Since he makes a lot of weaker arguments, I'll focus on his strongest argument:
> To think that someone [...] with only a high-school diploma [...] could motivate himself to complete a large number of MOOCs is naïve [...]
He comes up with some spurious statistics to support this assertion (about MOOC completion rates), but it's much more likely the reason he believes this is because of his experience as an educator.
I think this is a valid criticism. One important aspect of college is that you have something on the line (loans), and you're placed into an environment where the social context is "this is what we're doing now, we're completing courses and learning." And this social context propels people who would otherwise not have the self discipline to learn on their own.
The problem here is that the author treats this challenge as evidence that college is the best solution. If MOOCs can't answer it, college will continue to be dominant. Once I've spelled it out like that it should be obvious he's assuming a false choice.
What other options could we come up with to solve this interesting problem he's posed? MOOCs in their current iteration don't compel you to keep learning. But rather than assume college is the best option by default, let's keep thinking of other ways we could figure out how learning could be encouraged systematically.
> To think that someone [...] with only a high-school diploma [...] could motivate himself to complete a large number of MOOCs is naïve [...]
He comes up with some spurious statistics to support this assertion (about MOOC completion rates), but it's much more likely the reason he believes this is because of his experience as an educator.
I think this is a valid criticism. One important aspect of college is that you have something on the line (loans), and you're placed into an environment where the social context is "this is what we're doing now, we're completing courses and learning." And this social context propels people who would otherwise not have the self discipline to learn on their own.
The problem here is that the author treats this challenge as evidence that college is the best solution. If MOOCs can't answer it, college will continue to be dominant. Once I've spelled it out like that it should be obvious he's assuming a false choice.
What other options could we come up with to solve this interesting problem he's posed? MOOCs in their current iteration don't compel you to keep learning. But rather than assume college is the best option by default, let's keep thinking of other ways we could figure out how learning could be encouraged systematically.