Policy Wonkery

While not having read the book “DIY U” yet, I wanted to contribute my own perspective on the review by Gin and Tacos, brought to my attention by Ezra Klein. The author of Gin and Tacos, a Professor, is rightly concerned with the dangers of letting higher education be sold out to the best User Interface. The most choice quote from the review that I saw was,

I try to figure out who is about to be ground up in the wheels of techno-libertarian “progress.” In the case of the shining promise of online (ahem, “non-traditional”) classes democratizing higher education, the mill grist happens to be me, people like me, and the students we teach.

As a bit of a techno-libertarian myself, I don’t like the immediate fear of “progress”, but in this case I think the professor has a point. As a strong supporter and user of opencourseware, ITunes U, wikipedia, and all of the other projects democratizing information, I know that they fail in one crucial aspect. Higher education, and academic reputation exists to provide indicators to employers about the quality of an applicant. While certainly insufficient, if not wholly inappropriate, its a simple fact that employers prefer the student who went to an “impressive school” over one who goes to a community college.

By creating an online alternative to on campus education, we risk increasing the distance between the haves and the have nots. Frontline did a recent recent documentary College Inc. that talked about the rise of private educational alternatives. While there are clearly many benefit to these private programs, a number of people are also misled by admissions staff about the accreditation of their school or program.  This should be on the mind of those in education, who should be seeking to both expand access and increase quality.

Despite the danger of stratifying higher education, or misleading those who partake in this new economy, there are benefits. Matt Yglesias, wrote a blog post on May 15th, about the need for a GED for Higher Education. We can tell statistically that a GED incurs real economic gain to those who complete them. While they still on average make less than their traditional peers, at least its improvement. Hopefully the “DIY U” model, can move in the direction of clear standards where employers are empowered to fairly evaluate individuals with a background of online education.

Since October 21, 2009, when Glen Beck called Network Neutrality a “Marxist plot,” the powers that be have attempted to paint clear ideological boundaries where they shouldn’t readily appear.  A recent court case forced the FCC to amend the classification of the Internet to it’s Clinton era designation as a “telecommunication service” if it wants to achieve Network Neutrality.  While FCC Chairman Genechowski has emphasized that this will only maintain the status quo and have limited scope, this classification provides one last opportunity for the ISPs to hold onto their unchecked power.

The real problem with discussing Network Neutrality on partisan grounds is that it actually doesn’t make any sense.  Any existing alliances are grounded in a power structure of circumstance, not philosophy.  In much the same way as Democrats seem to favor Coal by circumstance and Republicans favor Oil by circumstance, the same division is seen in the Net Neutrality debate.  Here, Democrats favor content producers (Google, Fox, the Christian Broadcasting Network, NYT, Amazon.com, etc.) and Republicans favor the ISPs (Verizon, Comcast, Cox, etc.).

Once you simplify the debate in this way it becomes far more accessible.  Why might one favor ISPs? Supporters argue that if they can charge content producers for ISP use, then they can build more fiber and lower prices for users overall.  If we assume that ISPs are highly competitive, then there’s reason to believe them. But,  I’m skeptical.  I tend to agree with the content producers, who argue that without any restrictions (i.e., Net Neutrality) ISPs would have the legal authority and monopolistic control to charge usurious rates.  They argue that since the Internet providers don’t make web content, why should they then be empowered to charge, limit, or control others content?

At issue here is that a number of large companies like Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter are generative: they rely on users to create content and value.  In the past the internet has been a place where small businesses have had very low barriers to entry.  Large internet companies don’t want to be taxed by the ISPs, but they understand that barriers to entry will reward incumbent companies.  This, in addition to the ISPs superior lobbying team, is the reason that the Internet giants haven’t put their whole weight into the neutrality fight at hand.

Yesterday, May 26th, 73 Democrats sent a letter to the FCC telling them to drop Net Neutrality.  Their stance isn’t a political issue. It is the result of incumbent powerful lobbies clashing with each other.  Personally, I think the entrepreneur is the good guy in this instance.  Buying a URL, hosting space and running an actual company is difficult enough. If we expect them to pony up to ISPs to be competitive, we could loose the garage start-ups that makes the Internet great.  That’s why I support Net Neutrality.