Educate The Masses

Colleges and universities are archaic, unneeded, broken systems. It's time that we embraced technology and dumped our costly education system. We need a new approach.

What's the biggest hurdle in acquiring higher education? Funding! The price of a formal education has skyrocketed yet the courses are still the same. Why are students required to attend classes on campus? Tuition! It's all about draining every penny they can get from you. Why are books so expensive? Greed! Lots of professors require books to be purchased for their classes that they wrote!

So let's think about some solutions, shall we?

• Tuition: Online classes are the most cost effective way to teach. All professors are not up to speed with today's technology but they should adapt or be consumed. No building and maintenance costs would reduce the price of education significantly. Online classes do have some hurdles with student and professor communication lacking. It can certainly be improved.

• Books: This one is pretty simple. Rather than gouging students, even with used books, textbooks should be digitized. Anyone should be able to download their required reading material, for free, with their student credentials. Textbooks could be read on Android, iDevices, Kindle, Nook, etc. There is no reason for hard copies unless the students want to print them out.

• Funding: Student loans are ridiculously expensive. The amount of money that most are required to finance is unforgivable. If costs were reduced this problem would fix itself.

We should look at Khan Academy as a shining example of how we can improve our education process. We have better tools available and if we expect to be innovators and leaders, we must change. There is no room for greed if we are to have an educated population.