What do you think?
Rate this book
The William G. Bowen Series
Higher Education in the Digital Age
Two of the most visible and important trends in higher education today are its exploding costs and the rapid expansion of online learning. Could the growth in online courses slow the rising cost of college and help solve the crisis of affordability? In this short and incisive book, William G. Bowen, one of the foremost experts on the intersection of education and economics, explains why, despite his earlier skepticism, he now believes technology has the potential to help rein in costs without negatively affecting student learning. As a former president of Princeton University, an economist, and author of many books on education, including the acclaimed bestseller The Shape of the River, Bowen speaks with unique expertise on the subject.
Surveying the dizzying array of new technology-based teaching and learning initiatives, including the highly publicized emergence of "massive open online courses" (MOOCs), Bowen argues that such technologies could transform traditional higher education--allowing it at last to curb rising costs by increasing productivity, while preserving quality and protecting core values. But the challenges, which are organizational and philosophical as much as technological, are daunting. They include providing hard evidence of whether online education is cost-effective in various settings, rethinking the governance and decision-making structures of higher education, and developing customizable technological platforms. Yet, Bowen remains optimistic that the potential payoff is great.
Based on the 2012 Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at Stanford University, the book includes responses from Stanford president John Hennessy, Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner, Columbia University literature professor Andrew Delbanco, and Coursera cofounder Daphne Koller.
Surveying the dizzying array of new technology-based teaching and learning initiatives, including the highly publicized emergence of "massive open online courses" (MOOCs), Bowen argues that such technologies could transform traditional higher education--allowing it at last to curb rising costs by increasing productivity, while preserving quality and protecting core values. But the challenges, which are organizational and philosophical as much as technological, are daunting. They include providing hard evidence of whether online education is cost-effective in various settings, rethinking the governance and decision-making structures of higher education, and developing customizable technological platforms. Yet, Bowen remains optimistic that the potential payoff is great.
Based on the 2012 Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at Stanford University, the book includes responses from Stanford president John Hennessy, Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner, Columbia University literature professor Andrew Delbanco, and Coursera cofounder Daphne Koller.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
12 people are currently reading
157 people want to read
About the author
William G. Bowen
41 books4 followersPresident emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University. He is the author or coauthor of many books, including the acclaimed bestseller The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities, and Lessons Learned: Reflections of a University President (all Princeton).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 20, 2013
Higher education, particularly in the US, is on the verge of a major structural change. There has been a lot of speculation in recent years about the ever-increasing cost of higher education, the mounting student college debt (which has surpassed one trillion dollars this year), and the growing uncertainty of the job prospects even for college graduates. Hardly a week goes by without another major story in the media about some disconcerting aspects of the higher educational ecosystem. Books and articles (such as this one) proclaiming the existence of the higher-educational bubble pop out on a very regular basis. Rarely, however, have I had the opportunity to read an account of the current state of higher education from one of its more distinguished leaders. “Higher Education in the Digital Age” promises to be just such book.
The book is based on the Tanner Lectures on Human Values delivered at Stanford University in the fall of 2012. The main lectures – and the bulk of this book – are written by William Bowen, former president of Princeton University. The rest of the book is comprised of the responses by some equally distinguished higher educational luminaries, including the current president of Stanford University. All of the contributors to this book are clearly very familiar with the virtues and the problems of the higher education. Stanford in particular has in recent years been investing a lot of time and resources on trying to make education more affordable and accessible – from increasingly more generous student financial aid packages, to the launching of its own online educational initiative. The online education seems to be one of the main directions in which the future of education is headed, and this book makes an assessment of its potential and pitfalls. It gives many interesting insights and “rebuttals” of the criticism of higher education. Its definitely worth reading in order to get the sense of what academic leaders are thinking right now as far as their own profession is concerned.
So what is the conclusion of this book? I don’t have the nitty-gritty economics expertise to do the full justice to the arguments presented in it. However, I have spent most of my professional life in the academia, and together with many years of undergraduate and graduate training I have a fairly good idea of the ills and the shortcomings of this system. My sense is that the “correction” to the higher-educational bubble is inevitable, and it’s more likely to happen sooner rather than later. Its effects, in turn, will probably be much more dramatic, in ways that we can’t fully appreciate right now, than what most people expect. With that in mind I think that this book is grossly underestimating the extent of the upcoming crisis. It proposes palliative measures where much more structurally radical changes are in order. After reading this book I was left with a renewed sense that the leaders in the Ivory Tower have managed to thoroughly immure themselves in their world and are largely impervious to the economic forces that affect all the other aspects of the modern world. They might present this as a virtue, but more and more people are increasingly viewing it as a potentially devastating defect. Their analysis of the current system may be correct as far as it goes, but I am afraid that we are on a verge of a truly radical educational revolution. I was reminded of what Henry Ford’s quipping that if he had listened to his customers he would have built a faster horse. Alas, after reading this book I got a sense that it was a valiant attempt to make a case for a faster higher educational horse.
The book is based on the Tanner Lectures on Human Values delivered at Stanford University in the fall of 2012. The main lectures – and the bulk of this book – are written by William Bowen, former president of Princeton University. The rest of the book is comprised of the responses by some equally distinguished higher educational luminaries, including the current president of Stanford University. All of the contributors to this book are clearly very familiar with the virtues and the problems of the higher education. Stanford in particular has in recent years been investing a lot of time and resources on trying to make education more affordable and accessible – from increasingly more generous student financial aid packages, to the launching of its own online educational initiative. The online education seems to be one of the main directions in which the future of education is headed, and this book makes an assessment of its potential and pitfalls. It gives many interesting insights and “rebuttals” of the criticism of higher education. Its definitely worth reading in order to get the sense of what academic leaders are thinking right now as far as their own profession is concerned.
So what is the conclusion of this book? I don’t have the nitty-gritty economics expertise to do the full justice to the arguments presented in it. However, I have spent most of my professional life in the academia, and together with many years of undergraduate and graduate training I have a fairly good idea of the ills and the shortcomings of this system. My sense is that the “correction” to the higher-educational bubble is inevitable, and it’s more likely to happen sooner rather than later. Its effects, in turn, will probably be much more dramatic, in ways that we can’t fully appreciate right now, than what most people expect. With that in mind I think that this book is grossly underestimating the extent of the upcoming crisis. It proposes palliative measures where much more structurally radical changes are in order. After reading this book I was left with a renewed sense that the leaders in the Ivory Tower have managed to thoroughly immure themselves in their world and are largely impervious to the economic forces that affect all the other aspects of the modern world. They might present this as a virtue, but more and more people are increasingly viewing it as a potentially devastating defect. Their analysis of the current system may be correct as far as it goes, but I am afraid that we are on a verge of a truly radical educational revolution. I was reminded of what Henry Ford’s quipping that if he had listened to his customers he would have built a faster horse. Alas, after reading this book I got a sense that it was a valiant attempt to make a case for a faster higher educational horse.
June 5, 2013
Fascinating miscellany of a book, _Higher Education in the Digital Age_ approaches the topic from a mix of angles. Anchoring it is a discussion of the Ithaka S&R report on the power of blended learning. We also read William Bowen's survey of issues in higher education economics, and short essay responses by a variety of leading thinkers and practitioners, including a scientist, a university president, one humanities researcher, and a leading light in the MOOC world.
The combined set of topics and reflections is well worth the time of anyone interested in the fate of American academia. For instance:
-the high cost of sustaining a research university (117-8)
-the relatively low cost of maintaining administrative staff (30)
-a framework for assessing online learning platforms (76)
-a call to separate academic freedom from teaching methods (65-6)
-the challenges technology presents to traditional faculty/shared governance (124)
-on adjuncts: MOOCs accelerating adjunctification (139), adjuncts as akin to dental hygiene assistants (!) (116)
The responses are uneven and yet useful, given their size. Andrew Delbanco's suffers from the same problems I found in his book _College_. Koller managers to beat the drum for MOOCs while carefully engaging with other speakers. John Hennessy's economic analysis seems right on, and a bit grim. Howard Gardner's discussion sparkles.
The combined set of topics and reflections is well worth the time of anyone interested in the fate of American academia. For instance:
-the high cost of sustaining a research university (117-8)
-the relatively low cost of maintaining administrative staff (30)
-a framework for assessing online learning platforms (76)
-a call to separate academic freedom from teaching methods (65-6)
-the challenges technology presents to traditional faculty/shared governance (124)
-on adjuncts: MOOCs accelerating adjunctification (139), adjuncts as akin to dental hygiene assistants (!) (116)
The responses are uneven and yet useful, given their size. Andrew Delbanco's suffers from the same problems I found in his book _College_. Koller managers to beat the drum for MOOCs while carefully engaging with other speakers. John Hennessy's economic analysis seems right on, and a bit grim. Howard Gardner's discussion sparkles.
August 24, 2015
I have some criticisms about the arguments presented here that I'll blog about later this month, but I'll remark on my disappointment that there wasn't more focus on digital education in general. The idea that web-based distance learning can serve as a cost-saving measure for higher education is presented with little evidence to substantiate it, particularly when so many other studies and examinations into the phenomenon describe distance education as taking more time (and thus more money) to develop/sustain/support and an additional skill-set that must be nurtured (again, financial investment). I wanted this book to unpack what those elements would include in terms of relevant costs (and cost-savings) while demonstrating their impact on learning outcomes, but it didn't get into that depth. It's analysis of MOOC's was equally limited.
December 10, 2013
What a disappointment. I had such hopes for this book and it is rare for me to rate a monograph at this level. I always assume that there is an audience for any book, and I may not be it!
This book suffers from its origins. It is based in a lecture and the responses to it. Therefore there is a solid core in the first section (the lecture), and then a catalogue of responses to it.
While there is attention to the cost of higher education, online learning (in a reified form) is constructed (once more) as a panacea for this 'problem.' This is a debate has progressed for 15 years and is much more complex than presented in this book.
I thought this book would be terrific. It was so basic that I only gleaned a page of notes. Such a shame.
This book suffers from its origins. It is based in a lecture and the responses to it. Therefore there is a solid core in the first section (the lecture), and then a catalogue of responses to it.
While there is attention to the cost of higher education, online learning (in a reified form) is constructed (once more) as a panacea for this 'problem.' This is a debate has progressed for 15 years and is much more complex than presented in this book.
I thought this book would be terrific. It was so basic that I only gleaned a page of notes. Such a shame.
September 29, 2013
Bowen's clarity of mind in dissecting fundamental issues at stake in contemporary debates about higher education is always worth reading. In this case, he provides a comprehensive if cursory overview of the major issues surrounding digital teaching and learning and higher ed, from MOOCs to the flipped classroom to cost-benefit analyses. The final part of the book, though, is the most interesting for anyone familiar with the above debates, as Bowen and several other well-known commentators share in short, provocative essays their different views on whether the burgeoning age of digital ed is good or bad for students and America's colleges and universities.
April 8, 2021
College tuition prices were rising rapidly. Online courses were seen as the next thing. This sounds familiar today, as the problems raised in the book published in 2012. At this point MOOCs were seen as the next big thing. (They weren't).
Still, it was clear that something had to change in the higher education system. Since then many of the issues raised have been exacerbated without resolution. However, as we start to rebuild now, this book does give a look at what things might return and what will won't.
Still, it was clear that something had to change in the higher education system. Since then many of the issues raised have been exacerbated without resolution. However, as we start to rebuild now, this book does give a look at what things might return and what will won't.
May 8, 2013
A useful, brief collection of lectures tackling most of the pressing -- and still very unanswered -- questions about the role web tech will play in the future of higher ed. The book is actually a collection of lectures by Bowen, who's obviously a giant, and some other distinguished academics. More than anything, it leaves you with an appreciation of how both promising and uncertain the future of ed tech really is, despite the whatever David Brooks says about a Tsunami coming.
May 4, 2017
I liked this book because the whole time I was reading it I was arguing with and laughing at the author. Well written. Poor arguments.
February 11, 2013
Higher Education in the Digital Age (HEDA) is compiled from the 2012 Tanner Lectures on Human Values. It features a couple essays by Bill Bowen, economist and former president of Princeton and responses from: John Hennessy, Stanford president; Howard Gardner, Harvard professor; Andrew Delbanco, Columbia professor; and Daphne Koller, cofounder of online learning provider Coursera.
HEDA is the result of two great forces in higher education today—the explosion of costs and the rapid expansion of online learning. The hope (a hope that has thus far been in vain) is that the latter can mitigate the former. That hope revolves around one of the primary drivers of cost (and one I was unfamiliar with). Because higher education is very labor intensive, it does not benefit from the technologically driven productivity gains most other industries do, and thus its cost inevitably rises faster than costs as a whole (i.e., the rate of inflation). This is perhaps an overstatement. Technology has done much to improve the productivity of faculty, particularly the use of computers and the internet for research. But the benefits of those productivity gains have inured to the faculty, not the students. The danger is that productivity gains from online learning would suffer the same fate; the opportunity is that they may help break-up this kind of rent-seeking. The topic is only given very limited attention though.
HEDA reads like exactly what it is—a lecture series. As such, it’s limited by its format. It’s also too short to properly cover so large a topic. And it suffers from being entirely from the perspective of professors and administrators at only the most elite of universities. On the other hand, it is extremely timely.
Each essay is heavily endnoted. HEDA is perhaps most valuable as a font of source information.
Disclosure: I received an e-copy of HEDA through NetGalley.
HEDA is the result of two great forces in higher education today—the explosion of costs and the rapid expansion of online learning. The hope (a hope that has thus far been in vain) is that the latter can mitigate the former. That hope revolves around one of the primary drivers of cost (and one I was unfamiliar with). Because higher education is very labor intensive, it does not benefit from the technologically driven productivity gains most other industries do, and thus its cost inevitably rises faster than costs as a whole (i.e., the rate of inflation). This is perhaps an overstatement. Technology has done much to improve the productivity of faculty, particularly the use of computers and the internet for research. But the benefits of those productivity gains have inured to the faculty, not the students. The danger is that productivity gains from online learning would suffer the same fate; the opportunity is that they may help break-up this kind of rent-seeking. The topic is only given very limited attention though.
HEDA reads like exactly what it is—a lecture series. As such, it’s limited by its format. It’s also too short to properly cover so large a topic. And it suffers from being entirely from the perspective of professors and administrators at only the most elite of universities. On the other hand, it is extremely timely.
Each essay is heavily endnoted. HEDA is perhaps most valuable as a font of source information.
Disclosure: I received an e-copy of HEDA through NetGalley.
Read
December 5, 2013"My President at Princeton, Bill Bowen, shows up for the second year in a row on my list of the books I learned the most from over the past year. Bowen’s book, based upon his 2012 Tanner Lectures at Stanford, demonstrates once again that he is the most astute observer of higher education in the nation. His analysis of the potential of on-line education and MOOCs to bend the cost curve and help solve the 'cost disease' facing colleges and universities is balanced, intelligent and prescient." - Michael H. Schill
April 6, 2014
This book does a great job exploring the path digital education is taking. It raises many good questions about cost, for-profit companies creating platforms, the politics behind bringing technology into the classroom as well as the lack of current data on the effects of technology in the classroom. While there are a lot of challenges to some of the current paradigms involving classroom technology, the are also solutions offers and debates being held that pertain to the design and implication of digital platforms for the benefits of students.
October 8, 2014
Bowen does a great job of highlighting the field of higher education, and the challenges that budgets, access, and technology introduce. It is a high level look, but offers excellent resources for further reading.
Read
April 24, 2015378.17344 B7864 2014
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews