no académico, es cada vez más a la educación superior políticamente más vulnerables en el mundo real que proporciona una mayor parte del financiamiento.

Como los costos en rápido aumento, una disminución de la capacidad y la voluntad de los gobiernos para aumentar los subsidios más, y la desconexión entre el mercado de trabajo y la educación superior crece, la educación superior en Estados Unidos se enfrentará a una crisis que obligará a un cambio transformacional. Cambio saludable sólo llegará cuando mejor información sobre los resultados al final salen, cuando los sistemas de incentivos son reformados para promover la eficiencia, así como la calidad y la innovación de base tecnológica se expande rápidamente. Y muchos de estos cambios vendrán de fuera de las instituciones tradicionales que dominan la educación superior hoy en día. La Academia Khan y la Fundación Saylor libre educación esfuerzos son buenos ejemplos, y estoy animado por las cosas buenas que hizo por las escuelas tan prestigiosas como el MIT y Stanford para llevar adelante este movimiento (en particular, la indicación del MIT se ofrecen algún tipo de credencial para el éxito en el dominio de algunos de sus cursos de código abierto).

Estimados colegas / Dear Colleagues,
Como lo menciona nuestra colega Alexandra Solano en el blog del PREAL, el profesor James J. Heckman dio una conferencia el diciembre pasado en el Banco Mundial titulada "Hard Evidence on Soft Skills" (Evidencia sólida sobre aptitudes sociales), en donde afirmó que el énfasis en habilidades cognitivas (como conocimiento de matemáticas, ciencias y lectura) a expensas de las aptitudes sociales (tales como el carácter y los rasgos de personalidad) tiene consecuencias lamentables sobre las políticas educativas.
 
Heckman, ganador del Premio Nobel en Economía de la Universidad de Chicago, afirmó que las aptitudes sociales son a menudo interpretadas como conceptos “difusos" difíciles de cuantificar.  Sin embargo, la realidad es otra. Los psicólogos y los economistas, comentó Heckman, no sólo han llegado a un consenso en la definición de las aptitudes sociales más importantes sino que también han desarrollado herramientas precisas para su medición. "Tenemos cada vez mayor evidencia que muestra que estos factores son importantes, que sí predicen, y la buena noticia es que se pueden mejorar", afirma el profesor Heckman en un video de su sitio web. Aunque por ahora las intervenciones que promueven carácter son relativamente pocas, en muchos casos juegan un papel más importante en la determinación de logros y resultados que las habilidades cognitivas.

Le recomendamos que visite la página de Heckman para obtener más información, o ver un vídeo corto titulado "La dura realidad detrás de aptitudes sociales" para un breve resumen de su investigación. También recomendamos los siguientes documentos sobre la importancia de mejorar las aptitudes sociales en los primeros años de edad, por Heckman y otros:
 
·         Almlund, Mathilde, Angela Lee Duckworth, James Heckman, y Tim Kautz. Personality Psychology and Economics. Febrero 2011. Discussion Paper Series. IZA
·         Heckman, James. The Economics of Inequality: The Value of Early Childhood Education. Primavera 2011. American Educator
·         Heckman, James, John Eric Humphries, y Nicholas Mader. Hard Evidence on Soft Skills: The GED and the Problem of Soft Skills in America. Noviembre 2010. Presentación de Power Point en Santiago, Chile.