----- Original Message ----- I know I'm coming late to this party, but we started talking about something like Joanna's idea below a while ago. Don't we think that this is ultimately where higher ed is headed anyway? I mean, if a degree from phoenix can be meaningful, or even pseudo-meaningful, then an organization of trained, talented, skilled, responsible people charging reasonable rates for real classes ought to be doable. and it is kind of old-school, really. like, medieval-school.
the thing about Phoenix, IIRC, is that their expansion plan has been buying up accreditations, basically. But I have been thinking for a few years that the accreditation model is in its death throes even if no one recognizes it yet. Sooner or later the elite institutions, who surely need accreditors less than the accrediting bodies need them, will tell the accrediting bodies to go fuck themselves. This will happen I'm guessing, and yes I am just making this up, when the accreditors finally get too big for their britches and start making actual demands of elite institutions.
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Nobody is going to bother the Ivies. The Ivies justify the accreditors and vice versa.
It would be hilarious though if Ayn Rand's fantasy comes true, and the intelligentia go on strike. But I guess that can only happen if there is such a thing as a real intellectual, which there isn't, much.
Oh well. Perhaps it will happen slowly. The demographics might help: a lot of older people wanting to learn stuff and not caring one way or another about diplomas. That's one way to start.
Joanna