This post is part of my participation in the Carnival of Journalism, the prompt asked for a response to the Knight Commission’s recommendation that we “Increase the role of higher education…..as hubs of journalistic activity.” and “integrate digital and media literacy as critical elements for education at all levels through collaboration among federal, state, and local education officials.” 

There can be no democracy without an informed and educated population.  It’s that simple.

Education gives us our framework for interpreting the world around us.  Journalism, even at it’s best, when it gives us unfiltered truth with context, still requires that we have a foundation that will allow us to give meaning to the information and make use of it in our lives.

Today we lived in a networked society, yet many of our main institutions for educating and informing the public are holdovers from an industrial society.  They were designed in a time where information was scarce and expensive to produce and distribute.  Information is now abundant, so the value propositions have changed, economic realities have changed, and social norms are changing.

When we talk about the role of journalism and education, we need to know whether we are talking about near term programs and solutions or long term programs and solutions because education will be changing significantly if we look out 20-30 years. 
Rather than talk about specific programs, I want to focus on the current role of the university, the assets that are there, and the priorities the University has.

The university has two main goals.  Producing original information, knowledge and culture, and producing Alumni.

Producing Alumni (Mah Boy’s Wickhed Smaht):

The bar scene in Good Will Hunting pretty much sums up my views on higher education.

You can get the equivalent of a $150,000 education for $1.50 in overdue fines at the library.  The information isn’t scare.  But the Michael Bolton look alike is, like it or not, pretty on point as well.  His money buys him a diploma, and with or without one a whole lot of people do end up serving fries at McDonalds. 

There is a bit more to it though, most people obviously aren’t as gifted or as motivated to learn as Matt Damon’s character, and Universities offer much more than information. 

So here are the five main reasons I think people pay for college.

1) A Network.  Colleges and Universities are generally small cities of 18-22 year olds.  The network of friends and acquaintances you build is important just for its own sake.  At UMass I also found I learned at least as much from my peers (and probably retained more of the information I gleaned from extracurricular reading) than I did from most of my classes. 

2) A coming of age tradition.  It is culturally relevant and required step for many youth, especially in today’s economy if you are going to be part of the middle or upper classes.  Socially it provides time away from home, a transition to independence from the family in a controlled environment.

3) Accreditation:  The application process is a screen, graduation is a screen, choice of major is a screen, GPA is a screen, and all are significant until they are overshadowed by work experience.  When we are making low information judgements, brand is important. and the brand on a diploma is (whether we agree or not) used to measure potential until an individual has proved themselves in an industry.  Some places the brand matters more, some less, and brands mean different things to different people.  This is the Michael Bolton guy’s diploma.

4) Deadlines and other external pressures to improve productivity.

5) Curriculum and content curation

Because the University system offers these things, the market and society has accepted the incredibly high and rising cost of a University education.  When we think about how we will educate and inform the population in the long term, we should be aware that those needs may end up being met in other ways—particularly given that many universities aren’t able to fulfill the implied promises they make to their customers—that a degree with equal a job.

Producing Knowledge and Culture

There are only two places you can read and write all day, College and Prison.  (And the distractions in prison don’t seem quite as fun)

Faculty are paid to think and communicate their ideas and the ideas of others.  Students pay the university to research, learn, think, and communicate their ideas.  Economically speaking, if we have a shortage of information in society, it seems clear that the University is a great content source, and could easily—and economically independently, bear the burden for supplying a significant portion of societies information needs. 
But the reality is different.

Process in education is often more important than outcome

For all the hours that go into them, Most academic papers are never read by more than the professor and Teaching Assistant.  Content is created for the benefit of the author, for the process which ensures they understand the material deeply and can communicate it, not for the benefit of the reader. 

Even when I think of the writing I did for the Daily Collegian while I was at UMass, the experience was much more valuable for me than the content was for my readers.

So my main proposal now is that if want to improve the information in communities, and want our education system to help our students be more digitally literate, we need to focus on processes.

What does that mean?  Well, how about if instead of writing a five page paper on the economy of the South prior to the civil war you were asked to make 20 high quality Wikipedia edits and keep track of the changes over a period of 3-6 weeks?

What if instead of book reports you had to post reviews on Amazon, or contribute to a blog and be tested on how findable the piece was on a search engine?

The process of writing a paper is important, but in the 21st century, the process of being able to put together a coherent and engaging Ignite talk may be a better way to assess whether the individual has really grasped and can communicate what they’ve learned, and if what they’re studying is relevant to communities, maybe they can create information goods where the output is as valuable as the process.

As an example:  I was looking for some better resources on Stoicism the other night, and one of the best things I found was a report some young Australian girl had made for class put in video form. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC3LstrzETQ

I look forward to talking more about this in March, and welcome your thoughts.