Michael Karnjanaprakorn argues that the US education system is fundamentally broken and focuses too much on getting into college rather than learning. He discusses his own experiences in college where he memorized information to pass exams but did not truly learn. He also highlights growing issues with student loan debt and the fact that not everyone needs a college degree. Karnjanaprakorn proposes "a learning revolution" that moves beyond traditional education and focuses on lifelong learning through platforms like his own Skillshare that allow people to learn new skills from others in their community.

1. Let’s Start a Learning Revolution
Michael Karnjanaprakorn, @mikekarnj
Skillshare, CEO/Co-Founder
http://skillshare.com

2. I’m an entrepreneur based in NYC.

3. Where is our learning revolution?

6. Today, we’re going to challenge the
traditional notion of education.

7. Why?

8. Because today the pinnacle of
education is getting into college.

9. And not learning.

10. Which is a massive social problem.

11. I’m going to tell two stories
around learning and education.

12. And for fun, I’ll teach you the secret
behind being a winning poker player.

13. The first story starts here...

14. University of Virginia

15. Where I took an Economics
course on Game Theory.

16. Which is a theory of competition
stated in terms of gains and losses
among opposing players.

17. Zzz.

18. Boring, right?

19. But I memorized everything
for the final exam.

20. And barely passed!

21. But, I was so focused
on passing the test.

22. I didn’t really learn anything.

23. I still didn’t understand
game theory.

24. Sound familiar?

25. Fast forward to May 2010.

26. I’m in Atlantic City with Annie Duke.

28. She’s also my poker coach.

29. Who gave me a lesson on...

30. Game Theory and Decision Making.

31. Poker is a game of decision making
under conditions of uncertainty.

32. So, my gains are exactly balanced
by your losses (sum-zero game).

33. And my success depends on the
decisions of others (game theory).

34. As a poker player, my job is
to always make the best decisions.

35. While you make
the wrong decisions.

36. Which is how I win
in the long-run.

37. I’ll break it down for you.

38. In poker, once you make a bet, the
money isn’t yours anymore.

39. This is called a sunk cost.

40. So, you shouldn’t make
bad decisions on getting it back.

41. Another example.

42. How many of you have friends in bad
relationships that stay together?

43. Because they’ve been together
for “five years?”

44. This is another sunk cost.

45. And a really bad decision.

46. Because you shouldn’t make
decisions based on past investments.

47. In other words,
your friends should break up.

48. This is the secret to winning poker:

49. Decision Making and Game Theory

50. A topic that I found insanely boring
turned into the most
interesting topic of all time.

51. Because it was something I
passionately wanted to learn about.

52. The second story starts with Erica
Goldson at Coxsackle-Athens HS.

53. She gave a valedictorian speech to
her 2010 graduating class.

55. And she said some remarkable
things against schooling, like...

56. “I excelled at every subject just for the
purpose of excelling, not learning.”

57. “We are so focused on a goal,
whether it be passing a test, or
graduating as first in the class.
However, in this way, we do not really
learn. We do whatever it takes to
achieve our original objective.”

58. “This is the dilemma I’ve faced with
the American education system.”

59. I agree with her.

60. The U.S. education system is
fundamentally broken.

61. So, where does a recent HS
graduate go from here?

62. “9 out of 10 American high
school seniors say they want
to go to college.
Source: The World-Wide Expansion of
Higher Education in the Twentieth Century

63. So, how did this happen?

64. Before the 19th century, there
were no systems of public
education.

65. In 1900, about half a million
people worldwide were
enrolled in colleges.
Source: UNESCO (2009)

66. “Just because a boy wants to go
to college is no reason we
should finance it.”
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1939

67. Today, there are 150 million
students today enrolled in
some kind of education
beyond high school.
Source: UNESCO (2009)

68. “We will provide the support
necessary for all young
Americans to complete college
and meet a new goal: By 2020,
America will once again have
the highest portion of college
graduates in the world.”
- President Obama

69. Why is there so much
importance on a new
institution like college?

70. College degree leads to success.

71. “Over an adult's working life,
high school graduates can expect,
on average, to earn $1.2 million;
those with a bachelor's degree,
$2.1 million; and people with a
master's degree, $2.5 million.”
Source: U.S. Census Bureau

72. College also has intangible benefits.

73. You experience the world
for the first time.

74. You make new friends.

75. You gain critical thinking skills.

76. You learn a lot about yourself.

77. You mature.

78. All of these are
great and needed!

79. But, let’s paint a new
picture of college.

80. Background Disclaimer:
I like college.

81. Background Disclaimer:
I went to college twice.

82. B.A. from UVA
M.S. from VCU Brandcenter

83. But, here’s my beef
with higher education.

84. We need to debunk the myth that a
college degree leads to success.

85. It doesn’t.

86. “17M Americans with college degrees
are doing jobs that require less than
the skill levels associated with a
bachelor’s degree.”
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

87. What’s the value of a degree from
college? A job as a waiter?

88. Richard Vedder from The Chronicle of
Higher Education debunks the myth
that a college education will result in
higher paying returns.

89. “The stats have always been skewed
for certain subgroups—particularly
relatively disadvantaged groups with
low education outcomes—are higher
than the average marginal returns to
education in the population as a
whole.”
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

90. Focused on a small subgroup of the
entire education ecosystem.

91. Here’s the reality...

92. Not everyone goes to Harvard.

93. Harvard only enrolls
20,000 students per year.

94. 18.2M students enrolled
in college in the U.S. (2007)
Source: National Center for Educational Statistics

95. NYU: 50,000 students
Michigan: 41,000 students
Berkeley: 35,000 students
UVA: 20,000 students
Stanford: 15,000 students
Yale: 11,000 students

96. So, where do the other 18M college
students go in our country?

97. Since the pinnacle of education is
getting into college.

98. I believe higher education has shifted
from learning to short-term profit
maximization.

99. 500,000 students

100. Extremely profitable business.

101. 2009 Revenue: $3.7B

102. Triple the revenue ($800M)
of Facebook (2009).

103. I did learn something in Economics:

104. When Demand > Supply

105. $$$

106. Which is why I believe higher
education has shifted from
learning to profit.

108. In other words, colleges act as
corporations like Goldman Sachs.

109. Speaking of Goldman Sachs.
Remember the housing market crisis?

110. Well, the college bubble
is bursting, too.

111. And it could even be worse.

112. Students at For-Profit institutions
represent only 9% of all college
students, but receive roughly 25%
of all Federal Pell Grants and
loans, and are responsible for 44%
of all student loan defaults.

113. There is an inevitable
student loan crisis coming.

114. Need more proof?
Check out these headlines.

115. “Americans now owe more on
their student loans ($830B) than
their credit cards ($827B).”
Source: Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2010

116. “Consumers who have questioned
whether it is worth spending $1,000 a
square foot for a home are now asking
whether it is worth spending $1,000 a
week to send their kids to college.”
Source: Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2010

117. $300B of the $830B student loan debts
have been incurred in the last 4 years.
Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2010

118. To put this in perspective,
the US economy is burdened with
$4 trillion of excess mortgage debt,
which is 30% of GDP.

119. At this rate, we’ll break
1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000)within
the next year for student loan debt.

120. And to make matters worse, the
“defaults on student loans are
skyrocketing amid a weak job market
and steadily rising tuition costs.”
Source: Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2009

121. “Default rates for federally
guaranteed student loans are
expected to reach 6.9% for 2007.
The highest rate since 1998.”
Source: Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2009

122. “College seniors who graduated
in 2009 carried an average of
$24,000 in student loan debt.”
Source: Project on Student Debt

123. “Unemployment for recent college
graduates climbed from 5.8% in 2008
to 8.7% in 2009 – the highest annual
rate on record for college graduates
aged 20 to 24.” ”
Source: Project on Student Debt

124. And it’s happening everywhere.
Even in our backyard.

125. “N.Y.U. enrolled students without
asking many questions about
whether they could afford a
$50,000 annual tuition bill.”
Source: The New York Times, May 28, 2010

126. “Then the colleges introduced the
students to lenders who underwrote
big loans without any idea of what the
students might earn someday.”
Source: The New York Times, May 28, 2010

127. Sound familiar?

128. “It’s just like the mortgage lenders
who didn’t ask borrowers to verify
their incomes...”
Source: The New York Times, May 28, 2010

129. It gets even worse.

130. You can not walk away from
student loans in the same
way as mortgage holders.

131. Federal bankruptcy law
makes it nearly impossible to
discharge student loan debts.

132. And tuition will always increase.

133. Because the government is a huge
mandated buyer and guarantor on
student loan debt.

134. Which means that tuition
will always go up. Forever.

136. But, we can fix this.

137. Not everyone has to go to college.

138. Yep, I said it.

139. Not everyone has to go to college.

140. Yes, it has obvious benefits.

141. And we will always need an
institution for higher education.

142. But, why not challenge the
traditional notion of education?

143. Is a college education really
worth a $20,000 student debt?

144. That will take the next
20+ years to pay off?

145. What happens when you
switch careers?

146. Get laid off?

147. Or work an underpaying job?

148. Because you decided to take
the road less traveled to
pursue your dreams?

149. College is not the
holy grail to success.

150. Having a college degree will not
ensure that you will be successful.

151. So, what can we do?

152. Here’s one simple idea.

153. Who made up the rule that we
have to attend college for 4 years?

154. Why not 2-years?

155. This reduces tuition which will
reduce the amount of student loans.

156. It allows students to spend the
2 years doing something.

157. Maybe travel around the world?

158. How about starting a business?

159. The possibilities are endless.

160. Here’s another idea.

161. Why not pay students to quit college?

162. Peter Thiel pays would-be
entrepreneurs under-20
$100,000 to drop out of school.

163. But, that’s not really scalable.

164. Here’s an even easier,
scalable solution.

165. Why not go back to the
true goal of education:
learn new skills

166. Where is our learning revolution?

167. But, even bigger than the student loan
crisis is the “people crisis”

168. We are misleading our kids down the
wrong path & promising them the
wrong things in life.

169. At TED 2010, Sir Ken Robinson stated
“many people go through their whole
lives having no real sense of what their
talents may be, or if they have any to
speak of.”

170. “Education dislocates people from
their natural talents. And human
resources are often buried deep. You
have to go looking for them.”

171. “You have to create the
circumstances where they
show themselves.”

172. This will only happen if we bring
learning back into the US
education system.

173. And by debunking the myth that a
college degree leads to success.

174. The pinnacle of education should be
learning, not going to college.

175. We need to stop creating a cookie-
cutter experience around education.

176. We need a learning revolution inside
and outside of the classroom.

177. Here’s our solution:

179. Platform to learn anything
from anyone in your community.

180. Learning shouldn’t be confined to
the four walls of a classroom.

181. Your city, network & community is
the world’s biggest university of
excess knowledge and skills.

182. It just needs to be shared.

183. What do you want to learn?

184. Better yet, what can you teach?

185. Want to learn how to
green your rooftop?

186. Bake the perfect cupcake
from Magnolia Bakery?

187. Or how to increase
your happiness?

188. You can gain this knowledge
and more through Skillshare.

189. Because piquing your
interest, finding new passions
& learning new things should
be a life-long process.

190. Because everyone should be
a life-long learner.

191. We need a learning revolution.

192. Thank you.

193. "The only thing that interferes with
my learning is my education."
- Albert Einstein