Disrupting Higher Education with Assessment

As someone who believes there is quite a bit of corruption, sclerosis, and waste in higher education, I welcome the announcement of the creation of Austin University—a new institution dedicated to the pursuit of truth—but I also think it’s not going to be the disruptive force that higher education needs. The main reason colleges and universities (particularly the Ivies and their equivalents) have had such staying power, despite their well-documented dogmatism and decline in quality, is their signaling function. Currently, we have nothing comparable to a college degree that adequately communicates intelligence, conscientiousness, the ability to work with others, and flexibility across a wide range of dimensions (academic fields and modes of activity). So the disruption will come from an alternative signaling system that communicates what university degrees currently do. The ideal institution, then, would not be just another university with a mission statement that most of the others already have (Harvard’s motto is “veritas”), but one that assesses, measures, and communicates what a bachelor’s degree currently communicates, but at much lower cost in both time and money. I can foresee, for instance, a six month (rather than four year) “boot camp” for young people in which they are constantly evaluated on a range of exams and activities that, for six months, test what it currently takes colleges four years to test. Young people might brag someday about “tier 1 at boot camp” the same way they currently brag about a bachelor’s from Yale. I’d say the place to start, then, is to take standardized testing, use that as a core, and build from there.