Except that this dream does not happen for millions of people, because educational inequality is real and manifests in several ways. Localized funding for school systems means that poor areas have poor schools, while wealthier areas can provide students with all the tools they need to succeed, perpetuating social and economic inequality through educational systems.

This is even more evident now that education has become more reliant on technology. A year ago, the “digital divide” worried educators interested in expanding opportunity through online education. If students or schools could not afford enough computers to provide access to online programs, it didn’t matter how fancy the program or ground-breaking the learning technology – some students were going to be left behind, creating inequalities most likely to hurt those already suffering from poor educational opportunities. Students in low-income areas or at colleges and universities with low funding were shut out from many of the newest and most innovative advances in online learning.

Unfortunately, the real problem of ensuring access to online education is only now becoming evident. While it certainly is true that online programs can be shared by many more students than could ever fit into a single classroom, the actual network capacity of a home or school limits access to online learning. Increasingly, wealthier schools can afford higher Internet speeds and more bandwidth, which is the amount of information that can be shared over an Internet connection, than can lower-income schools, and therefore can support more sophisticated programs for their students. This means that some students are once again getting a better education than others.

Today it’s not so much the “digital divide” that creates inequality, but the “bandwidth divide”: the inability to provide sufficient tech support for internet technologies to students, specifically the amount of bandwidth a school has. This is true from kindergarten all the way through college. Is it possible that more accessible mobile technologies can address some of those inequalities?

How Does the Bandwidth Divide Affect Education?

Jeffrey R. Young explained in The Chronicle of Higher Education how the bandwidth divide can cause real problems. He explains that “only about 66% of American adults have broadband access at home, according to a survey last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And only one-fifth of elementary- and secondary-school teachers in the United States said that all or most of their students have access to the digital tools they need at home.” The results, he explains, are clear when we examine what happened to a school district outside Washington, D.C. when it first used e-textbooks:

“The e-textbooks used in the project, run by the Fairfax County Public Schools, worked only when students were online-and some features required fast connections. But it turns out that even in such a well-heeled region, many students did not have broadband access at home and were unable to do their homework, sparking complaints from parents that led the school system to approve the purchase of $2-million in printed textbooks for those who preferred a hard copy.”

All that investment in e-textbooks fell short because the school mistakenly assumed that all its students could afford fast internet connections. That was a big mistake.

The broadband divide must be considered when planning any online learning initiatives because broadband access is an indicator of the successful adoption and sharing of technology. A simple comparison illustrates this. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara recently concluded a study of broadband access in rural sub-Saharan Africa and discovered similarities that might at first be surprising, given the vast differences between African and American society, culture, and technological prowess. The authors of “The Bandwidth Divide: Obstacles to Efficient Broadband Adoption in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa” (International Journal of Communication 6 (2012), 2467-2491) discovered

“significant association of content generation with user-reported accessibility of Internet access. This is well aligned with a previous study (Davis, 1989) that identifies perceived ease of use as one of the key factors for the acceptance of information technologies. Limited bandwidth is the main hurdle for full-fledged Internet access in rural Zambia, and 41.5% of the interviewees mentioned it as one of the reasons that they do not spend more time online. Limited bandwidth was a strong differentiator between those who do and those who do not generate content in the United States during the transition period from dial-up to broadband connections (Horrigan, 2006). Thus, to stimulate content generation and sharing in rural areas, it is crucial to provide support for bandwidth-hungry applications.”

In other words, in all societies, lack of appropriate bandwidth prevents online participation and in particular results in a decrease in user-generated content. User-generated content in academia includes course assignments, participation in online discussions, and communication with instructors. Students without enough bandwidth to support online learning can fall behind.

Using Mobile Technology to Bridge the Gap

Though groups like Broadband for America are “dedicated to ensuring every American citizen has high quality access to the Internet” and lobby Congress for funding and legislation to support this goal, it may be a long time before greater access is achieved. Until that time, students in poor, rural, or otherwise under-supported areas may continue to be left out of the Internet revolution in education.

However, there may be one way to address the broadband divide, and that is to move online learning away from bandwidth-centered technologies and more toward mobile technologies such as smartphones, e-book readers, and tablets. The March 2013 “Teens and Technology” study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that teens and students have greater access to mobile technology than to bandwidth. Not only do 78% of all teens have a cell phone, “one in four teens are ‘cell-mostly’ Internet users, who say they mostly go online using their phone and not using some other device such as a desktop or laptop computer.” It makes sense, then to reconsider the format through which educators hope to expand online learning by refocusing on mobile learning, with its greater numbers of devices and larger accessibility.

Certainly the move toward mobile learning is already well underway. According to The ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology (2011), a majority of students use their smartphones to email professors, look up information on the Internet, text or email fellow students about coursework or check their grades. Some students (from 20-30%) also register for courses, research information for schoolwork, and conduct other related tasks on their phones.

Recent evidence suggests that it would be fairly easy to transition students to mobile technologies for academic use, too. A more recent study shows that among students at the United States Naval Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School polled in the past year, for example, “an overwhelming majority of respondents stated that they had not used mobile learning on their handheld mobile device in the past (92% of USNA undergraduates and 87% of NPS graduate students). At the same time, solid majorities in both populations (74% at USNA and 61% at NPS) ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that they would use mobile learning on their hand-held devices if it were available in their curriculum.”

Clearly, there is an opportunity here, and some colleges are already taking steps to incorporate more mobile learning options. In “Accommodating Mobile Learning in College Programs,” Jay Alden writes that there have been three primary methods of doing this: schools have either modified their courses, developed smartphone apps, or distributed mobile devices. Sometimes they have combined some or all of the three. Students reported in interviews that they appreciated the flexibility that allowed them to keep up with coursework while going about their other work and personal life responsibilities. They do not have to be tied to a desk but can access their courses anywhere.

The cost of mobile learning may also be significantly lower, because cell phone and Internet access can be much less expensive than purchase of a desktop computer and separate Internet service. This means that mobile learning can be integrated into education more because more students at least have greater economic access to it. This can result in higher user content-generation and participation, two of the pillars of successful online learning.

Low-income students are one of the underrepresented groups in college. Statistics show low-income students often are part of certain demographics: ages 24-29 (40%); minorities – black (43%), Hispanics (40%), Asian (34%), American Indian (42%); single parents (56%); students whom neither parent finished high school (38%); and first-generation college students (31%).

Higher education institutions have taken notice of the underrepresentation and increased efforts to seek out high-achieving, low-income students. But barriers still exist.

Why Qualified, Low-Income Students Are Not Applying to Selective Schools

If a student is a high-achiever in high school, it seems only plausible that she will go on to pursue a college degree at a top college, right?

It’s not that cut-and-dry for low-income students.

High-achieving, low-income students are extremely desirable to elite higher education institutions. Some of the nation’s most selective colleges and universities have implemented programs in which qualified students from low-income backgrounds pay little to no tuition. This allows for diversity on campus — both in ethnicity and income. The college or university will have a socioeconomically diverse campus of students who are all prepared for the rigors of college. The problem: high-achieving, low-income students don’t seem to be applying to the elite schools.

A recent paper titled The Missing “One-Offs”: The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students, found that high-achieving, low-income students can expect to pay less to attend a more selective college than to attend a non-selective institution. But the fact that these students do not apply means they are invisible to admissions staff.

High school guidance counselors who do not have adequate information about financial aid and college choices means there’s a greater chance that high-achieving, low-income students at the school will not know they have the option to attend a selective college.

Perhaps a student is told they she should go to a “good” college, but the guidance counselor doesn’t have the time or expertise to help the student sort out the full range of college choices available and all the financial aid opportunities out there, the paper’s coauthor Caroline Hoxby of Stanford University said in a PBS NewsHour special.

In the same broadcast special, Michele Minter of Princeton University identified another challenge – low-income students waiting until late in their high school career to take the SAT or ACT test.

“That’s a very late point for us to be able to reach (those students),” Minter said. “We then can send some mailings. We can try and use email. But a lot of what really matters for low-income students, if they’re going to leave the community that they’re from, if they’re going to go outside of their comfort zone, is they need a lot of personal contact. And it’s very hard to do that on short notice or to get our admissions officers out to students who are relatively isolated in their high schools in person.”

Misinformation or lack of information altogether leads high-achievers from low-income families to apply to the schools where their peers of similar income levels, but far less demonstrated academic ability, may apply — known as “income typical” behavior.

Still, there are some low-income high-achievers who do apply to the selective colleges. The paper found these students were highly concentrated in a small number of high schools, many of which have mentors, after-school tutoring programs, and require certain test scores for students to be admitted. Unfortunately, colleges and universities tend to recruit students only from these high schools, leaving out qualified low-income students from other high schools.

Opportunity for Colleges and Universities to Recruit

Rather than look at it as a problem, Minter said Princeton sees the recent study as a tremendous opportunity to locate and recruit the group of overlooked high-achieving low-income students.

Selective schools such as Harvard College, which is part of Harvard University and offers undergraduate degrees, have made significant strides in reaching this target population of students.

Harvard launched a financial aid initiative in 2004 to make college education free for families of admitted students with annual incomes of $40,000 or less. Since then, the school has increased the threshold to $65,000.

“A few years later, we built on this success by creating a similar program for middle-income families,” said Jeff Neal, Harvard’s director of university communications. “Today, families making more than $65,000 and less than $150,000 typically pay 0% to 10% of their incomes on a sliding scale.”

Neal said he recognizes these programs will only attract talented low- and middle-income students who know they exist. So Harvard contacts thousands of high school students from low-income families annually in an effort to persuade them to apply, with admissions officers traveling to more than 140 different cities and towns each year.

“Another way to measure our progress is the 81% increase in the number of Pell Grant recipients at Harvard since 2004 – rising from 644 to 1,147 — a figure that now represents 17% of our enrollment,” he said. “These students from low-income backgrounds graduate at the same 97% rate as their classmates from higher income families.”

Admissions officers from many schools have had difficulty with students who are admitted to colleges never showing up to enroll. This summer melt, as it is often called, can be a big issue for low-income students.

Studies conducted around the nation have shown that about 20% of low-income students who are admitted to and set to attend a four-year college do not enroll anywhere.

A recent paper which includes findings analyzed by researchers at Harvard University show the outcomes of two tested forms of outreach — text messages and near-peer mentors. Both were meant to raise the enrollment of these students.

The study found that text messaging — being the most prominent means by which young people communicate — is a promising approach to reach students because of its simplicity, effectiveness and low cost.

Early College High School Initiative

The early college high school initiative is a bold approach that blends high school and college into a rigorous program. Early college high schools are designed so that low-income youth, first-generation students, English-language learners, students of color, and other underrepresented groups in higher education can simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an associate degree or two years of credit toward a bachelor’s degree – tuition free. The initiative’s partner organizations have started or redesigned more than 240 schools since 2002.

According to the most recent statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics, only 52% of low-income high school graduates enrolled immediately in a two- or four-year college, compared to 67% of high school graduates from middle-income families and 82% of graduates from high-income families.

For many high-achieving disadvantaged students, early college high schools, such as the one Bard College opened in Newark in 2012, are these students’ best chance to earn a bachelor’s degree.

What Can Students Do

One thing admissions counselors of selective colleges and universities may fail to consider when recruiting high-achieving, low-income students is the culture shock many of these students may face once they enroll and set foot on campus. Some minority students who come from high schools with a large percentage of minorities may feel uncomfortable being around a majority of white students and may struggle learning how to fit in. They may also encounter students who come from families of a higher income who will try to make them feel inferior for not having to pay, or just pay a little, tuition.

Writer Walter Kirn recalls his experience after transferring to Princeton University his sophomore year in an essay, in which he recounts being sent checks for small amounts from his parents, who he said lacked any sense of the cost of living at Princeton. When he was not able to pay his portion of the tab for expensive furniture ordered by one of his more well-to-do roommates, he was banned from using or touching any of the furniture.

Kirn writes, “The common room had evolved into a concentrated version of what the whole campus had come to represent for me: a private association of the powerful that I’d been permitted to visit on a day pass, which, I sensed, could be revoked as suddenly as it had been issued.”

Though he was an extremely high-achieving student, Kirn, who hailed from Minnesota, had a rough time fitting in at the Ivy League institution, precisely because of the income disparity between his family and most other students’ families. His isn’t an isolated tale.

A study by the National Association for Gifted Children researching how to support high achievement of low-income, high-ability students found that low-income and culturally different students fare better in educational environments that foster and convey a more malleable view of ability and stress effort over innate ability. Research identified this as being critical to retaining females in STEM fields and attracting underrepresented minority students to rigorous academic programs.

The study also finds that stereotype threats — stereotypes about the abilities of culturally and linguistically diverse students — exist, and for some groups, are largely negative. These students may be depicted as less intelligent, less ambitious, and less interested in school. Students across racial or geographic groups experience conflicts between the need for achievement and the need for affiliation. They also experience conflicts between cultural values and current educational practices.

High-achieving, low-income students’ best defense against culture shock is to first, expect it, and second, join clubs or organizations that will help them acclimate to the culture. The more exposure to people from other walks of life will allow students to be more cultured and well-rounded individuals. Colleges recruiting high-achieving, low-income students should take an active role in helping students to arrange their different worlds: home, school, and community. Helping them to cultivate an identity which will allow for integration of their values and expectations with high academic achievement will bolster their success in college.

In addition to early college high schools, other programs are available to high-achieving, low-income students with college aspirations.

Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) Scholars is an eight-year rigorous academic program that prepares motivated low-income high school students to get into and graduate from the nation’s most competitive colleges and universities.

Students in the program, offered to students in New York City and San Francisco, are challenged during high school by year-round academic courses which are taken on Saturdays, after school, and in the summer. While in college, the SEO Scholars have direct one-on-one counseling to help them adjust to college life, build skills for academic success, explore career options, and secure internships.

SEO Scholars has made a positive impact, with 100% of its students being accepted to four-year colleges and 80% graduating college within four years.

QuestBridge, is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to connect bright, motivated low-income students with educational and scholarship opportunities at the nation’s best colleges and universities.

QuestBridge serves as the link between exceptional students and colleges, scholarship providers, enrichment program employers, and organizations seeking students who have excelled despite obstacles.

The enrollment rates of high-achieving, low-income students are in a prime position to skyrocket. Selective schools are upping the ante on their recruitment, and more programs are being offered at the high school level to help prepare this group of students for college. The families of qualified, low-income high school students should make every effort to enroll them in any college prep courses or programs they can and look at all colleges, not just community college or less competitive schools. They should examine retention rates for minority students and first-generation students. Ultimately, the decision should not be based on college prestige, but rather a school that will meet the specific needs of high-achieving, low-income students, students whose success is hindered only by a culture that has historically failed to serve them.

Instructors themselves are not the only ones who suffer; students who receive some or most of their education from adjunct instruction are often adversely affected by the conditions in which adjuncts work. Adjuncts typically lack office space, supplies, and adequate communication from the administration or their departments about curriculum updates, requirements, and student issues. The current system of employing mostly adjuncts has a deleterious effect on higher education, and online education in particular.

Low Success Rates in Online Education

Certainly it is difficult to make generalizations about the quality of any form of education, especially online education, given the wide variety of experiences provided across online programs. As the authors of one peer-reviewed study of online faculty reviews point out,

“Teaching quality among university instructors is notoriously difficult to observe. Unlike primary and secondary schools, the academy does not generally utilize incremental standardized testing as a means to calculate student progress (teacher effect).”

But that does not mean that we cannot draw some conclusions from both some widely-known characteristics about online higher education and some new research results. For example, college graduation rates in the United States are already low: the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s March 2013 report indicated that nearly 30% of all new college students since 2006 have dropped out. Success rates are even lower in online programs and among students who take some of their courses online. A working paper recently published by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, “Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences Across Types of Students and Academic Subject Areas” points out this difference:

“Regardless of their initial level of preparation…students were more likely to fail or withdraw from online courses than from face-to-face courses. In addition, students who took online coursework in early semesters were slightly less likely to return to school in subsequent semesters, and students who took a higher proportion of credits online were slightly less likely to attain an educational award or transfer to a four-year institution.”

This data runs counter to the argument that was popular a few years ago, based on a government study, that students in online courses often do better. Rob Jenkins counters that argument in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

“That study has serious flaws, especially as it pertains to community colleges. In the ‘Effectiveness of Fully Online Courses for College Students: Response to a Department of Education Meta-Analysis,’ Shanna Smith Jaggers and Thomas Bailey of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University point out that only 28 of the 99 studies examined in the Education Department report focused on courses that were fully online. Furthermore, only seven looked at semester-long courses, as opposed to short-term online programs on narrow topics, “such as how to use an Internet search engine.”

In addition, most of those studies only measured the students who completed the course. They did not-and this is crucial-include those students who dropped out of their online courses. In other words, those studies do not hold up well in the face of scrutiny. Online college success rates are lower than those of traditional colleges, period.

What Does This Have to Do with Adjuncts?

It would be very tempting to simply write that poor educational quality, low graduation and high drop-out rates are the fault of adjunct professors because, after all, they are the majority of the educators in today’s higher education system. It’s not that simple, though. Audrey Williams June succinctly summarized the real problem in The Chronicle of Higher Education, when she wrote that the higher percentage of adjunct instructors than full-time tenure-track professors hurts student achievement. She wrote,

“The shift can also affect students. Studies show that they suffer when they are taught by adjuncts, many of whom are good teachers but aren’t supported on the job in the ways that their tenured colleagues are. Many adjuncts don’t have office space, which means they have no place on campus to meet privately with students. And some adjuncts themselves say their fears about job security can make them reluctant to push students hard academically. If students retaliate by giving them bad evaluations, their jobs could be in jeopardy. Many adjuncts are also cautious about what they say in the classroom, an attitude that limits the ways they might engage students in critical thinking and rigorous discussion.”

In discussions with adjunct faculty who teach online, they note that the above situations are relevant to them, too, though they may not have the problem of being able to meet students face-to-face on campus.

This situation has a simple solution: improvements in the quality of online higher education can be achieved by reconsidering and reallocating instructional processes in a more fair and just way. But most schools have not taken the necessary steps to do so. One suggestion is to actually eliminate all adjunct instruction and instead hire full-time and fully-supported faculty members. However, this is unlikely to happen given the expense involved, which cuts into profits. Those of us who are concerned with educational quality both on- and off-line are left to wonder if there’s anything that can be done to improve educational outcomes.

How can colleges and universities improve their support for adjuncts and thereby improve online programs?

Colleges and universities can take several steps to improve their educational programs and outcomes simply by respecting their adjunct instructors enough to treat them like the professionals and qualified colleagues that they are. There are a number of ways to do this:

1. Give adjuncts time to learn the school culture: In my own discussions with adjunct instructors, both online and traditional, it’s not uncommon for an adjunct instructor to be let go after one course, especially if that course does not go well. This is certainly not the case with full-time faculty members, who are usually given the benefit of the doubt and are evaluated based on the aggregate results of their teaching. Adjunct instructors are often juggling many different positions at various colleges, with different learning managements systems, different institutional goals, and different student bodies. A teaching method that works with one class may not work with another. They deserve a real chance to determine which methods work best before they are shown the door.
2. Refocus retention efforts: Administrators need to listen to their instructors, not student evaluations. Students may complain that a course is “too hard,” but instructors may have valuable information about those very students, including their level of academic preparedness. If a student is underprepared for college-level material and fails a course, rather than assuming that this is the result of poor instruction, administrators should ask adjunct instructors-and all instructors-whether or not those students were prepared. It may be helpful to require that adjuncts copy a representative sample of all student work, so that administrators can see just exactly what the instructor has had to work with. Sometimes the administration expects instructors to make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear, as the old saying goes, and when that doesn’t happen, they blame the instructor no matter how talented or hard-working.
3. Provide adequate instructional support: Adjunct faculty members are often the first point of contact new students have at any school, and they are the most at risk for dropping out. Adjuncts should receive training that will allow them to help their students effectively. This means that adjuncts should be allowed to participate in professional development activities having to do with advising, teaching methodologies, financial aid information, and other relevant issues. But like all professionals, they should be rewarded for advanced training: they should be paid for such extra work.
4. Pay adjuncts more: This is a no-brainer, and it’s the most important way we can improve the quality of instruction. There is such a wide variety of adjunct pay rates that it can be difficult to generalize or come to a consensus on what constitutes fair compensation, but it’s safe to assume that if an instructor has to teach six courses a semester just to make a living wage, then they are also not going to have the time needed to be the most effective instructor they can be. It’s a simple formula: time, expertise, and thoroughness = better class instruction.

Adjunct faculty members have tried to address the problems that result from under-supported adjunct instruction by trying to unionize and creating lobbying groups like New Faculty Majority. This has failed to stem the tide, as more and more schools expand their online offerings and more online-only colleges are created. That’s because the relationship between adverse adjunct working conditions and lower quality education is not due to any specific characteristic of adjuncts themselves, but is instead a systemic problem rooted in an institutional commitment to cost-cutting, profit maintenance, and misguided retention efforts (in which poorly-prepared students are enrolled and advanced regardless of academic standards.)

These priorities lower the quality of college education in general, but are specifically evident in online education, which relies heavily on adjunct instruction. The only way to improve this is to reassess and reorganize with greater appreciation for the work of adjunct faculty.

Follow Dr. Rooney on Twitter and Google+ for more higher education news and commentary.

Contrast that with today’s communication. We’ve prioritized speed above all else, and our manners have taken a pounding as a result. We’ve also been programmed to expect our tools to satisfy our every whim. The problem is, while the Internet is a tool, it’s a tool with a billion handles. We’re prone to forget there are real live people on the other end of the line.

Etiquette is a dynamic set of unwritten social rules that govern “acceptable” behavior. While these rules are always evolving, some arenas evolve slower than others, particularly higher education and business. For these two areas, you as a digital learner need to be aware of what continues to constitute appropriate behavior and communication for the mediums of email, your online courses (whether closed or massively open), social media, and the job search so that you can build relationships with employers and your fellow learners. And of course, because it’s the right thing to do.

Email

We’re assuming you know the basics: no cutesy or unprofessional email handles, no rude or offensive language, make sure the message isn’t full of errors, don’t shout at people with all caps. But we do want to mention three important bits of advice that many people, not just students, have difficulty remembering.

• Reply promptly: If there is a guaranteed way to drive people up the wall, it’s to sit on an email for days at a time without responding. It’s 2013; everyone knows you check your email once every 12 hours at the very least. Waiting longer than 24 hours to respond is a clear message you’re ignoring the sender. Just an email to say you received theirs and will get back to them soon is sufficient, as long as you really do get back to them.
  For Gmail users, there are a few ways to remind yourself to reply to an email. After you’ve read it, click the drop-down menu marked “More” and select “Mark as unread” to bold it in your inbox. (Of course, this only helps if your inbox is not already full of unread messages.) From that menu you can also select “Add to Tasks” to add that email to your list of to-dos. While you can’t view tasks on your mobile device through Google Calendar, the free GTasks app (on Androids and iPhones) makes it easy to sync and view them.
• It’s OK to be informal, to a point: Your audience will determine how formal you need to be with your email. You can get by with pretty much anything with a close friend, but emailing a professor or classmate is a different story. Double-check your writing to keep errors to a minimum — this means no “text-speak.” Opening with “hey” is probably fine for classmates, but “Good morning/good afternoon Mr./Ms.” is advisable with professors. If someone doesn’t reply promptly, follow up with “Have you had a chance to look at this yet?”
• Don’t be a spammer: This advice has a number of implications. For one thing, it means don’t waste people’s time. Don’t send novel-length emails full of superfluous details or distracting emoticons; keep the message brief. It also means don’t CC or BCC everyone in your contacts list when you need help with an assignment. People are much more inclined to give you their time when they see you crafted an original email to them and addressed them by name.
  Moreover, don’t copy recipients on an email haphazardly. For example, if you have a complaint with a professor, don’t rush to copy his or her boss (i.e. the dean) without first giving the person time to address your issue. The professor will see this as a veiled threat and will almost certainly not appreciate the gesture.

Online classes

A major way that online courses recreate the in-person classroom experience is through online discussions among students. After years of participating in Internet forums and leaving or reading comments on Web articles, it would be easy for a student today to be unclear on what constitutes civil discourse in an educational setting.

“(Online) classroom discussions are not online forums,” says Karen Watts is an instructor and trainer at the Bellingham Technical College Tutoring Center. “Instructors expect answers to discussion questions to be substantive and respectful. This means that students must learn that ‘I agree’ and ‘You’re wrong’ replies as well as bumper sticker wisdom and insults are not appropriate. It’s best to avoid trying to be humorous or trying to tease classmates, as well, since there is no tone of voice online.”

In addition to watching your tone and avoiding strong or argumentative language, a few other points to consider:

• If you have a question, check the class forum first: It’s highly likely, especially with technical issues, that someone else has already posted it and your reposting it simply clogs the message board. The same goes for a comment you want to voice; if someone else has beaten you to the same sentiment, think of another way to propel the conversation forward.
• Don’t wait until the last minute: In the same way you wouldn’t charge into a conversation that’s been going on for 30 minutes, don’t wait until the last day of class to try to suddenly meet your participation requirements by posting five huge comments in a single night. Trust us, everyone knows what you’re doing and you just look silly.
• Stay vigilant against plagiarism: Contrary to popular belief, online students have actually been found to cheat less than on-site students. However, due to the nature of online classes, it’s common for students to unintentionally plagiarize works or share copyrighted material. The latter moves beyond etiquette into “legal” territory, although you probably just need to be sure whatever you’re turning in or just posting on the forums is cited to give credit where necessary.

MOOCs

A new branch of online courses has recently come into wide usage by digital learners around the world, and that is massive open online classes, or MOOCs. Unlike the closed learning environments of an online college or an online course offered by a traditional university, MOOCs are generally free to join and thus regularly attract tens or even hundreds of thousands of students.

• Bear in mind it’s a free class, so act accordingly: The amount of vitriol directed at Facebook whenever it changes its design should be proof enough that when it comes to online, many of us have adopted serious attitudes of entitlement, even for free services. It’s important to remember that the vast majority of MOOC professors are still volunteers who are giving up dozens of hours of research or traditional teaching time to offer a free MOOC and deserve respect.
  A recent Chronicle of Higher Education story about a Coursera professor quitting mid-way through the class is a practical example of how students should not conduct themselves in MOOCs. Many complained on the forums about being required to buy a book for class and others protested the strenuous homework load, while only 2% of the class was engaging in relevant course discussion. Allow the professor to teach the way he or she sees fit and consider saving your critiques and criticisms for an appropriate venue. For example, rating sites like CourseTalk allow you to write reviews of courses offered by all the major MOOC providers.
• Be a good team player: Group work is the next big thing on the MOOC horizon. Even if you never meet your teammates face to face, the same etiquette rules of in-person group work still apply. Voice your opinion but be willing to bend if the majority disagrees with you. Work with your teammates to find a suitable time to Skype or webchat. Most importantly, pull your share of the load but don’t overcommit to more work than you can handle.
• Be considerate of your fellow learners: Another example of behavior to avoid can be ripped from a recent Inside Higher Ed headline about a MOOC that had to be cancelled due to technical issues, among them a Google Doc sign-up sheet. No doubt some students did so unwittingly, but many students simply wrote their names over others’ names, effectively deleting their entries. Always use the Golden Rule and think of your classmates.
• Be patient with people from different cultures and levels of computer literacy: Increasingly, MOOCs are making use of peer grading, as the sheer size of the classes makes it untenable for a single professor to grade every student’s work. In certain courses, this means that you’ll be responsible for reading other students’ essays and giving them feedback in the form of both grades and written critiques. Chances are good that you will encounter students for whom English is not their first language. Proper etiquette requires that you do your best to overlook spelling and grammar errors and assess their work objectively, focusing on the intent of their idea and not the execution.

Social media and Job Search

Much of your job search will involve emailing with potential employers; in those cases, stick to the netiquette rules we advised for the student setting. It’s now common to also use social media to assist you in your hunt for employment, and each medium has its own unique netiquette mistakes to avoid.

• LinkedIn: Practically every recruiter today uses LinkedIn, so if you’re not yet using it in your job search, you need to start. Make your mantra “LinkedIn is all business.” Make your profile picture you in business attire. Don’t request recommendations from every contact you have. Don’t endorse other people’s skills just to finagle them into endorsing yours. Only use the status section to post updates on your professional life. And, as always, never lie on your resume.
• Twitter: Twitter is a great medium for connecting with other professionals in your field. Twitter chats especially can be an easy way to meet other industry people and stay updated on the latest developments. It’s important that you join a chat to learn and hopefully to contribute, but not to just promote yourself. If you’re using TweetChat, be aware it will add the chat hashtag to all your tweets, so be sure you’re not contributing unrelated comments.
  Even if chats aren’t your thing, you can still build your personal brand and gain an industry following by choosing a relevant Twitter handle to your profession and briefly explaining what areas you thrive in and are interested in on your bio. Tweet original work and retweet interesting articles or posts that involve your field. Just remember that everyone has the Internet and you’re not a news wire, so be confident it’s something your followers probably wouldn’t see unless you tweeted it.
• Facebook: Facebook is less popular than LinkedIn as a job search tool. However, employers are increasingly turning to it to see what job candidates are like outside of an interview. Chances are you know what good netiquette is on this social network: a tasteful profile picture, appropriate tagged photos and posts, respectful comments.
  If you feel your Facebook netiquette has been lacking in the past, Matt Ivester, author of lol…OMG!: What Every Student Needs to Know About Online Reputation Management, Digital Citizenship, and Cyberbullying recommends reputation management service BrandYourself because it’s free, very easy to use, and quite powerful.

Even if you’re not yet at the place where you’re job searching, cleaning up your social media presence is incredibly important. Toronto-based publicist and parenting expert Melissa Bessey says she thinks even in private life, Facebook and Twitter can be an excellent training ground.

“I always suggest to students that they use social media as a place to practice their good online etiquette skills so that when it comes time to email or interact with a professor or potential employer, they will already be familiar with what it means to be professional in an online environment,” she says.

Keeping social media activity appropriate is a must in today’s connected environment, and the importance of doing so only grows as you approach graduation and the job market. Start practicing good netiquette now and you’ll have nothing to fear when recruiters hit the Web to check you out.

Some of the finer points of netiquette might feel unnecessary or even silly, but they all serve a purpose. Every student has the right to learn in an environment where ideas can be freely exchanged without fear of intimidation, and every professor and employer has the right to be respected, not only for the impact they hold on your academic and career futures but for the simple fact that they’re people, too. Follow the rules and you’ll find doors open much easier and relationships are made faster and kept longer.

This new rebellion against online education at some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges runs counter to the embrace of online learning and MOOCs by other top American colleges, including Harvard, MIT and Stanford, and by education reformers, who see online learning as a way to democratize access to college and lower costs. But before everyone starts to criticize Amherst and Duke faculty as dusty, tradition-bound Luddites, we should pause to consider that these faculty may have something very important to contribute to the dialogue about online education. It would be a mistake to dismiss the concerns of Duke and Amherst professors, because these concerns point to significant flaws in current online education and can offer insight on some of the best ways to improve it.

Resistant Faculty Cite Quality Concerns and Lack of Control

It’s no secret that many college professors are openly cynical about or even hostile toward online learning in theory and practice. According to the Babson and Inside Higher Ed 2012 survey of faculty opinions about online education, it’s the quality of the education being offered that raises red flags for instructors:  “professors, over all, cast a skeptical eye on the learning outcomes for online education. Nearly two-thirds say they believe that the learning outcomes for an online course are inferior or somewhat inferior to those for a comparable face-to-face course.” As a professor, I too share these concerns and worry about the quality of the online courses and programs currently available.

In addition, over the past few years faculty have expressed concern about other aspects of online education:

• Academic integrity may be compromised due to cheating and plagiarism
• Significant investments of time and money for developing online education at traditional colleges may not benefit on-campus students
• Lack of consistency in content between online and face-to-face courses
• Lack of academic rigor in online courses Low success and graduation rates

However, the study also reports that instructors indicate a slightly higher rate of optimism about the potential of online learning. This openness to its potential points to one very real possibility: many college instructors may not necessarily be opposed to all online learning. They just may think it’s more important to emphasize the long term consequences of online learning rather than the financial bottom line, and may consider factors such as pedagogy, the nature of learning, the importance of rigor, and the need for meaningful assessment also vital to discussion before any online program begins.

This is clear when we consider that one possible reason for faculty concern over quality may stem from a lack of control over the planning and development of online learning programs. The Babson study found that faculty members do not feel that their schools are ready to develop such programs; survey results suggest that faculty would like more time and control over the process:

“About one-third of faculty members report they think that their institution is pushing too much instruction online, compared to fewer than 10 percent of administrators. Over all, fewer than one half of all professors believe that their institution has good tools in place to assess the quality of in-person instruction, while only one-quarter say the institution has good tools for assessing online instruction.”

This last concern, about faculty control, certainly played a role in the Duke decision. Professor Thomas Pfau said that that the university’s initial plan to offer courses through 2U was “symptomatic of the top-down approach to managing the intellectual fortunes of this university and it’s produced – certainly among faculty in the humanities and social sciences over the last few years — intense discontent.”

A Bigger Role for Faculty

In my experience-and it seems to be representative-there are two main problems that prevent faculty from supporting online course development:

• The decision to create online programs, and participation in the development of such programs, has been an administrative one in which faculty was not consulted. This is largely because online education is often seen as a way to earn easy money and fill in the financial gaps where funding cuts have slashed a school’s budget. At community colleges, professor Rob Jenkins pointed out in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “online classes constitute the proverbial cash cow.”
• In nearly every situation I’ve participated in, colleges have hired specific curriculum designers to come to campus and implement the online programs. These experts are well-armed with educational theory and/or computer programming and design training, but usually do not possess any discipline-specific content knowledge. Faculty members are simply presented with a predesigned format and told that they have to build their course content around that. This is certainly the case at for-profit online colleges, which first create the courses and then hire the content experts-faculty-to teach them. The result is often a disjointed effort in which individual disciplines are all treated the same regardless of the content and its specific instructional needs. This creates many of the faculty concerns about quality and rigor.

Interestingly, these two problems are also easily remedied when faculty members are made part of the process of online course and program development. First, faculty should take the lead in developing their institutions’ online programming-and that institutions listen to the criticisms and concerns raised by their faculty members. These people are the instructors who will, after all, administer the courses and programs, were hired in the first place presumably because they were subject-matter experts and professional educators, and at accredited colleges and universities are, in fact, supposed to drive all aspects of curriculum development. It makes sense that faculty be given more control over the design and implementation of online programs.

The irony is that not enough colleges ane universities have done this, even though it’s a lesson right out of any Education 101 course and echoes one of the most popular ideas of education reform: if you give the students control over the assignment, they will be more invested and perform better. If we allow professors to drive the online development, better results will emerge.

The president of Boston University certainly thinks this is so. In April 2013, BU President Robert A. Brown authorized seed grants for faculty through the college’s Council on Educational Technology and Learning Innovation, to help them develop innovative online programs for both distance students and on-campus students. One of the most important requirements of these grants is that they be used by faculty to develop online technologies, including courses, that will take advantage of “assets that are unique to BU,” such as “courses that use Boston and its offerings as a field classroom.” Those members of a college community best equipped to create and lead such experiences are the local faculty- not outside experts contracted to design or administer online programming.

Ultimately, the real problem that many faculty have with the way that colleges and universities have implemented online courses and programs is that the reliance on outside contract work is dismissive of the hard work that a school’s faculty has already done to create high quality academic programs. Students and accountants are not the only stakeholders in a college’s success or failure. The dedicated faculty at every school should not be disregarded but should, instead, play an active and defining role in the creation of online programs. The result will be a stronger and more integrated academic program in all majors.

Follow Dr. Rooney on Twitter and Google+ for more higher education news and commentary.

Table of Contents

• Confident
• In touch with students
• Not solely motivated by money
• Resourceful
• Business experience
• Ready for online education

For students sitting in the classroom far removed from the administrative offices of their colleges, university presidents may just seem like figureheads. They make speeches, welcome students on the college’s website, and make appearances a few times during a student’s college career. But anyone who understands the role of a college president knows that it’s far more important and varied than many outside the higher ed bubble realize.

Presidents are responsible for determining the direction a school will go in the future, making plans for the college’s budget and building the endowment, leading the faculty, and promoting good will with the school’s community and state. While these will continue to be the tasks that a president takes on, evolving technology, serious financial constraints, and a changing student body mean presidents must also evolve. They can’t stick with the status quo as in years past if they want to continue to serve the academic community.

So what qualities would the ideal university president have if we could design him or her? We think the following characteristics would make up a president who could keep the university running efficiently while keeping students’ education at the top of the priority list.

Confident

It’s often necessary to play politics to achieve and keep the presidency at a university, a fact that leads many presidents today to cater to the desires of the people with power: the board of trustees. These are typically representatives for the alumni, faculty, and students, as well as other interests, but they have varying degrees of power. Instead of worrying about making enemies, our higher education leaders need to be people with great vision, the ability to communicate that vision to everyone at the university, and the confidence to make necessary changes without worrying about the politics.

University presidents must be bold, but confidence doesn’t mean they ignore input and advice from those they serve. “All of the regional accrediting boards in the U.S. insist that colleges and universities actually be run on a system of ‘faculty governance,’ which means that faculty actually have an enormous amount of control over what goes on at a college, “says Dr. Jill Rooney, an experienced educator and OnlineColleges.net’s education writer. “A university president must, therefore, be responsive to and collaborate with faculty.”

And of course, the faculty aren’t the only ones who have a say. Presidents must take the feedback of faculty, staff, students, regents, parents, the community, and create a cohesive plan to move the institution forward.

Meeting the needs of all the different constituents in a university can be a difficult balance to seek. Presidents have been let go for being too independent, not independent enough, pushing for changes too quickly, or moving too slowly. You can’t always please everyone, but our ideal president would understand that to win constituents to your side, you have to have a plan and move forward with it, explaining your actions to those who ask and proving yourself with results.

In touch with students

A university president has the tough task of being everything to everyone at the university. But while he has to keep faculty, trustees, the community, and others happy, it’s the student’s needs that have to be met first. What purpose does a school serve if it’s not benefiting its students?

Traditionally, the president has had to cater to young, on-campus students living in dorms and earning degrees that will land them jobs right out of school. But the landscape of college has changed and diversified greatly. College students aren’t one nationality, one age, or following one career path. The president has to understand student life and adapt to changes. Ideally, a president would work on campus and get out to talk to the students directly as much as possible to understand their greatest concerns and needs.

Desmond Miller, the student body vice president of Eastern Michigan University Student Government, says his school is lucky to have an accessible president in Dr. Susan Martin. “I hear many stories from my counterparts at different institutions that say they can barely get a meeting with their president, not to mention develop a personal relationship with them,” he says. “It’s important for any university president to attend as many student-led events as possible, to ensure that students feel like they care and have support from their leader.”

The percentage of minority students making up U.S. high school graduates is increasing rapidly, making the pool of college applicants and attendees much more diverse.

The number of adult students, too, is increasing. These students come with a very different set of needs than their younger counterparts as they balance careers and families. And with a tough job market, practical skills need to be emphasized for all students through programs and courses more than ever before. Presidents have to be familiar with the major groups on campus, as well as understanding the needs of each one.

Not solely motivated by money

Our university president, while justly compensated, would be motivated by his vision for the school and not dollar signs. Presidents’ salaries have been jumping to exorbitant pay rates at schools hoping to increase fundraising, climb the rankings, and find quick fixes for large problems. In 2010, 36 university presidents in the country made at least $1 million a year. The average compensation rose 3% between 2010 and 2011, up to $421,395, even as state funding for public universities was cut almost 8% and students’ tuition is climbing.

It’s not unheard of for presidents to opt for pay cuts. Leaders of the Oregon University System and Iowa State University have taken pay cuts, freezes, and unpaid furloughs in recent years to share the weight of the recession and set an example for faculty. The ideal president would take pages from the books of these forward-thinking leaders, rather than those taking huge raises as funding decreases.

Resourceful

Though donations to colleges have been on the rise again as we crawl out of the recession, the money troubles for universities aren’t going anywhere. Schools have to make do with less funding from the government, keep up with changing technology, and adjust to an environment where people are beginning to think that a college degree may not be worth the money. Raising revenue is a huge part of the college president’s role, but schools with the greatest need for funds aren’t finding as much as they need through typical donations. Foundations, individuals, and corporations tend to give their largest donations to institutions who have the least need — your Yales, Stanfords, and Harvards — so smaller institutions have to think more creatively about where their money comes from.

The answers aren’t clear-cut when it comes to sources of revenue, so a president needs to be ready to think about what money-raising strategies will work best for his or her school. Is it courting more out-of-state students, who come at a higher tuition rate? Adding honors colleges, expanding graduate programs, or becoming more accessible to community college transfers? Or even selling a product or service? These are all examples of ways universities are attempting to bring in more money, and the best way for other schools to find funds may be waiting right outside of the box for a president who’s willing to look for it.

Business experience

An understanding of the higher education industry is a must for someone who will be running a university, but business experience is just as, if not more, important in today’s economic climate. Tough decisions have to be made with one eye on the bottom line – because schools can’t function without funding – and one eye on the college’s mission – providing high-quality education to students.

Does going into debt to build new facilities greatly enhance a student’s learning opportunities? Enough to have them cover the debt through tuition hikes? Schools are trying to attract students with movie theaters, single-room dormitories, and top-of-the-line recreational facilities, but presidents need to scale down spending to match available resources and be able to see which spending is a smart investment for students.

Athletics are a huge source of pride and money for universities across the country. But does spending money on them make sense from a business standpoint? According to the Center for College Affordability, of the 119 Division 1 institutions, only 19 had athletic programs with positive net generated revenue in 2006. This means that only 19 schools’ athletic programs made enough money to cover their expenses; the other 100 had to use general institutional funds to pay for their athletic programs. More than a quarter of these Division 1 schools spend at least 25% as much on athletics as they do on instruction, some going as high as 50% or more.

With athletic spending growing twice as fast as academic spending over a five-year period, today’s president needs to be able to decide whether investing general funds into the sports programs is valuable to the school’s mission and budget. By looking at the problem through the eyes of a businessman, a president can ideally make the tough calls and back them up with figures.

Ready for online education

If you’ve heard any education news within the last few years, it has undoubtedly surrounded the rise of online education providers and platforms. 2012 was hailed again and again as “The Year of the MOOC” or massive open online course, and there’s no arguing that education online is becoming an appealing option for many students who are looking for low-cost, flexible courses. MOOCs threaten to lure away potential paying students, providing courses from well-known professors without the cost. On-campus universities will continue to be attractive options for many students, but they don’t hold a monopoly on education anymore. Schools that refuse to adapt will likely lose some of their students (and revenue) to schools that have embraced online education through MOOCs and paid online programs.

Online and blended learning programs have perks for the university, too. Some universities are starting to use MOOCs as a gateway for successful students to enter their paid online programs. Online or partially online courses allow schools to enroll more students without the need for expanded facilities and may allow professors to teach more courses since they don’t spend as much time lecturing each week.

The job of university president may be one of the most prestigious roles in higher education, but it’s also one of the hardest. Keeping the financial welfare of the university in mind while also providing top-notch education to students is tough enough on its own, but these leaders must also juggle the interests of several other interested parties and push the school toward its goals. With the right combination of business sense, confidence, and understanding of what today’s student needs, there’s no doubt a president can change the course of a university, and potentially higher education as a whole, as the college landscape prepares for some major changes.

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Table of Contents

• $100 billion for education
• Shrinking defense by $100 billion
• Is it worth it?

Experimental fighter jets, next generation bombers, iPads, and learning management systems. What do all these things have in common? They’re all expensive, and they’re all pitted against each other in a fight to claim a larger share of government spending.

The 2013 Department of Defense budget is $672.8 billion. This year’s Department of Education budget is $71.9 billion, nearly 10 times smaller. Is protecting our freedom worth more than educating the next generation? That’s what the numbers suggest. But it’s not that simple.

A single F-35 Lightning II costs approximately $237 million. That’s enough to put more than half a million iPads in the hands of students. Half a million iPads can offer great potential for learning, but what if the F-35 we give up is the one we need to take down the next Osama bin Laden?

To understand why the military budget dwarfs that of our nation’s educational budget, we need to keep in mind that the U.S. Department of Defense is engaged internationally, rather than primarily domestically, as the Department of Education is. Our military fights, and even provides aid and support throughout the world. The Department of Education also operates internationally, just not on the scale of the Department of Defense. Educating U.S. students is expensive, but not nearly as expensive as defending the entire free world.

While the military budget does have expenditures that raise eyebrows, like bombers and fighters that were never even deployed to a combat zone, the Department of Defense has grown to include much more than just fighting. Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has been outspoken about the seemingly endless parade of “military” expenses that fall under military spending, yet have very little to do with national defense.

These expenditures, including operating military base schools and grocery stores within the U.S. where civilian options are available, grossly inflate the military budget so much that Coburn refers to the Department of Defense as the “Department of Everything.” In all, Coburn’s Department of Everything report identifies at least $67.9 billion in savings over the next 10 years, cutting defense programs that have little to do with security, while sparing combat teams and fighter squadrons. If you’re doing the math, that $67.9 billion is almost enough to double the Department of Education’s $71.9 billion budget for a year.

$100 billion for education

What if the Department of Defense was able to make all of the cuts Coburn recommends, and then some? What if they were able to do it every year? What could the Department of Education do with all that cash? Let’s take a look at what an extra $100 billion, less than 1/6th of the Department of Defense’s budget, could do for education in just one year.

A debt-free college experience

Price tag: $30 billion

Student debt has reached a crushing $1 trillion, slowing down livelihoods and our economy as cash-strapped graduates delay buying homes, having children, and ultimately, launching their lives. The average graduate has $25,000 in student loan debt, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

We can wipe out all future student debt, simply by making college free to all who enroll. We can encourage more students to apply to college, reduce unemployment, and create a more competitive economy with a better educated population. The benefits spill over to the entire nation, as societies that have a high rate of degree attainment also have higher levels of health, happiness, and lower crime rates. And we can do it for an estimated $15 to $30 billion.

Create online learning solutions for every student

Price tag: $6.4 billion

MOOCs and OCW have taken the education world by storm, offering complete courses from the world’s best universities at the no-excuses price of free. They’ve allowed non-traditional students, and even students in the third world, to access world-class education with nothing more than a web-enabled device. They’ve reached millions. MIT’s OCW alone has reached 125 million learners, and EdX boasts 675,000 unique learners as of February 2013.

These courses are free and open to anyone who wants to take them, but with the exception of modules offered by Khan Academy, they’re typically not appropriate for most K-12 learners. What if they were? Florida Virtual School already offers K-12 online public school for free to Florida residents. What would it take to expand that to K-12 and college students in all 50 states?

MIT’s OCW costs $3.5 million annually. EdX has a budget of $60 million so far. Scale that to 71 million, the number of K-12 students and college students in the U.S., and it would cost about $6.4 billion to deploy virtual education resources that every student in the U.S. can learn from.

A virtual public school option for every student in the United States gives better opportunity to homeschoolers, disabled students, low income or rural students, and any student who for whatever reason can’t or chooses not to enroll in a brick-and-mortar school. It would also free up teacher resources, as educators could shift their focus to curation and guidance of online learning centers.

Better pay and training for teachers

Price tag: $52.5 billion

Despite a higher teacher to student ratio than ever before, students are still struggling to achieve in test scores and graduation rates. Hiring more teachers is an option, but why not focus on hiring and training higher quality teachers?

The average salary for a teacher is $56,000–less than real estate agents, police officers, and human resources specialists. A salary of $70,000, at a rate of $14,000 more per year for 3.7 million teachers, would cost $51.8 billion dollars. It would also be more attractive, putting schoolteachers on par with college professors, accountants, and architects, attracting smart, qualified candidates to the profession that might otherwise be tempted to follow a more lucrative career path.

Still, it’s not enough just to hire better teachers. They need great training too. Proponents of education reform believe that a lack of good teacher education is to blame for poor student test scores. Quadrupling the current budget of $235 million to reach $940 million would be an additional $705 million, giving teachers more resources for effective teaching.

Bring Race to the Top to every state

Price tag: $7 billion

The Race to the Top initiative is designed to improve teaching and learning in America’s schools. The program has dedicated $4.35 billion to 19 states that competed for the reform money. This plan has enabled the states to create higher standards, help struggling schools, use data systems for learning, and better support teachers. But only in 19 states. What about the other 31?

With an additional $7 billion, Race to the Top could be implemented on the same scale in the remaining 31 states. This would bring reform, support, and development to students in all 50 states, not just those who have competed for the prize.

Bridge the skills gap

Price tag: $34 billion

The U.S. unemployment rate is hovering around eight percent, with over 10 million unemployed workers looking for jobs today. But there are nearly 3.7 million jobs open right now. Why can’t we fill those jobs with the millions of unemployed? It’s simple. Our unemployed masses don’t have the right skills to do the jobs.

The White House has plans to train two million workers for high-demand industries with the Community College to Career Fund. The program is designed to fill millions of jobs that require specific skills, but lack qualified candidates, giving community college students the training they need to become those qualified candidates.

The Community College to Career Fund is backed with $8 billion in funds, reaching two million community college students. Yet there are eight million community college students today, and millions more available jobs opening up in the coming years that will need well-trained workers. A fund with an additional $34 billion can reach them all, and guarantee a skilled workforce for years to come.

Shrinking defense by $100 billion

Feats like wiping out student debt and the skills gap could mean a lot for education, and the U.S. as a whole, but if we were to take the funds necessary to do that from the Department of Defense, about $100 billion, what would we give up? Would Iraq and Afghanistan fall (further) apart, North Korea launch WWIII?

A smaller budget is a reality that the Department of Defense very well may face in the future, whether the reductions go to education or not. Defense secretary Chuck Hagel has warned that there’s a possibility the Pentagon will need to cut $1 trillion in spending over the next decade, or, $100 billion per year. What might that look like?

Expensive weapons programs

Price tag: $13.3 billion

Manned aircrafts like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter have been called “outmoded” and “hugely expensive.” One thing is sure: they are definitely expensive. Each F-35 Lightning II comes with an approximate $237 million price tag, taking up about $8.4 billion in the most recent annual budget proposal.

For such a huge expense, you’d expect the F-35 to be worth it. Not necessarily. Higher ups in the military, including Lieutenant General Robert Gard and Brigadier General John Johns just don’t think so. They explain that the use of manned aircraft is becoming increasingly limited. And it’s true: spending on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has increased, and will continue to increase for at least the next several years. Do we really need to spend billions on old and new technology at once? Or can the military make do with older fighter jets while still developing next generation UAVs?

Auditors with the U.S. Government Accountability Office have found that the Pentagon has been able to reduce expensive weapons programs by $4.9 billion. If they’re able to keep it up, and cut the F-35, that would mean a savings of $13.3 billion yearly.

Nuclear security

Price tag: $67.4 billion

The U.S. is slated to spend about $700 billion on nuclear weapons over the next decade. But some experts believe this huge effort represents little payoff.

America’s nuclear arsenal numbers 2,200 warheads. General James Cartwright insists that 900 warheads are all that’s needed to guarantee nuclear deterrence. That’s less than half of what we have now, giving the U.S. a more than adequate stockpile to rest on. Further, only half of them would need to be deployed at any one time.

Why do we have so many more nuclear warheads than we really need? General Cartwright explains it as “baggage of the Cold War.” But our Cold War needs do not reflect America’s priorities today. “Our current arsenal does not address the threats of the 21st century,” says Cartwright.

For the time being, it seems that we have more than enough in our stockpile to guarantee security. If nuclear weapons expenses including nuclear forces and missile defense were cut, leaving nuclear incident management and nuclear threat reduction intact, the Department of Defense could cut $674 billion over ten years, or, $67.4 billion annually.

Active duty force

Price tag: $11.8 billion

At one point, keeping just one American service member in Afghanistan cost between $850,000 and $1.4 million per year. Fortunately, we’re not at those levels anymore. With U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s a lesser need for the active duty force levels that the military maintained in the decade following 9/11.

There’s a huge potential for savings in cutting active duty service members. This measure is not only likely, but already happening. In a message warning the Pentagon to brace for cuts, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urged that the “size and shape” of the armed forces be scrutinized, hinting that there are troop reductions to come. The Army has already enacted plans to shrink their once 540,000 strong force down to 490,000, but that number may reach 440,000. The Marines are facing similar cuts.

Each active duty service member represents about $99,000 in pay and benefits. If the Army alone shrinks its force by 100,000, which it very well may, that represents a savings of $9.9 billion, not including savings on soldier expenses beyond pay and benefits. Reduce the Marines by 10%, another 19,500 service members, and it’s a savings of $11.8 billion total.

Loosely related R&D initiatives

Price tag: $10.8 billion

Senator Tom Coburn’s Department of Everything report highlights many Department of Defense research and development projects that do not seem to have much to do with defense. These include a coffee break app, a study comparing fish to democracy, and the development of beef jerky roll-ups. Coburn also highlights medical research loosely related, or not at all related, to defense, including breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer projects. These programs may have a place in the federal budget, but it’s not under the Department of Defense.

The Department of Defense spends about $72 billion on research and development each year. If they were to cut just 15%, funding only the top 85% most important and relevant projects each year, it would save $10.8 billion annually.

Department of Defense schools

Price tag: $1.1 billion

The Department of Defense operates 64 schools for children of troops in 16 U.S. military installtions. Although it is reasonable and necessary to provide educational opportunities to military children overseas, especially where English-speaking schools are not available, Senator Coburn argues that they’re just not needed in the U.S. where other school options are available.

In Dahlgren, Virginia, there is a small Pentagon-run K-8 school with only 90 students total. There are only five students in the entire fifth grade class. But there is a Virginia school less than one mile away with a total attendance of 350 students. The Pentagon school operates entirely independent of the Virginia school, and has about $2 million in facility upgrades planned, at a cost of over $20,000 per student. This cost is for upgrades to the facility alone, not including teacher pay, learning materials, and other instructional necessities.

In all, Department of Defense schools average a cost of $50,000 per student, while the Department of Education’s average is $11,000. Most, if not all, of these students have the opportunity to attend local public schools, at an approximate cost savings of $39,000 per year, per student. Senator Coburn estimates the total annual figure to be $1.1 billion.

Is it worth it?

It’s unnerving to talk about cutting nuclear weapons while North Korea shares its warhead hit list of U.S. cities. Is this really a good time to reduce the Department of Defense budget and give other departments a chance? Maybe not. But budgets are all about balance, and even returns on investment.

Ten years after 9/11 and $3.3 trillion later, Americans feel safer. Nationally, 42% of people think we’re likely to be attacked again soon, down from 59% several years ago. That’s still a pretty high rate for a country with the largest defense budget in the world, but we’re following a slow and steady pace to feeling secure. Still, for trillions of dollars, shouldn’t we feel totally secure by now?

Consider this: education is chronically underfunded, so badly that courts have ruled some underfunded schools as a constitutional violation of a student’s right to an education. And in many states, courts have also determined a “causal connection between the poor performance of … students and the low funding provided their schools.” Yet the Department of Education is making it work somehow, as long term trends in the Nation’s Report Card show a positive uptick. What could they do if they really had the opportunity to develop useful (but expensive) educational resources?

The United States needs both a safe and educated country. The Departments of Defense and Education both need billions of dollars. But as the Department of Defense goes through the coming tide of deep budget cuts, it’s not completely off base to say that they could find a way to dig a little deeper. Could it be time to give the Department of Education a chance to shine?