[wyclif]

I know education is a common theme here on HN, and I always read articles like this. I still think education (esp. in US and UK) is ripe for entrepreneurial disruption, and I enjoy seeing what investors are doing in this space. The system is clearly broken, because incentives are out of proportion to costs.

[adyus]

Alas, entrepreneurial disruption in this field is made near impossible by the need for governmental oversight of all things related to education.

Until "official" degrees stop being an unspoken requirement when considering job applicants, startups such as Khan Academy will remain useful, but ultimately powerless to truly disrupt education.

[FuzzyDunlop]

I wouldn't be surprised if the system operated in the system's best interest, and not the student's. I only have anecdotal evidence, but from my own experience, the whole system was designed to keep you in the system for as long as possible.

This may have been exacerbated by stupid government targets to get, say, at least 50% of all pupils into university. And in at least some of those cases, you're only going because you're brainwashed into it.

[georgieporgie]

I think the best entrepreneurial disruption you could provide in education would be to provide education on entrepreneurial methods. :-)

I'm in my 30s, and I have quite a lot of various skills, but spotting areas of opportunity is still not among those skills.

[crusso]

Yep. Incentives always get out of whack when the government gets involved. It's what's happened to health care, retirement funding, mortgage financing, on and on and on.

When incentives aren't aligned with human nature, inefficiencies amplify and eventually break whichever system the government stepped in to fix.