The Expectation Gap Survey

WONKHE and Pearson today released the analysis of their second Student Expectation Gap survey. The survey was available throughout December 2020 and covered English and Welsh universities with 3,389 student responses. Students have understood the situation academics are in and are satisfied with their responsiveness to feedback and support requests; however, only 40% agree that their experience as been of sufficiently good quality.

What we take from the findings is that among the students we surveyed, the fundamentals are generally in place. Teaching staff seem to be (mostly) engaging and responsive, and though some students flagged specific frustrations about learning remotely, most reported good access to learning resources.
WONKHE

The responses showed that 46% of the courses were delivered entirely online, and a further 14% started with some face-to-face and then moved entirely online during the term. Only 33% of student had campus-based sessions throughout the period. 80% of the students have less than 10 hours of timetabled sessions per week, and 17% had less than two hours (mostly PGT), the rest of their couses were independent study.

The pandemic has accelerated the move to technology-enhanced learning. According to this survey, students are open to keeping the changes once the government lifts the social distancing rules. Universities now have the challenge of assessing what delivery looks like post-COVID. They must decide what should be retained in the short term, what to develop for the longer-term strategically, and what to remove.

The survey suggests students want:

More significant interaction between students on campus and supplemented online through discussion forums
More contact time with tutors in the classroom, online in seminars, through remote check-ins with tutors, and via email.
Encouragement and support to become independent learners through online formative self-assessment, more frequent assessments, and progress reviews indicate how they perform on the course.
A more consistent approach to teaching across modules
The campus and classrooms used for interactive tasks and activities, practical experiences, lab-time, and fieldwork.
Online learning used to add flexibility, remove constraints around scheduled contact hours, and enhance learning delivery.
A better User Experience UX design of the VLE to improve signposting and to set expectations around learning.
Content broken into manageable chunks interspersed with a large variety of activities and knowledge checks.
Online access to wellbeing, careers, and academic support services.
More skills development through independent study learning activities for academic writing, digital learning, project and time management, the confidence to engage with groups, information literacy, and independent learning.

You can read the summary and the research findings on the WONKHE website.

We have a human captial problem; we should all become engineers

What if everyone became a (hard) scientist or an engineer, how quickly would we fix the world’s major problems? How quickly could we eradicate poverty and unemployment, create environmental security, and help people live healthy, predictable, and straightforward lives free of high order issues?

Naval Ravikant believes everyone can be rich and belives it can be taught. He believes that everyone can become a scientist or engineer with support, patience and the right expectations. Of course, most people do not want to put in the time it takes to build these skills, they want to do other things, or they do not have the financial support or expectation that it is possible, but it is.

The engine of technology is science that is applied for the purpose of creating abundance. So, I think fundamentally everybody can be wealthy.
This thought experiment I want you to think through is imagine if everybody had the knowledge of a good software engineer and a good hardware engineer. If you could go out there, and you could build robots, and computers, and bridges, and program them. Let’s say every human knew how to do that.
What do you think society would look like in 20 years? My guess is what would happen is we would build robots, machines, software and hardware to do everything. We would all be living in massive abundance.
We would essentially be retired, in the sense that none of us would have to work for any of the basics. We’d even have robotic nurses. We’d have machine driven hospitals. We’d have self-driving cars. We’d have farms that are 100% automated. We’d have clean energy.
At that point, we could use technology breakthroughs to get everything that we wanted. If anyone is still working at that point, they’re working as a form of expressing their creativity. They’re working because it’s in them to contribute, and to build and design things.
I don’t think capitalism is evil. Capitalism is actually good. It’s just that it gets hijacked. It gets hijacked by improper pricing of externalities. It gets hijacked by improper yields, where you have corruption, or you have monopolies.
Naval Ravikant

Chamath Palihapitiya believes we can solve most problems, and we have the money to do it through capital markets, but we have a human capital problem. We know how to fix most issues, but we miss the smart people to research, develop, and build the solutions. Part of the problem is that technology firms swallow all of the best talent straight out of university. We need more talented scientists and engineers, and we need to motivate them to become entrepreneurs or work for innovative companies that want to solve the most significant problems.

Human Capital: the skills, knowledge, and experience possessed by an individual or population, viewed in terms of their value or cost to an organization or country.
Oxford languages

The example Chamath gives is the goal for making every home in America carbon neutral. Sustainable home-generated power could be achieved through roof-mounted solar panels that store electricity on-site in a reliable battery and controlled by an app on your phone. The homeowner could also power an electric car and replace their petrol or diesel one. Through bonds and investment, capital markets can fund such an effort, but we do not have the technically skilled people to research, develop, build, and install it. But how real is Chamath’s and Naval’s idea of science solving the problem if we just had the people?

In the UK, fossil fuel burning to generate electricity is the largest source of carbon emissions. WWF UK suggests that moving to 100% sustainable fuel power generation by 2050 is the most significant action the Government can take to meet the climate ambition of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The next most crucial step is to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and transition to electric vehicles. SolarPower Europe suggests that engineers have improved solar technology and panels now generates 30 times more power over there lifetime than is required to manufacture and that ‘solar offers the most cost-efficient means to decouple electricity generation from environmental and health impacts.’

EngineeringUK references ten core and related engineering occupations on the UK Government 2020 Shortage Occupation List (SOL) of the most needed skills in the economy. The skill shortages include design and development engineers, electrical engineers, and production and process engineers, all of which are involved in solving the emissions problem. We do have a human capital problem, and it is holding back a solution to climate change.

Naval and Chamath set a challenge to all of us to solve the significant issues that we face. Are you working in the hard sciences or in engineering to solve these issues? If you are an educator, are you focusing your efforts on developing and motivating people to solve these technical problems? Once we reach a world of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero carbon emissions, we can all pursue creative expression. Until then, let’s solve the human capital issue and become engineers.

Group size and interactions in online courses

The Open University (OU) in England was set up in 1969 by the UK government to widen access to higher education. The university has over 160,000 students, almost all studying ‘off-campus’, currently categorised as distance learning in the HESA data, but this term may need updating. The OU has had a long-standing principle of splitting cohorts into groups of 25 students. With almost all UK courses currently delivered entirely online due to a lockdown, I want to know what effect group size has on interaction levels? Is there an optimum group size for highly interactive online courses?

Cohort numbers are important as we want to run courses with lots of interaction where students engage in active and collaborative learning that improves their outcomes. It is vital to keep costs down by controlling the volume of staff interaction provided, so classes are sustainable and represent value for money. We also want a balance for students with opportunities for interactions, but they do not feel lost and disconnected.

My first search found a great quote from a 1969 paper from The Journal of Social Psychology; ‘...as group size increases, individual participation decreases.‘ While this paper looked at on-campus, free discussion within small groups, it was a good starting point. With groups of two students, they have to be highly engaged, whereas groups of five provide individuals with a space to hide or take a step back.

However, anecdotally from my teaching days, sometimes larger groups can create exciting conversations and develop a social norm of participation that does not happen in smaller groups. I assume that optimum group size might differ for synchronous and asynchronous learning activities, between different pedagogic approaches, teacher expectations and interaction levels, and technical and non-technical subjects.

Group sizes

I found some recommended size ranges include Sieber (2005)‘s 12 for instructors new to teaching online and Tomei (2006)‘s suggestion of 12 for postgraduate courses. Colwell and Jenks (as cited in Burruss, Billing, Brownrigg, Skiba, & Connors, 2009) suggest an upper limit as 20 for undergraduate and 8 to 15 for postgraduate. In a paper by Parks-Stamm et al. (2017), student interaction in classes of 14 or fewer students increased with more instructor participation, but this mattered less with larger groups of 15-30 students. Orellana (2006) states that 16 was perceived as the optimal group size by academics teaching online to achieve the highest level of interaction.

An Inside Higher Ed article interviewed several American universities with established online portfolios asking about optimum group size. The University of Massachusetts at Lowell have 28,000 online enrollments; they cap their undergraduate classes at 27 and postgraduate courses at 25 students. Granite State College in New Hampshire keep group sizes between 12-15 students, and on the other end, Brigham Young University at Idaho’s average class size is 37. The WCET a digital learning policy group for universities sets a ‘rule of thumb’ of 20-25 students.

Initial recommendations

I could not find anyone in my short search that recommended group sizes of over 27 students, but there were many suggestions that group size is not the best metric to use. Starting with the OU’s suggested groups of 25 students and then monitoring each is a good starting point. You can then monitor student performance, withdrawals, instructor response time, engagement measures, including the volume of student/instructor interactions, and student feedback. This data will allow you to assess if the group size, interaction levels, and course design meet the students’ learning and social needs. You could also provide regular opportunities for small-sized groups, including 2-3 students working together for students who would benefit from more intense interactions.

Point A to Point B

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
Archimedes

Much of the work we do in educational technology helps people understand where they are, where they want to be, and then support them to achieve it. In the book Intervention, Dan John‘s process working with athletes has many parallels with our work with academics.

Some teams, departments, or universities know precisely where they want to be-Point B, but they are not clear on where they are now, Point A. In this situation, our job is to identify their current position, then create a plan to reach their goal. Others know exactly where they are but need help to see a realistic goal, requiring ideas, standards, and progressions. A third more common group is unrealistic about their Point A and/or Point B and needs help to identify both before making a plan and starting work. We need to know both point A and point B to draw the line between them.

There are things that everyone we work with needs; ideas of innovative practice to improving student experience, more straightforward and better-integrated technology, comprehensive training and support, and a clear development process. We also need effective project management and a schedule that takes into account the academic calendar. But some tools can help assess where a team is on their journey and the next step in their progression, such as the Quality Matters Standards, the OLC’s Quality Scorecard, and the SAMR learning model.

But,

If people know the goal, assess where they are and connect the dots.
If people know where they are now, but either want an unrealistic goal or do not know what they want, show them the next step and connect them.
With everyone, always focus on the process and the keys to success.

If you are currently working on your service offer, spend some time on a set of questions and a collection of principles to find Point A, Point B, and the most direct route. A systematic approach to educational developments will help you find the straight line.

Using Abbing’s brand model to develop a service offer

University leadership teams are currently planning what delivery will look like next academic year. A form of blended learning will likely be maintained even if social distancing rules are relaxed. Educational technology and academic development teams will need to restructure their services to provide academic departments with the support they need to transition from this year’s delivery model to a more sustainable and quality-driven model for the future. But what does that service offer look like and how can it be designed to provide freedom for academic teams to explore what this new future looks like?

Author/Copyright holder: erik roscam abbing. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Erik Roscam Abbing’s brand model could be used as a starting point for Edtech teams to create their new service blueprint. The starting point is to map out the team’s own identity, vision, mission, and behaviours. An understanding of the Capability Maturity Model can also input into the team’s desired brand. I have added below my current thoughts on the first phase for my team. If you have any questions or want to collaborate on ideas, get in contact with me on Twitter @samueljtanner.

Team Identity

We have moved towards a Learning Design skill set in the team rather than the more traditional Learning Technologist. Each member of the group would consider themselves as a ‘techie’ and has an expertise that sits somewhere in the nexus of three core technical skills; Learning and teaching, multimedia and technology development, and design. Learning Designers operate as project managers, follow design thinking methodologies using personas and prototypes, and adopt a scholarly approach to quality assurance and continuous improvement practices.

Vision

We believe in the transformational nature of technology, and that learning and teaching can be made better when technology is used to design student centred experiences. Teachnology allowed learning and teaching to be:

Flexible: accessible to anyone that wants to learn, at whatever stage of life they are at, and whatever their context.
Personalised: designed to meet students individual goals and provide choice as these change.
Active and collaborative: engaging learning experiences that prepare students with the skills they need for the workplace, including problem-solving, teamwork, communication, and resilience.
Redefined: using technology to create student experiences previously impossible with physical constraints.

Mission

By 2025, all students will have a flexible, personalised, and active and collaborative learning experience that uses technology to provide better learning outcomes.

Behaviour

We are:

partnering with academic teams to co-design modules and courses
defining what quality looks like and how to get there sustainably
sharing ideas of what is possible and what works
building an easy to use and seamlessly integrated technology ecosystem that provides the tools needed

My ideas will be different from yours

The ideas here are just a brain dump around the direction I am taking my team, but I suggest using the same framework for your institution. Phase two will look at the identity, vision, mission, and behaviour of those teaching at university. My team is a service for academic departments to help them teach students, and so our customers are the lecturers. It is a time of disruption for the role of academics, and the answers to the questions in phase two will be very different now than six years ago when I moved from further education to the university sector. I have some research to do, but I imagine that brand promise will be something along the lines of…

Brand promise: Your Learning Designer will help you design, develop, and deliver a flexible module quicker, easier, and provide a better student experience than if you had done it independently.

CMM and online learning development process design

Universities need to significantly increase their capacity to develop high quality online and blended delivery through the recruitment and training of Learning Designers. Institutional scale requires a shift from focusing on individual Learning Designers’ capabilities to concentrating on the organisation’s capabilities for designing learning. First, universities must consider how Learning Design projects are managed and implement sound project management principles. Next, they need to implement a structured development approach through research, evaluation, and peer review, the creation of rigorous quality standards, a formalised development pipeline, a strong community of practice, and progressive professional development.

Good project management of course design and development projects keeps them delivered on time, on budget, and within scope, and ensure a high standard for the student experience. Most learning development models are in their infancy, with few standards defined. If institutions want to produce novel and innovative online courses, they need to borrow design and development techniques from other fields, including software engineering.

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM), developed at the Carnegie Mellon University for large software projects, evaluates a product development processes level of maturity. It is focused on standardising the process of design and development and so counter to many agile methods but will work well with established teams in large organisations. CMM accepts that design and development processes are idealistic and do not represent most projects’ messy and improvised nature, but that tightly controlled and fully documented processes are better. The messiness level varies from project to project, and CMM aims to categories these into five levels of maturity.

Learning Design teams can use CCM’s five levels to improve their operations and assess how individual Learning Designers perform. Teams work through the levels in sequence to standardise their process to produce consistently high-quality online courses no matter the team working on it. The highest level would be represented by a clearly defined process that can be taught and learned, with clear quality metrics that lead to near-zero adverse outcomes. It includes mechanisms for capturing innovative practice and incrementally improving with each course iteration.

The five stages of maturity

All stages above level two subsume the standards of the previous level.

Level 1: Initial – an ad hoc process which can be chaotic. Each Learning Designer follows their version of a basic process. This is the starting point for using a new or undocumented repeat process.

Level 2: Repeatable – each project includes cost scheduling and basic project management practices. Some processes are repeatable, with some consistent results.

Level 3: Defined – the process for managing and developing courses is standardised and documented.

Level 4: Managed – measurement is made of the process and course quality. These measures are used to control and improve practices. Effective achievement of the process objectives can be evidenced using metrics.

Level 5: Optimising – processes are continually improved through quantitative measures and testing innovative ideas and new technologies. (Few developers are considered to be at this level).

The next three to five years will see massive growth in online learning, and universities core delivery will keep much of the changes they have implemented over the last ten months. Departments responsible for supporting online and blended learning should be spending time now on process improvement to optimise their design and development model to prepare for this rapid growth.

Get in touch with me on Twitter if you want to discuss the process of design and development of online learning.

A reminder of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN launched the Sustainable Development Agenda in 2015, providing a blueprint for peace and prosperity, agreed by all UN member states. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the evolution of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) launched in 2000 to reduce global poverty by 2015. The idea is that lasting and meaningful change in eradicating poverty and deprivation requires improving health and education, reducing inequality, encouraging economic growth, and tackling climate change while preserving oceans and forests.

The UN department of economic and Social Affairs list 169 different targets collected under seventeen goals:

Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
UN Sustainable Development Goals

Each of the goals is broken down into specific targets. For example, Goal four, Quality education is split into ten targets.

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

4.1 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes
4.2 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education
4.3 By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university
4.4 By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
4.5 By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
4.6 By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
4.a Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
4.b By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries
4.c By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States
Quality Education Targets

Each Target then has its own set of indicators. For example, Goal 4.3 covering technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university, has one indicator:

4.3.1 Participation rate of youth and adults in formal and non-formal education and training in the previous 12 months, by sex

The UK government has a website dedicated to the SDGs that provides data on how the UK measures each indicator. Looking at the example above, 10% of adults had participated in formal or non-formal learning in the last 12 months in 2016—participation rates by sex 11.2% for females and 9.6% for males.

I would highly recommend you spend a little time this weekend reviewing the SDGS website and looking at the overviews of the goals that specifically interest you. Each goal has overview and progress sections that cover the implications of Covid-19 on the progress towards the targets.

Let me know what you think about the goals, targets, and progress on Twitter. How do we extend remote learning to more students?

Problem-based learning: the solution to the skills gap?

In the 2019 QS Global skills gap report, the top five skills that employers identified as a missing in most graduates were:

problem-solving
communication
teamwork
data skills
resilience.

Research in Canada suggests that undergraduate students increase their problem-solving skills in year one but then see no increase in their course’s second and third years. University lecturers can introduce active learning methodologies such as problem-based learning to narrow this skills gap and better prepare graduates for the workplace.

Problem-based learning is a student-centred approach to learning and teaching. Barrows and Tamblyn introduced the method in the 1960s to teach students at the medical school at McMaster University. Students use trigger material to identify an open-ended problem that they then attempt to solve. The process teaches students to take responsibility for their learning, acquire knowledge independently, communicate, work in a team, problem-solve, and present information.

In problem-based learning (PBL) students use “triggers” from the problem case or scenario to define their own learning objectives. Subsequently they do independent, self directed study before returning to the group to discuss and refine their acquired knowledge. Thus, PBL is not about problem solving per se, but rather it uses appropriate problems to increase knowledge and understanding.
British Medical Journal (BMJ)

The students are required to determine their own goals to the presented scenarios or problems through group discussions. Once they have defined the problem, they map out what they know already that will help solve the problem and attempt to determine what else they need to find out. Students then identify how and where they can find this information through research articles, journals, web materials, textbooks and set off individually to collect it. The group then comes to bask together to organise their research, produce a solution to the problem, and then present it.

The teamwork element is key to the methodology. Students work in groups of 8 to 15 to collect each individuals knowledge and ideas, differing perspectives, perceptions, and come up with multiple solutions to the problem. Discussions, both online and face to face are essential, and collaborative research methods are crucial.

Introducing a new teaching method is challenging for both the lecturer and the student, especially when shifting from a tutor-led to a student-led way of working. Students are comfortable with their current role in the classroom and lecture hall and have developed the skills supporting the traditional delivery methods. The resources and space required for collaborative learning and the access to research materials can also stress the university infrastructure. A common issue for students when introduced to problem-based learning is information overload. Students need help to identify the boundaries of their research, or they keep going. Sweller and Cooper in 1985 suggested that students should first learn through worked examples and then gradually be introduced to problem-based learning with a gradual ‘fading’ of support given by the academic.

The problem-based learning process

Problem-based learning is a clearly defined method with a set process.

The Maastricht seven-jump process:

Clarify terms
define problems(s)
Brainstorming
structuring and hypothesis
Learning objectives
Independent study
Synthesis

Let me know on Twitter if you have tried or are going to try problem-based learning.

And breath… Term one is over

Today marks the start of a two-week break for my team and me after nine months of intense work. We set out at the beginning of the year with an ambitions five-year plan to weave digital and in-person learning seamlessly across all courses at the university where we work.

In March, we pivoted to help move all teaching and assessment online. In June, we started a programme to offer one-on-one support for all modules in the university to move to a blended learning model within the government social distancing guidelines. We carried out over a thousand design workshops, countless emails and helpdesk tickets, and wrote or recorded hundreds of guides, webpages, and communications.

Term one is now over, and higher education is changed forever. Our initial plan is more or less complete, and we start to look at what is next. Will we ever see regular mass lectures again? Will students expect a HyFlex model where they chose online or in-person on a session by session basis? Or are we at a tipping point where new models of learning are about to be launched with methods we have not yet thought about?

As I sit here next to my Christmas tree, beer in hand, and Michael Buble singing ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,’ I am thinking about the great people I work with and the things that they have achieved this year, and I can only smile. These questions are for tomorrow or for January. The next two weeks are about family, food, and that half-marathon time trial on Sunday that is really going to hurt.

Who pays for Higher Education?

One of the biggest questions in HE currently is ‘who pays’. In the UK, students can get government-backed loans for both undergraduate and postgraduate long courses with the Government topping up the course costs. These loans act more like a graduate tax than a traditional loan, with payments only starting once graduates earn above a threshold income and remaining totals cancelled after 30 years.

To support the 49% of students that do not go to a university, in 2016, the British Government introduced the Apprenticeship levy to help fund apprenticeship training. Companies with an annual pay bill of over £3 million pay the levy at a rate of 0.5% of the total bill. This money can then be claimed back for the hiring of apprentices. The levy has led to the growth of higher and degree apprenticeships where student employees can do on the job training for 80% of their time and use the remaining 20% for formal study towards a degree or similar qualification from level 4 to 7.

The next piece of the puzzle is short courses for vocational or technical skills. The idea is that individuals can take short courses to boost their skills to help them get a job and that these ‘micro-credentials‘ can be stacked together into larger qualifications as a signal of proficiency in a particular area. Currently, these qualifications are paid directly by individuals or their employers, but this might be changing.

The UK Government has been making noises about lifelong learning funding or loans to be used for collections of shorter courses over a lifetime. Providers are looking for easier ways for people to pay for courses including instalments or even free upfront but then paying through a percentage of income after graduation for a pre-specified timeframe.

Today I had an email from a private company offering a partnership for an interest-free ‘learn now, pay later’ services similar to those eCommerce sites have started to add to their checkouts. The economics of HE is changing, and the question of who pays becomes more critical. People are retiring later, and technical skills become more important to get into and maintain high-income roles, and employers are struggling to find people with relevant skills. If we can make it easier, and cheaper, to gain the skills needed, society and its individuals will benefit.

Let me know on Twitter if you have found any interesting ideas on paying for higher education.