The $400K Degree Is Broken. Here Is How to Fix It
raisinghumanity.substack.com> The common counterargument is that this model advantages wealthy families who can fund these projects. I do not find that persuasive. The truly curious, driven, determined student with a phone and an internet connection has access to the same AI tools, the same research databases, the same distribution platforms as a kid in the most resourced zip code in America.
The difference is that the kid from the wealthy family does not need to be curious, driven or determined to achieve the outcome.
> It is not enough to say “I started the environmental club.” The bar is: “I led a restoration project, secured a third-party grant, published peer-reviewed research, and earned a recommendation from a community leader who worked directly alongside me for over a hundred hours.”
Wealthy may not been 100% correlated with well connected, but there’s a lot of overlap. And being well connected is wayyy more useful than any fucking phone or LLM for the presented examples.
When I was a kid my parents were too broke and too busy for us to involve ourselves in extracurricular activities. It wasn’t until the latter half of my senior year of high school I was able to convince them to let me anything of that sort.
I guess with the model at least you guarantee very small class sizes.
Spoiler: There is no (easy) fix.
The actual fix is a massive economic correction.
For several years now, employers have been increasingly weighing experience, including hobbyist projects, and decreasingly weighing a formal education.
Jobs markets are already adjusting, without even an economic blip.
Academia, on the other hand, is facing a massive correction, especially as decreased demand increases prices, further reducing demand in a positive feedback loop that will not end well.
Your spoiler is well put and that’s honestly where the conversation should always start.
Curious about what you think these economic corrections should look like.