An Outstanding Education for less than $8000 a year?

That's what's being touted by Vance Fried over at insidehighereducation.com (well, he calls it "Better-Than-Ivy Education: $7,376 a Year").  We'll all have to wait for the study of Professor Fried of Oklahoma State University.  But we have a few details already.  Among the other ways he has of cutting costs: teach classes of 100 students using the Socratic method.  His plan includes this paragraph:

Using appropriate teaching technique and technology. What is appropriate varies by course; but generally active learning works better than passive, and active learning can generally be done as well in a class of 100 as a class of 5. (The exception is when the students’ work product needs to be highly customized). A lecture format class of 25 students is much less effective than a class of 100 using an active learning format, but costs four times more per student to deliver. For example, Socratic case method classes of 100 have long been used successfully in major law schools and graduate business schools. (emphasis added).

Is that the same Socratic method that I see criticized all the time? 

Anyway, I'm always in favor of competition; I believe that the market can bring us lots of good innovation--and has a lot of incentive to do so.  If it's not already out there, there's probably a good reason--like it can't be done.  So let me just say in Burkean fashion: I'm skeptical.  But we'll be back on this story in another week or so when Fried's full study is available.

Update:  The study is now available here.

Comments

[ken]

"[A]ctive learning can generally be done as well in a class of 100 as a class of 5."

Since when? My big classes in law school were filled with people who were tuned out or even actively doing something else; a guy a couple seats down from me in Fed. Income Tax used to read the Sporting News. In the same class, the Professor didn't call on me for 2/3d of the semester because he could not remember my name; he kept looking at me and it was obvious he wanted to call me, but he'd always end up calling someone else (he eventually got out of the classroom before I did one day and stopped me in the hall to ask me my name - you can be dang sure I was super-prepped for the next class).

Things like this never happened in classes of 20 or less.