I definitely wouldn’t complain. Or Thomas Woods [ I don’t know if he teaches though, I’ve never heard him bring it up, which leads me to wonder what he does for a day job, I mean I know he has written several books but I wonder what else he does] Or Joseph Stromberg [ excellent historian ] or David Gordon who is a universal genius. History is perhaps the most underrated field at LvMi I think.
I had thought about this a few months back and I like that other people are interested. I am a bit pessimistic that LvMI will take this up, especially without a better plan. How many people will pay for a degree from a non-accredited school? I don’t like the idea of complying with state regulations, but probably some thought needs to go toward meeting accreditation standards.
All of JOLT’s articles are online and I skimmed through a couple that seemed relevant. linklink 2
What some said about losing out on face-to-face time is silly. There are just other considerations for online learning. link
I would be willing to pay for courses, but couldn’t be a full time student. It seems like we would have people from all over the globe and with varying amounts of college credits. I don’t know if the teachers we would want even have extra time to teach a class or two each semester.
I would have to disagree here. If we focus on meeting accreditation standards that were influenced at all through politics, bureaucracy, and coercion, then we might end up falling into the same abyss that the current system is in. The more rules and standards we apply, the less efficient we make the market. The market and market competition would set the standards just as it does with other products. Education isn’t any different in this regard.
I agree. After all, I thought this was about starting a university that is developed based on market demand and not based on the same rules and standards that state funded universities use. Rules and standards are inherent in the price system. The market will set the standard.
Last night (early this morning) I emailed this thread to Gary North, as he has written extensively on universities and getting around the accreditation cartels.
He sent this back over. I don’t know how pertinent it is, but perhaps someone might want to take a look at it.
Maybe something like this could change the way we think about degrees. Maybe completion of courses or coursework in such a new educational framework would come to represent something better and more noble than State education. Looking back on my life, would I rather have attended the university I did for four years, or attended Mises’s own seminars for four years? Also, look what (and who) came out of those seminars, where the focus was on all the important aspects of the science of man…
Possible areas of interest:
Economics
Political History (legal history, history of religion, etc…)
Legal philosophy
Ethics theory, of course…
Descriptive psychology (thymology?)
Generally, all areas of “Geistwissenschaft” (sp?) All areas related to the science of mind and/or man from a logical/rational point of view as opposed to a natural science point of view…
Instead of debate the merits of the LAMP Stack vs Silverlight, I’ll just concede for the moment and say, I don’t care what we program it in as long as we get the best product in the end. Later, when it is more realistic, we can have that debate
I am not suggesting that we conform to all these but some of the standards for accreditation are just common sense. The ebay system sounds a bit hokey to me, and just saying that the market will set the standards is vague/careless. Yes, in some sense it will set standards. I want an Austro-libertarian education without having to abandon my business and move. If it is just a handful of random online seminars, that’s fine. If you are talking about a formal education that hopes to maybe carry some positive reputation, you need some sort of rules/pedagogical method.
@AK: I was just trying to narrow down everything into less areas since the school doesn’t exist yet. I still don’t quite get what descriptive psychology is after reading this. Thymology fits under economics and other areas too I believe. You could definitely fit ethics/philosophy together, and I really think they are all connected. I remember that I found a school in Budapest that has a specialized Logic program. I guess we will just have to see how many students there are and how many teachers we can get…
OK, maybe something like this makes sense. I am not a fan of Hegel, Weber, or Husserl though. I don’t really know much about this stuff, so I am going to shut up for now. Someone should bug J. Tucker to find out if there is any chance of this happening.
It all depends on what end the university is there for. If its there for you and people like you, then you have just stated exactly what should be offered. If it is truly Mises University, then it should focus on that and all the content and subjects that this whole site does.
If we’re really out to revolutionize the higher-education system out from under the government, then if we build a forum where the market decides and influences what subjects and degrees are offered, I think we’ll naturally attract the professors that sympathize with our goal. I’d let the market decide in the end. What does a paying student want to learn? What can a paid professors teach? What do employers want new employees to know? What does an entrepreneur need to know to start a business?
I understand that, and I didn’t mean to imply that prominent Austro-libertarians shouldn’t be acting as mentors to students. But the calibre of students that are likely to apply to a “Mises University” will undoubtedly be very low, and as such it will be a waste of time for productive scholars such as Walter Block to try and impart insights to such people. Why will the quality of applicants to an online Mises University be low? Because the really top-students who are serious about pursuing careers in academia are smart enough to know that attending an obscure institution in Auburn, Alabama isn’t going to help them professionally. So they will aim to get into places like Harvard, Yale or Columbia (and pursue independent Austrian studies in their spare time).
You are conflating a certain kind of practicality with intelligence. There are a great many students in the Ivy League who, while being academically proficient, are uninsightful dullards. And there are a great many students in no-name colleges and people who didn’t even go to college who are brilliant. Many of the latter kind who are attracted to the Austrian tradition simply are not willing to make the intellectual and moral compromises necessary for untrammeled success in mainstream academia. A full Mises U. would draw in droves of such people.
That’s how I’ve solved my problem. I’m doing an independent study in Austrian Economics for my senior year in high school. I was able to get Dr. Murphy to proctor it for me. I meet with him every so often, and I write papers on readings, etc.
I discussed this thread in a post I wrote for the Mises Blog highlighting recent discussions in this forum concerning lifelong learning. GMU economist Peter Boettke responded with an interesting counterpoint.
First here’s the passage of mine which he responded to:
And here’s his response:
And here’s my response to that:
FYI, Boettke has been a vocal advocate of traditional academia vs. “growth by other means” in regards to the Austrian tradition. He from time-to-time locks horns with Bob Murphy over this question.
