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Not sure how this paper out of the Koch-funded shop at George Mason on Baumol's Cost Disease came into my world, but I have some thoughts. (thread) mercatus.org/system/files/h…
As one would expect, their solution to the problem of Baumol's is to achieve efficiency by replacing human labor with technology. Getting rid of those expensive people in education and health care is the only route to increased efficiency.
As it happens I have personal experience with one of their proposed solutions to the cost of higher ed, Virginia Tech's Math Emporium. They cite a 2012 article on the Math Emporium's wonders. More students are "passing" introductory math. 
From 2002-05 I taught an intro writing/communication course exclusively for freshmen who were also taking their math requirement at the Math Emporium. It was the bane of their existences. They testified over and over how they learned nothing other than tricks to pass the modules.
Surely things have improved as the technology has advanced you're thinking, except not. Recent Google reviews from Math Emporium users.
Here's a Reddit thread on how terrible it is to try to learn math at the Math Emporium including testimony on how they figure out how to beat the software just to please the program.
Lest you think it's just the shitty instruction/learning that's a problem, the Math Emporium space is also unhygienic.
Here's the student op-ed on how the Math Emporium, the model that the libertarian economists believe will help save higher ed from Baumol's Cost Disease, must be eliminated for the sake of the students. collegiatetimes.com/opinion/why-we…
Sure, students are passing intro math through the Math Emporium, but there's voluminous evidence that this is being done through a series of hacks and strategies not just unrelated to learning, but antithetical to it. This is the libertarian solution for higher ed.
Consider the above in the context of @NellieBowles piece on "human contact as a luxury good." This is happening in higher ed and it is widely viewed in some corners as a good thing. This must be arrested before it's too late. It may already by too late. nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sun…
As soon as Harvard and Williams transfer to a Math Emporium, I'll believe it's a superior way of learning and not merely a way to dodge the responsibility of providing educational opportunities to the masses.
More student reviews of the Virginia Tech Math Emporium, the libertarian dream for the future of higher education according to a paper from the Koch-funded Mercatus Center. Here, the ME is worse than "Hell on Earth."
More. This is the future, folks.
"If you have any choice at all, do not take a Math Emporium class." This is the point of the libertarian project. The proles won't have a choice. It's Math Emporium or nothing.
Take college math without a professor. This is they key to curing Baumol's Cost Disease.
Mental breakdowns, caused by learning math via computer in an old Sears.
The worst academic experience you will ever go through.
Makes a well-respected school like VT look like a joke.
The route to passing a Math Emporium class. Do enough practice questions until they repeat and then you can answer without reading them.
I wouldn't have come to this university. This is the future of education according to researchers from the Mercatus Center.
