<blockquote><p>The typical 2030 faculty will likely be a collection of adjuncts alone in their apartments, using recycled syllabuses and administering multiple-choice tests from afar.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>This quote is from a Washington Post article on the “<a href=”http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/09\/11\/AR2009091104312.html”>brewing virtual revolution in education<\/a>”. I am watching it happen around me. We just added 3 new lines to my department – all non-tenure track because of new opportunities in online instruction. This is a big percentage change. I wonder if we will ever expand the number of tenure track lines and what the long term implications of “the growth income being in online students” will be.<\/p><p>Reminds me a lot of the Jeff Jarvis predictions for educational change in “<a href=”http:\/\/learningaloud.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/30\/the-relevance-of-college\/”>What would Google do<\/a>?” The search for more economical ways to do things ignores the value of a composite. Isn’t this essential what “university” means? Now, any piece that can be improved is isolated to pursue greater efficiency. What remains after the removal of the easy money pieces are the admittedly valuable, but expensive parts that now are no longer subsidized. What remains may be too expensive to continue.<\/p><p>For me and my own little world, it translate like this. Everyone is willing to teach Introduction to Psychology. High schools want to teach it for AP or dual-enrollment credit. Every junior and community college wants to teach it. These institutions do not have the means to offer degrees or if four-year institutions to engage in graduate education or commit time to major research programs. They specialize, pass these students on and the potential concern is that what is left are specialized, upper-division courses. The courses are expensive to teach because of the expertise required and the small numbers enrolled. So, how will this work. Certainly, states and tax payers are backing away. The percentage of higher education budgets paid by the state is declining everywhere. What happens to the cost of instruction when upper division courses are not subsidized by large introductory and general studies courses? I assume tuition will have to be adjusted. I suppose we will be blamed for this, but few want to understand why such adjustments are necessary.<\/p><\/p>\n