Thread by @kevincarey1

1/ A few years ago I wrote a book about technology and the future of higher education. I had hopes tech would make learning better, more accessible, and more affordable.

Today I published a long article about what happened next. It's not a happy story.

huffpost.com/highline/artic…

2/ The book was partly right. Almost every college in America teaches online now, and the pedagogy and technology have improved by leaps and bounds.

But college hasn't become less expensive for students as a result.

3/ Instead, elite universities created online degrees by contracting with secretive #4profit companies that provide all of the marketing, recruitment, learning technology, job placement, and help desk support.

In exchange, the receive between 60% and 80% of tuition revenue.

4/ These relationships are all but invisible to students.

Participating schools include @Harvard, @Yale, @Georgetown, @nyuniversity, @USC, @UCBerkeley, @UNC, @SyracuseU, @Rice, and many more.

5/ The programs are almost always very expensive--@USC offers an online master's in social work for $110,000--and very profitable. Instruction only costs 15%, compared to profit margins of 43%.

6/ Now some #4profit schools are using a regulatory loophole created to facilitate these deals to convert themselves into fake "non-profit" colleges.

@BetsyDeVosED and the Trump administration are, naturally, using the #negreg process to make things worse.

7/ The basic distinction between #4profit and non-profit is becoming increasingly blurred.