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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";font-weight:bold"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=213114599&authType=name&authToken=Xtq2&goback=%2Empd2_*1_*1_*1_*1_%2F20130524203941*5213114599*5the*56*5600*5master*5s*5degree&trk=mp-ph-pn">Dennis
K. Berman</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";font-weight:bold">Business Editor of the Wall Street Journal<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="6" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";font-weight:bold">The $6,600 Master's Degree<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">May 24, 2013
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">There comes a time in every concept's life when the thing...actually...happens.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">If you're reading this post, you probably already have some familiarity
with all the jostling going on in the education business. You know, for instance, that a number of companies are experimenting with
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course" target="_blank">
MOOCs</a> (Massive Open Online Courses), <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/03/06/classroom-tablets/" target="_blank">
tablet-based learning</a>, and all kinds of in-school networking and Big Data analytics.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">And then came
<a href="http://blog.udacity.com/2013/05/sebastian-thrun-announcing-online.html" target="_blank">
last week's announcemen</a>t.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Georgia Tech, one of the nation's best engineering schools, said it would
begin offering fully-accredited, real-world master's degrees in computer science via the Internet. The cost: About $6,600. Or roughly the cost of a few years of
<i><span style="font-style:italic">interest</span></i> that many graduate students pay on a big loan to fund their education.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Here is the key line from the
<b><span style="font-weight:bold"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324031404578483670125295836.html" target="_blank">The Wall Street Journal</a>'</span></b>s take on the program:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The upfront costs to create the online lectures run between $200,000 and
$300,000, but once those hard outlays have been made the cost per each additional student is minimal, said Mr. Isbell. He estimated the school would have to hire one full-time teacher for every 100 online students as opposed to one full-time teacher for every
10 or 20 students who study on campus.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The description made me recall my freshman political science class in
the mid-1990s, held in a dusty auditorium in West Philadelphia, a bow-tied professor reading his erudite, but canned, lecture to a few hundred freshmen.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";font-weight:bold">Looking back on it now, this experience had far more
in common with the Middle Ages than the world of 2013.</span></font></b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> What's the difference between watching a lecture in an auditorium and watching
HD-quality video in one's living room or beach cabana?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">From there it's not that hard to question the cost of a standard master's
degree, which all-in can cost $50,000 to $60,000 per year. Even if the experience is not the same, the
<i><span style="font-style:italic">value for money</span></i> from the $6,600 degree appears at first blush, superior.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">For people in business, there's plenty to take away here. It's easy to
use the old trope - disruption - but put that aside for a moment.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The thought exercise I've been going through is this: What's the proverbial
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">$6,600 Master's Degree</span></b> in your industry? And what would happen to your industry if it happened
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">now</span></b> rather than in the murky future? It's a fun and sometimes harrowing game to play.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Let's try:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";font-weight:bold">For doctors, it's nearly-thinking systems that can
diagnose, prescribe, and treat most common illnesses, absent human intervention.</span></font></b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";font-weight:bold">For journalists like me, it's already arrived. It's
called the free Internet.</span></font></b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";font-weight:bold">For taxi drivers, it's driverless cars.</span></font></b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";font-weight:bold">For hotels, it's
<a href="http://www.airbnb.com" target="_blank">Airbnb.</a></span></font></b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">If you haven't devised the answer for what it is you do, you have three
choices: Prepare for it, build it, or ignore it. What's your path?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black">Best wishes,<br>
Leon Kappelman<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="1" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black;font-weight:bold">“<a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklind402955.html" title="view quote"><font color="black"><span style="color:black;text-decoration:none">Democracy
cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.</span></font></a>” –
<a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklind402955.html" title="view quote">
<font color="black"><span style="color:black;text-decoration:none">Franklin D. Roosevelt</span></font></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
</span></font><font size="1" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black">Leon A. Kappelman, Ph.D.
<br>
Professor of Information Systems <br>
Director Emeritus, Information Systems Research Center<br>
Fellow, Texas Center for Digital Knowledge<br>
College of Business, University of North Texas<br>
Voice: 940-565-4698 Email: </span></font><font color="black"><span style="color:black"><a href="mailto:kapp@unt.edu"><font size="1" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">kapp@unt.edu</span></font></a></span></font><font size="1" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><br>
</span></font><font size="1" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></font><font size="1" color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><br>
</span></font><font size="1" color="#1c7c00" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#1C7C00">Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail</span></font><font size="1" color="#006666" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#006666"> </span></font><font color="black" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Calibri"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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