Online Rx for 'Cost Disease' - Ry Rivard, Inside Higher Ed

Universities must slow the rising cost of higher education or risk losing the support of the American public, the president emeritus of Princeton University, William Bowen, argues in his new book.To do that, college administrations should turn to online courses to combat the “cost disease,” a term explained several decades ago by Bowen, a labor economist. The disease is simple: higher education prices are hard to bring down because labor prices rise while productivity remains the same. Bowen says that in academe, like a string quartet, there’s traditionally been little chance for colleges to reduce the number of laborers or the time it takes to finish the work. The cure, Bowen writes, may be online education. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/29/bill-bowens-new-book-moocs-and-online-education