Writing for Academic Discussion Universities in 50 years - revised -

What are your thoughts on how universities will evolve over the next 50 years?  (education)

 

 

☆Let’s Think

Think about the following points related to recent changes in schools. They can be the hints to see universities in 50 years.

Schooling: home schooling, online schooling, self-directed learning, international school

Systems: authoritarianism, lack of diversity, gender gap

Curriculum: four-year degrees just to get a good job, vocational training, internships or on-the-job training, complaints from students that the courses are unrelated to their future jobs

Financial factors for students: high tuitions and student loans, limited scholarships, educational disparity

Researches: interdisciplinary researches or collaborated researches across disciplines, researches related to the challenges the humankind face, researches to make the world better

 

 

☆Hints for Points

1.        Campus will be more democratic, tolerant, and inclusive than now. Patriarchy, misogyny, and authoritarianism will be gone. Diversity will be the norm. Half the professors and students will be females.

 

2.        University education will be more flexible. Instead of the traditional-style lectures and other schoolings, online or hybrid classes will be choices as default. School years will be gone. Students can take classes anytime, anywhere, and as long as they like.

 

3.        Technological advancements, especially that of artificial intelligence, will make learning experiences more personalized. People will be able to take courses that best match their needs and conditions.

 

4.        In 50 years, climate crisis will force universities to focus on the solutions. They will be integrated into an international institution to tackle the impact of global warming globally and interdisciplinarily.

 

5.        Colleges, or the first four-year part of university, will disappear or become something like amusement parks partly because of diversification of learning styles and partly because of the decline in intelligence of the human race caused by factors such as infectious diseases, pollutions, and dysfunctional society. People who still have learning abilities and aspirations will directly belong to graduate schools, library archives, museums, research centers, laboratories, and the military.

 

 

☆Sample Answer for Ideas and Expressions

【Thesis】I think universities will be totally commercialized in the future, and freedom of university will be lost.

【Supporting Details】Neoliberalism in the West has been commercializing and cutting costs of public organizations and institutions. The private sector has been involved in funding and researches in universities. (Funding from corporations have been affecting university managements.) National universities have been merged and they have been required to make profits. Science departments have been prioritized compared to the humanities departments because the former is more commercially profitable than the latter, and applied researches are more funded than fundamental researches for the same reason. Tuitions are 10 to 40 times higher than in the 60’s, and student loans, which didn’t exist then, now keep those who graduate in debt until they are in their 50s. The change has been going on for decades and it does not seem to stop. Based on the present situations seen above, it can be expected that universities will be completely part of the industry and for profits in the future.

【Counterargument-treatment】Academia, especially the faculty staff, may want to protect the freedom of studies, but it won’t do anything in the end. It has never really resisted any government policies. In the end, universities, including private ones, are subsidized by the government and they have conformed to the status quo, expelling dissenters. Therefore, they will be integrated into part of the industry.

【Conclusion】Unless each citizen becomes aware of the ill effects of neoliberalism and stand up to fight it, public resources, including universities, will be consumed by capitals, which siphon money from the bottom 90% to the top 10%. (268 words)

Write your draft in 10 minutes. Show each other your drafts. Write down questions or suggestions to each other’s draft.

 

 

 

 

DRAFT