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Research presented here by researchers from Wabash College -- and based on national data sets -- finds that there may be a minimal relationship between what colleges spend on education and the quality of the education students receive. Further, the research suggests that colleges that spend a fraction of what others do, and operate with much higher student-faculty ratios and greater use of part-time faculty members, may be succeeding educationally as well as their better-financed (and more prestigious) counterparts

45 colleges and universities, most of them liberal arts colleges,

good teaching with high quality interactions with faculty," high expectations and academic challenge, interaction with ideas and people different from one's own, and "deep learning" through characteristics identified by the National Survey of Student Engagement.

But who’s left to teach all those less-than-ideal students at San Jose State? Living, breathing professors. Any administration that’s seriously thinking about signing a license with a MOOC provider to automate the teaching of those students who need living, breathing professors the most will have to think about Thrun’s pivot before it lets the robots take over. If they have their own self interest at heart (let alone the interests of those students), they won’t do it. I think that is something to celebrate. It’s also worth noting the incredible irony here. MOOCs were supposed to be the device that would bring higher education to the masses. However, the masses at San Jose State don’t appear to be ready for the commodified, impersonal higher education that MOOCs offer without the guidance that living, breathing professors provide to people negotiating its rocky shores for the first time. People need people. That means that the only way to open higher education to the masses is to hire more people to teach, either in person or online. Accept no austerity-inspired technological substitutes because bringing quality higher education to the world won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap, but it will be good for the world in the long run.