There Is No Demand for Higher Education

By John Warner. The champions of MOOCs and other digitally-mediated mass produced education often speak of the “necessity” of transitioning to this model because of all of the increasingly onerous expense of traditional higher ed and unmet demand for education. Clay Shirky believes the need is dire, “The reason to bet on the spread of large-scale low-cost education isn’t the increased supply of new technologies.[1] It’s the massive demand for education, which our existing institutions are increasingly unable to handle. That demand will go somewhere.”
I don’t mean to pick on Shirky specifically (I did that already). Read more...