1. The actual cost of education is not as high as it may appear, especially in the United States. In the US education expenses are grossly inflated by de facto subsidies to various industries, like construction,, electronics and software producers, testing industry, publishers, bloated administration and lawyers (as schools are being sued all the time) as well as costs of status maintenance that include fancy facilities, athletic programs, etc. For example, my wife's schools just expended $1m of taxpayers' dollars on installing astroturf on their football field. This money could hire additional 20 teachers. So if you separate subsidies and handouts that pass for "educational" expenses from the costs of actual instruction, the latter is not that high.
The uni system is a glorified medieval guild in which a handful of producers collude to inflate the value of their product by creating artificial entry barriers which they control to limit supply and competition among producers. Dissemination of knowledge is not the only function of this system - the sale of credentials and social status that comes with them is another. And in any status dispensation business, high price is the main if not only element that matters. The same science is being taught at Ivy League unis and community colleges, and what community colleges charge is the actual cost of knowledge. Anything beyond that is the cost of social status conferred by the institution i.e. fashion business that has little to do with actual education.
2. Entry examinations to educational institutions are a scam. Their main and only purpose is to create artificial barriers of entry to reduce competition among knowledge workers and inflate the value of credentials.
These examination fall into one of the two varieties - knowledge testing or aptitude testing. Administering a knowledge test as a condition of entry to an educational institution is absurd on its face. It is as if a hospital administered a health test and refused admitting anyone who failed it. If the knowledge test were taken seriously, the rational conclusion is that those who score high on those test do not need to be admitted because they already have what the schools has to offer.
The aptitude tests are supposed to test the ability to learn. I think that the need for such testing is based on a faulty premise that human ability to learn significantly varies among individuals. In reality it does not, as virtually all people are capable of learning at least in the early stages of development. I do not think anyone can seriously dispute this.
This is why there are no entrance examinations to the first grade. So if any differentiation in that aptitude develops it must happen later in life, which begs the question whether these are really differences in 'aptitude' or merely learned behavior of avoidance of certain cognitive tasks. But whether it is an 'aptitude' or learned behavior - it makes sense to determine the likelihood of a prospective student to successfully learn knowledge and skills offered by an educational institution.
However, using a one-time, paper and pencil test administered under stress is perhaps the worst possible way of determining that likelihood. Suffice it to say that in no other area of life a single test is viewed as a decisive indicator on which life decisions are made. A far better way of determining it is to observe the past performance i.e. how students did in the grade school. Those who get As and Bs in K12 school are likely to succeed in college. Those who got mostly Cs and Ds are a different story, as their low K12 achievement may or may not be indicative of their ability to succeed in college. If these folks believe that their K12 grades are not indicative of their potential to succeed in college, a diagnostic test may be useful to to evaluate that claim. But there is a fundamental difference between such a diagnostic test and the 'aptitude tests' as currently practices. The ultimate goal of diagnostic tests is to increase the chance of entry for prospective candidates, wheres the ultimate goal of 'aptitude test' is to reduce that chance and to selectively deny entry.
I believe that these two points apply to educational system in any country, be it the US or India. AFAIK, India has universal elementary education, which already provides a mechanism for "early tracking" that is directing students to different career paths depending on their school performance.
College admission can be based on grade school performance alone and diagnostic tests for those who received low grades but believe they will succeed in college. The further selection process can continue during the first semesters and the marginal cost of expanding instructional capacity at the freshman and sophomore level are rather low, especially if the pseudo-educational expenses (subsidies to various industries) are factored out. So I don't see why this system cannot work in countries like India.
The main obstacle to the implementation of this system is not its cost efficiency but political resistance from the unis themselves. It is in their interest to create and control artificial entry barriers to inflate the price of credentials their dispense. Take away the entrance examinations and the uni guild system and the status aura associated with it will collapse and become like any other service industry.
On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 7:26 PM, Sayan Bhattacharyya <bhattach at umich.edu>wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> The second issue involved here is that of matching supply and demand, that
>> is, prospective students and vendors of training. The current system of
>> matching this supply and demand is based on the arbitrary decisions of
>> vendors (admissions officers) who claim the ability to predict the future
>> i.e. how well a prospective student will master the body of knowledge -
>> which is an obvious scam. If you told them that they will not be paid
>> for
>> their educational services if their prediction was wrong and the student
>> failed to graduate, they would quickly tell you that it is impossible to
>> predict whether a student will graduate, and it would be unfair for them
>> to
>> be penalized for that failure. The reason why these shysters evaluate
>> supposed "ability" or 'aptitude" to successfully complete training is to
>> artificially limit supply by creating entry barriers, so they can demand a
>> higher price for their services. This higher price is an important
>> element
>> of branding and credential dispensation.
>>
>> A far more rational system is to admit everyone who applies and then
>> gradually select those who perform at a certain level during, say, the
>> first two years. Those who have difficulties meeting that level should be
>> provided remediation education if they avail themselves. If more people
>> apply to an institution than this institution can accommodate, then random
>> selection can be used - as it is now practiced in some charter schools.
>> Of
>> course those not admitted to institution A could still have a chance of
>> being admitted to institution B or C, so nobody would be denied admission.
>> And since the quality of education is a function of funding, adequate per
>> student funding would eliminate quality differences among institutions.
>>
>> Such a system is rational in that it would provide adequate supply of
>> education services to prospective students and adequate supply of skilled
>> individuals to meet societal needs. However, it undermines the myth of
>> ranking both student abilities and quality of educational services, which
>> is the cornerstone of branding and credential/status dispensation business
>> from which elite unis enormously profit. But these two functions of unis
>> -
>> education services and credential/status dispensation should be kept
>> analytically separate when talking about public funding for higher
>> education.
>>
>
> The above may work in developed countries like the USA where there is no
> scarcity of educational resources. But in an underdeveloped country like
> India (where there are fewer resources, and hence not all aspiring
> higher-education-students can possibly be admitted to institutions of
> higher education due to resource limitations, how will the above be
> feasible?
>
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."