Chapter 2 -- The Costs/Benefits Equation

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There is reason to believe a college education is becoming what it was 100 years ago: prohibitively expensive to all but the world's most well off. The challenge for educators, policy makers, and education entrepreneurs is to reverse that trend.

Where the Money Goes

Here are some of the problems:

Money spent in the wrong places. In the United States, higher education institutions have invested in buildings and advanced technology that sit unused for months at a time. At the same time, higher education institutions in many countries face having to hire more faculty; a large wave of students will be attaining college age by the end of the century.

Not enough money is spent attracting universities' new clientele. Universities still concentrate on creating physical campuses for traditional students instead of electronic campuses for new adult learners

Universities' New Market

Worker retraining in the knowledge age is the key to a country's economic competitiveness.

Jobs will disappear and new ones will be created at an ever increasing pace. Education institutions need to be nimble enough to meet the demand for teaching both the underlying knowledge and the ever-changing skill sets these workers need to keep their countries economically competitive and their own standard of living comfortable.

Gifted and Talented Students

Gifted and talented primary and secondary school students who go to school in rural or impoverished areas often can't take courses that stimulate their intelligence and creativity because they are not available. They can benefit from electronically-delivered education.

Learning Power is Earning Power

For the world's education-hungry population, learning power is earning power. How to make education affordable and accessible is the challenge.

Also in this chapter

Statistics on the rising costs of higher education to students in the United States;

Statistics on global wage variations in selected professions;

The costs to society if students with potential drop out of the education system;

The role of human capital in the knowledge age;

Issues of excellence and equity in elementary and secondary education;

Where to focus resources in primary and secondary schools.

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