Efficient college systems

An efficient college education system is like a forest on the brink of collapse. The internal dynamics are very similar.

• An efficient college can deliver course schedules, required content, handouts, tests and grades. It cannot cope with the students who do not learn from getting told what to think, getting deprived of self-expression and getting treated like passive consumers.
• An efficient college can make classes more efficient by providing seven Teaching Assistants to deal directly with students assembled into 4-500 seat lecture hall. It cannot accommodate students who thrive on dialogue, coaching or thinking for themselves.
• An efficient college can require reading comprehension as well as accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation in writing assignments. It cannot incorporate the shift away from printed text to oral and visual communication serving the increasingly multilingual culture of shoppers, viewers, gamers and cultural creatives.
  
• An efficient college can prepare students for working inside efficient corporations, factories and bureaucratic agencies. It cannot prepare graduates for P2P production, crowd sourcing, and social networking.
• An efficient college can update transcripts, identify degree requirements not yet completed and advise each student of changes in policies that affect them. It cannot respond to a 50% dropout rate, problems at home, and wait listed courses.
• An efficient college can deliver college knowledge consistent with instructional methods used a century ago. It cannot embrace PLE, non-linear or life-long learning models.
• An efficient college can, in a crisis, inform all of it's constituencies of what has happened and how it's blameless. It cannot reform the institution or realize how deeply the changes will affect everything.

Like a forest, colleges are driven to become more efficient. It appears they cannot afford to become less efficient. They move themselves to the brink of collapse by what they cannot respond to, learn from or cope with among their enrollment. They become rigid rather than resilient. They over-commit to confining reciprocities that exclude variety, experiments and creative destruction. Their ecological niches are already filled and tightly coupled into a cohesive institution.