Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web

[Andy Nguyen]

Will this happen to niche education like MFE or MBA degree? Your thoughts on this?

Gates thinks the idea of young adults having to go to universities in order to get an education is going to go away relatively soon. Well, provided they’re self-motivated learners.

“Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world,” Gates said at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, CA today. “It will be better than any single university,” he continued.

He believes that no matter how you came about your knowledge, you should get credit for it. Whether it’s an MIT degree or if you got everything you know from lectures on the web, there needs to be a way to highlight that.

Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web

 

[Connor]

Wishful thinking.

First, as the article points out, the young adults have to be self-motivated learners. I know people that are self-motivated to learn about specific things that interest them but not to be educated in a well-rounded manner.

His idea about the best lectures being online and getting credit for learning something no matter where the knowledge comes from is a great idea but nothing really new. For decades a person could go to the public library and learn as much or more than a student at a university for free. People don't do this for two reasons that I see: (1) motivation and (2) that piece of paper the university gives you.

I think the internet provides a source of supplemental learning.

It will never happen to MFE or MBA programs until the recruiters are willing to hire students with online only degrees. But even then it is questionable. I have heard many times how the value of an MBA is not the actual knowledge you get but the connections you make with classmates and the opportunities from alumni.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Wishful thinking.

First, as the article points out, the young adults have to be self-motivated learners. I know people that are self-motivated to learn about specific things that interest them but not to be educated in a well-rounded manner.

His idea about the best lectures being online and getting credit for learning something no matter where the knowledge comes from is a great idea but nothing really new. For decades a person could go to the public library and learn as much or more than a student at a university for free. People don't do this for two reasons that I see: (1) motivation and (2) that piece of paper the university gives you.

I think the internet provides a source of supplemental learning.

It will never happen to MFE or MBA programs until the recruiters are willing to hire students with online only degrees. But even then it is questionable. I have heard many times how the value of an MBA is not the actual knowledge you get but the connections you make with classmates and the opportunities from alumni.

I agree with everything you are saying. I do want to add that the Open University in Britain has been operating for the last 45 years and the lectures on mathematics they provide (or used to provide) over public television in areas like differential geometry, complex analysis, number theory, Galois theory, Fourier analysis, mechanics, and the like are/were far superior in organisation and content to the rubbish I had to endure at London University. Yet still a degree from the Open University has never quite been accepted by employers as at par with one from a brick-and-mortar university.