[yupitsme123]

I always wondered why no one creates new universities in the US. It seems like in the 1800s every rich guy started their own university, many with unique missions.

The existing university model in the US seems like it's ripe for disruption so I'm surprised no one has tried to create their own.

[typewithrhythm]

I'm guessing it's at least partially too high risk from a students perspective.

Much of the point of an established university is credentials, a new one cannot give the same recognition.

This means that to attract new students, and build a reputation, you have to have some other draw; either some world renowned experts, or cheap (even free or scholarships) tuition. Probably both.

And if you want your graduates to be outstanding, then you need to offer the best incoming candidates a reason to choose your school, because the truth is the school has less impact than the individual.

[2arrs2ells]

You’re spot on. Bootstrapping a reputation is really hard (and expensive), and the very painful accreditation process makes it much harder (need students to get accredited, can’t offer degree to students without accreditation).

Two good colleges who’ve overcome the challenges recently are Olin (engineering school in Boston) and Minerva (globally distributed college).

[throwup238]

Olin did it by offering full rides to every student. Now that they’ve established their reputation, they only offer 50% tuition.

[econ]

I forget his name or even when an where it was or how it ended but some kid wanted to start his own school. People were skeptical to say the least but he put in the work.

It turned out more than a few professional teachers were more than a little bit tired of how things work in the usual institutions. You can't even call it new ideas I think, they knew exactly what was wrong. The funny part was that that automatically became the main selling point.

[yupitsme123]

These are the sorts of hurdles that a wealthy, powerful, amd/or famous person could overcome. If Buffett University or Gates University opened tomorrow you'd have people clamoring to support it and attend it.

As for a draw, the US jniversity system is so flawed at this point that it wouldn't be hard to come up with something better.

[corimaith]

Also in the 1800s it was primarily other rich guys going in as part of their social upbringing, so it would be more like friends setting up a new social club.

[MagicMoonlight]

Because it’s all about the brand, nobody wants to go to Gorben University.

They get created if there is specific market pressures I.e visa fraud. Then suddenly every ceramic and pottery class becomes a university.

[SteveNuts]

It seems like all we’ve been able to do is churn out diploma mills with dubious (or outright fraudulent) accreditation.

[vector_spaces]

Or predatory/misleading payment schemes, a la Lambda School

[fallingknife]

What is predatory and misleading about it? I just looked it up and it's 17% of your next two years income. Seems pretty simple to me.

[p00dles]

This thread is worth a read regarding Lambda school:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40067939

- the “dupe” post with a title that specifically refers BloomTech aka Lambda School CEO Austen Allred being banned from all consumer-lending activities: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40071694

*edit to add “dupe” link.

[econ]

We should extort grown-ups to pay for the younglings. 1-2% of your earnings forever.

That way we get professionals who aren't a pack of hyenas looking to put the squeeze on everything an everyone. Those will rip you appart like a sheep with no effort at all.

[photonthug]

About 1-2% of earnings forever, tech workers will be on a path for this anyway, it just won't pay for younglings at all. Suppose you need a bunch of certs to remain accredited in a competitive field. Several of the relevant certs are always expiring on any given year, the costs go up but the wages don't, and the field just gets more competitive so you need all the certs and a degree. If wages also go down because of AI, if you find it difficult to retire.. then yeah, even when you've paid in full for your education once already, you're kind of doomed to keep renting it. Employers tend tend to pay this (for now), but if you're ever not employed you'll have eat the costs yourself as a prerequisite for ever getting employed

[fallingknife]

I neither have a CS degree nor have ever got a single certification and it's never hurt my ability go get SWE jobs, so I really don't know what you are talking about.

[vector_spaces]

If it were that straightforward, then yes, I agree, but it wasn't, see e.g. [1] or the various articles written at the time

Quality of instruction was poor, instructors were often students from bootcamps with no work experience. They misrepresented the nature of the debt agreement that students were entering into:

> The contracts stated,[45] "this extension of credit is a qualified educational loan and is subject to the limitations on dischargeability in bankruptcy contained in Section 523(a)(8) of the United States Bankruptcy Code." This was false, and lead students to believe that it was impossible to discharge their debt.

It turned out that they sold the ISA contracts -- the "X% for next two years income" contracts -- to third parties before the students had finished their education. This means their claim about alignment of incentives with the student was bogus.

They ended up getting fined for deceptive practices by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also sued by former students for misrepresenting job placement rates (claiming 86% to prospective students but in internal memos claimed around 50%).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_Institute_of_Technology#...

[vasco]

There's a bunch of new "universities" but they don't follow the old model, all those online learning platforms are the new wave of "universities". Khan academy, udemy, etc, for a while everyone was starting another platform like that. So I'd say we did already have a second wave of it. Probably a third wave with practically fully AI tutoring / coursework already starting.

[technotony]

Peter diamondis and ray kerzweil tried with singularity University but the accreditation process priced to much.

[evklein]

Learning isn't really a virtue of the culture. Most people go to school to get ahead of others. As such, there's two prongs that determine the worth of an education: is the institution accredited, and how prestigious is the institution/degree? The answer to these questions for FractalU is "no" and "not prestigious at all."

Not that that's a bad thing for FractalU. They seem like they know what they want it to be, and they're happy with it in its current state. I certainly think it's a great idea, though admittedly it does only really cater to a specific niche of people. In a better culture that values education I could see this almost being a universally enjoyed activity.

[os2warpman]

You can go to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit...

And then sort by year.

They weren't all started in the 1800s, they were all started in the past and you're squishing 300 years of history into a single chunk of time, ignoring that there were decades-long gaps between foundings.

In my state there were four waves of foundings: colonial pre-USA land grant institutions, rich guy vanity projects a century later, post-WWII expansions 80 years after that, and biotech/health care market growth in the 2000s.

[fallingknife]

The university accreditation system is a cartel. You can't gain accreditation until you have already graduated students! So basically you have to find a group of students who are willing to risk studying at an unofficial university, then operate the university for several years before you can even apply for the stupid credential that allows you to issue degrees that anybody else recognizes. It clearly should be illegal, but like in so many other areas, the university system gets special treatment while continuing to suck up more and more resources for an ever diminishing return.

[colechristensen]

Here's the question: who cares about accreditation?

I'm not trying to be flippant, this is an actual question.

Sure, getting a higher degree at another institution will have that requirement, as would a professional certification (medicine, law, professional engineering), but those are relatively narrow scopes.

Isn't it true that in most cases nobody is going to care or even know enough to check accreditation?

[dangus]

Maybe this is news to people in the software industry, but a whole bunch of highly regulated (for good reasons) industries like medicine, teaching, and industries reworking professional licenses industries like civil engineering.

You don’t want someone designing a bridge, performing open heart surgery, or flying a plane with 300 people on it who were trained by unverified schools.

[colechristensen]

The people designing the plane aren't licensed. Engineers working on public infrastructure are licensed (at least one of them to sign off) as well as most buildings. But that is mostly it. Across the vast majority of industries, engineers aren't licensed in the US.

[xrhobo]

The majority of college students are not studying something that falls into these categories though.

It is completely absurd we have not built an alternative, online liberal arts 4 year degree that basically cost nothing.

There is absolutely no reason this could not be done for less than $1k a year right now.

I suspect a large reason is because the people who benefit from the cartel, basically every professional educator, like things as is. The massive education inflation cost is a feature for the cartel, not a bug.

[aleph_minus_one]

> You don’t want someone designing a bridge, performing open heart surgery, or flying a plane with 300 people on it who were trained by unverified schools.

The risk tolerance varies a lot between people.

[dangus]

Sure, but you can logically figure out why many of those professions sought professional licensure and accreditation in the first place.

It’s the same concept as “regulations are written in blood.”

[aleph_minus_one]

Rather: regulators want to regulate.

[lesuorac]

Don't a lot of regulated industries have a test you can take like the Bar or PE so it doesn't matter where you get a degree?

[hackyhacky]

It varies. In most states, you need to graduate law school in order to take the bar, but there are some exceptions.

Getting a pilot's license requires a certain number of hours of flight experience, which one gets as a student.

No state issues a medical license without completing an accredited residency program.

[taormina]

I mean, Carnegie Mellon was #2 in computer science in the nation at one point despite not being an accredited program because of their lack of mandatory calculus requirements

[smelendez]

It’s easier to give to an existing one or start a parallel organization (e.g., think tank, the Thiel Fellowship, or Y Combinator).

If you think undergrad education should move in a certain direction, it’s probably easier to find a university on the way there and give them a donation to do more of what you like.

[alexashka]

Because we already have too many.

You should ask why we don't close them instead.

Would the world be a better or worse place if all university business programs were shut down tomorrow? Follow the thought regarding advertising, marketing and psychology.

[AbstractH24]

America did try this with moderation with all the online certificate programs and self-directed learning in the 2010s.

It would be interesting to look at the impact, success, and failure.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Here are a couple of recently formed, Silicon Valley adjacent universities:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_University

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Austin

[android521]

The goal is never learning. You don't need to go to a university to learn effectively.It is credentials.

[watwut]

Trump created one. And he was not the only one. You just do not hear about them on the news all that often. Edit: I am not saying Trump created a good university. I am saying they exist and are created. They are not culturally important and often frauds.

[monero-xmr]

Good teachers are expensive, but on top of that, so are all the facilities. Being accredited is required for Pell Grants and student loans. Can’t be accredited without a lot of horse shit like fully staffed research libraries loaded with books no one will ever read. Yet another higher ed racket

[yupitsme123]

Who decides these standards and what right do they have to do so?

Also, are employers really looking into if a prospect's school was accredited or not?

[baruz]

> Who decides

Councils formed by the currently accredited schools decide.

> what right

The government started relying on these accrediting bodies with the GI Bill in 1952. They did not want the GIs to spend the money on bad educations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation...

> are employers really looking into

Didn’t yours? If they’re not body shops, companies will rely on the reputation of the school or pick out people from their own school. Unaccredited schools typically have poor reputations and usually churn out “graduates” who can’t attract the money to start businesses and hire people from those schools.

[Onavo]

Trump?