Public higher education is going to collapse unless people start thinking extremely careful about advocating for it and what will be left is the ivy leagues, a few highly selective publics, and an even whiter and more male professoriate than what we’ve got

Opt out of learning online because you’d rather do it the traditional way, by all means.

But maybe consider the long term social consequences of collapsed enrollment and defunded institutions, some of which are in states that can’t afford to bail them out.

Also some of the moral panic about online higher education right now is people being like “oh god now I have to learn like the plebes who do online degrees because they don’t have time to attend class all day”

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Also there are going to be various individual reasons why people *can’t* do online education — but I hope we think past our individual situations to also think of what we can collectively do to make sure a valued public resource persists.

If you can’t be enrolled or your kid can’t be enrolled for some specific reason, let your members of Congress know that this increases the university’s need for a bailout!

And when talking about it online — don’t forget to mention the importance of taking that step.

Public universities and colleges are a public resource that should be preserved. Like libraries. Literally in some cases — their libraries are often an important public resource.

And they can be supported without putting lives at risk.

This is a great suggestion and universities should reorganize curricula and requirements to accommodate this suggestion: https://twitter.com/meganvonbergen/status/1254537210784878592?s=21">https://twitter.com/meganvonb... https://twitter.com/meganvonbergen/status/1254537210784878592">https://twitter.com/meganvonb...

It’s so important for people to take a strong stance in defense of public education right now, and not just musing about what will work best for you and your family.

Anyway, I guess, I’ll sign this as the professor who took a job at a public institution even though it paid less and doubled her time to tenure.

Why? Because I believe in public education and was ready to fight for it.