Kamenetz - DIY U : edupunks, edupreneurs, and the coming transformation of higher education

PRAISE FOR DIY U

Anya Kamenetz brilliantly reveals the illogic and wasteful inequities of Americas blind faith in higher education. Her book will be devastating for older people who still believe one more graduate degree is the road to personal success and a prosperous economy. Younger people will feel relief that someone has finally told the truth about their predicament. Kamenetz offers a radically different way to think about the future and she gives young people a more rational and promising way to think about theirs.

WILLIAM GREIDER, bestselling author of Come Home, America:
The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country,
and National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation

A vibrant democracy depends on vibrant education. Anya Kamenetz shows a way to shake up education to release more potential at every level. The transition wont be easy for institutions mired in the past, but students will have moreand better options in a world in which knowledge increasingly must bypass gatekeepers and find new paths.

NAOMI WOLF, bestselling author of
The End of America and Give Me Liberty

Kamenetz shows us higher education as a crumbling facade. It doesnt work well or deliver on its promise. Meanwhile, a thousand alternative flowers are beginning to bloom and the means for any of us to educate ourselves have become available. Lets get on with it.

JAMES MARCUS BACH, author of Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar

A fascinating and provocative book.

JOHN MERROW, Education Correspondent,
PBS NewsHour, and President, Learning Matters, Inc.

Anya Kamenetz offers a thoughtful and much-needed call to rethink higher education in a world of spiraling tuition costs, a 50 percent college drop-out rate, and a growing understanding that the one-size-fits-all college model is broken. According to Kamenetz, its high time to put student learning at the center of the educational process. This book is not only a smart and forward-thinking look at new and exciting trends in self-directed higher learning, its also a smart resource guide for students and their families anxious to take their education into their own hands.

DANIEL H. PINK, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind

Anya Kamenetz is one of the best reporters and commentators on the millennial generation and its economic future. In DIY U, she offers a provocative, highly readable take on the growing challenge of ensuring an affordable college education, and she envisions an alternative path that would shake up the established order and radically transform how we learn.

DAVID HALPERIN, Director, Campus Progress,
and Senior Vice President, Center for American Progress

PRAISE FOR ANYA KAMENETZS PREVIOUS BOOK,

Generation Debt

Anya Kamenetz is a double threat: a huge talent with a hugely important story to tell. With great zeal and compassion, she lays bare the shape of a future that would best be forestalled.

STEPHEN J. DUBNER, coauthor of Freakonomics

Bold and thought-provoking. Los Angeles Times

Anybody who cares about the future of this country will want to read this book, and anybody who can help change the future must read it.

DONALD E. HELLER, editor, Condition of Access:
Higher Education for Lower Income Students

Surprisingly balanced [and] dead-on. The Cleveland Plain Dealer

[A] thoughtful and rigorous book... Reveals how American society has undergone a radical risk shift over the past decades, from the old to the young, and from companies to individuals... Kamenetz is right to find this alarming.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

A page-turner... We all need to read this brilliant book.

LAURENCE J. KOTLIKOFF, professor of economics,
Boston University

Kamenetz makes a passionate argument for young people to take action, such as lobbying the government as a cohesive group and being practical and frugal about money matters.

Booklist

Anya Kamenetz captures the common goals, frustrations, and unrelenting optimism of an entire generation for whom the promise that hard work and a college education will bring financial security may very well not come true. GenerationDebt provides the hard numbers and serious research that puts their struggles in the context of the rapid economic and political shifts radically affecting the economic prospects of todays young adults, and thus also those of their retiring parents and future children. Anyas book is essential reading not only for millions of struggling young adults, but also for their parents, who want to understand the stark economic circumstances their children face upon entering the workforce.

MICHAEL DANNENBERG, Director, Education Policy Program,
New America Foundation

DIY U

Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the
Coming Transformation of Higher Education

ANYA KAMENETZ

Chelsea Green Publishing
White River Junction, Vermont

Copyright 2010 by Anya Kamenetz. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Project Manager: Emily Foote
Developmental Editor: Jonathan Teller-Elsberg
Copy Editor: Cannon Labrie
Proofreader: Robin Catalano
Indexer: Lee Lawton
Designer: Peter Holm, Sterling Hill Productions

Printed in Canada
First printing March, 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 11 12 13 14 15

Our Commitment to Green Publishing
Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise on the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because we use recycled paper, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative (www.greenpressinitiative.org), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. DIY U was printed on Legacy Natural, a 100-percent postconsumer, recycled paper supplied by Webcom.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kamenetz, Anya, 1980

DIY U : edupunks, edupreneurs, and the coming transformation of higher education / Anya Kamenetz.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60358-276-6
1. Education, Higher--United States. 2. Educational change--United States. 3. College costs--United States. 4. Alternative education--United States. I. Title.

LA227.4.K36 2010
378.73--dc22

2009054136

Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Post Office Box 428
White River Junction,VT 05001
(802) 295-6300
www.chelseagreen.com

CONTENTS

How college-for-all became part of the American Dream.

Human capital and meritocracy, race and classcan we builda system that works for everybody?

Why college tuition is caught in a cost spiral, and how to stop it.

Open content, virtual-reality and smartphone classrooms, serious games,Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and robotic telescopes.

Free and open-source education; vocational, experiential,and self-learning.

What the transformation of the university might mean for thefuture of humanity.