By Sean Coughlan. Is going to university a way of getting on a ladder of opportunity? Or is it a way of descending into debt that will outweigh any promised advantages?
It's a question that faces every developed economy where going to higher education has moved from an academic minority to a mainstream career pathway. More...
Will MOOCs be Flukes?
By Maria Konnikova. On July 23rd, 1969, Geoffrey Crowther addressed the inaugural meeting of the Open University, a British institution that had just been created to provide an alternative to traditional higher education. Courses would be conducted by mail and live radio. The basic mission, Crowther declared, was a simple one: to be open to people from all walks of life. “The first, and most urgent task before us is to cater for the many thousands of people, fully capable of a higher education, who, for one reason or another, do not get it, or do not get as much of it as they can turn to advantage, or as they discover, sometimes too late, that they need,” he told his audience. More...