The GSV Big 10: We've Lost The Plot
Here's your weekly coverage corner for the top 10 stories, insights, and major plays in learning and skilling.
#1 Colleges Spend Like There’s No Tomorrow. ‘These Places Are Just Devouring Money.’
Somewhere along the line we’ve lost the plot. Long gone are the days of college students struggling to get by on crappy cafeteria food. The Arms Race of universities trying to out-country club each other has reached a level of Mutually Assured Destruction. Contemplate this: University of Kentucky spent almost a million dollars a day for new facilities over the past decade.
#2 The End of Legacy Admissions Could Transform College Access
Legacy admissions and banning TikTok have become the two defining bipartisan issues of the past year (bet nobody had that on their bingo card four years ago). Rethinking what “diverse” and “holistic” admissions means creates an opportunity to have a more meaningful conversation around how to give every kid an equal access to a great education.
#3 Hard lessons from a veteran homeschooler
There’s no place like home. In the last three years, the families of 1.8 million children made the switch to homeschool, totaling 4.3 million American children homeschooled in 2022. There’s no exact playbook (and that’s a good thing), but there’s a massive opportunity to sell picks and shovels to the minors (and create the saloon where they hang out).
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
#4 As Philadelphia mulls year-round schooling, a charter school network shows what it can look like
Like most things, things need to keep up with the times. Between kids losing 30% of what they learned over the summer to both parents usually working to no longer having to plow fields, summer learning needs a refresh. Charter schools like Belmont have been innovating on the traditional September – June model for over two decades, offering camp activities for kids to internships for high schoolers….the same opportunities that rich kids who live 20 minutes away get.
#5 Don't Be So Picky About a Job, China's College Graduates Are Told
The CCP is worried about inequality growing between super-rich people and everyone else. Now they have to worry about an unemployed younger generation. Youth unemployment rate is 21.3%...twice as high as it was a decade ago.
#6 Big Oil’s Talent Crisis: High Salaries Are No Longer Enough
Capital flows to where it gets the best risk-adjusted return…the same is true for Human Capital. For decades, petroleum engineering was the highest-paying college major, and not coincidentally attracted some of the best and brightest. Now that’s in jeopardy. Part of the issue is the stigma of “dirty money.”
#7 Vinod Khosla on How AI Impacts The Future of Healthcare, Education, Income Equality, Geo-Politics, Music and Climate Change
In January 2012, Vinod Khosla penned an article titled “Will We Need Teachers or Algorithms?” A decade later, his vision is coming true. His updated thesis? AI will dramatically enhance (not eliminate) the creativity and productivity of humans.
#8 E5: Higher Ed, Being a Dorm Room Socrates, and the American Workforce
Historically, you cannot have an industrialized, advanced economy without a broadly college-educated white collar workforce…and the US was the first to get it. That plan worked for the 20th century, but we need a new plan for the 21st century. Spoiler Alert: it’s white collar, blue collar, and no collar.
#9 5 Tips for Reducing the Heat in Classroom Discussions (Opinion)
There’s 4,000 universities but there’s one acceptable opinion. To move ahead, our universities have to go back to being a vibrant mosaic of ideas, from challenging conventional wisdom to pioneering new ways of thinking.
#10 Calling Josh Shapiro’s Voucher Bluff
Philadelphia Democrat Rep. Amen Brown and Labor Union Leader Ryan Boyer have defected from the ranks to defend school choice. Philly spends more than $21,000 per student for failure factories where most students can’t read at their grade level. Gov. Shapiro said he has “unfinished business”…let’s see if he’ll get into the end zone this time. Maybe Union Boss Boyer’s decision to send his own child to a private school made the hypocrisy too much to handle.