Courtesy of a Stephen Downes tweet, I came across this posting about College Inc., which really crystallizes a lot of what I’m finding wrong about working in Higher Education right now. Sure, I see the need to ensure that we aren’t undertaking massive deficits, I also think that we have a moral imperative to educate people. Higher Education is not a business. I dislike the economic side of things, and sure I might be idealistic, but we can afford to spend billions on a summit that doesn’t appear to do anything except appease the richest 20 countries in the world, but of course, we can’t afford to have schools run at a deficit? Why, again? The cost of running schools are dropping (computer infrastructure is cheaper than ever, textbooks can be cheaper too) so why aren’t we able to do this? I know so many dedicated teachers, who spend probably 500 hours of their own time learning new things not because they want to, but because they’re passionate about teaching. So again, Provincial government, why? Maybe I should ask the Federal government? Oh, yeah, that’s why we can’t get straight answers… bureaucracy.