Educating the masses (or yourself)

For everyone who is college bound, take some serious, I mean serious, thought about what follows. Having attended higher education in various forms, I do think I am qualified to make this statement:

Modern day higher education (at least at the undergrad) is when you pay someone to grade you on how well you teach yourself.

I took my first college classes at age 16 (more than a decade ago). I did most of them in the classroom. Aside from the 100+ geology lecture, most classes were smaller and the teachers were enthusiastic about teaching their subject matter. Discussion was expected and encouraged. My 1 correspondence course (the precursor to online classes) was very much teach yourself, but even then I would receive back my work with comments all over the work explaining where I went wrong, or questions as to why   I did something a certain way.

A few years break, then back into the classroom setting. The teachers were less interactive, unless you sought them out yourself after class and the classes were much bigger too.

After adding in a child, I moved to the online classes. The teachers would post what was due when and then expect you to make educated posts. Some teachers would post helpful, pertinent information; others not so much. The method of delivery didn't really facilitate in-depth, lengthy discussion of topics, and that included the teachers. So you were left to do the reading on your own, try to figure out what was being taught and then hope a teacher would respond to you in a timely manner if you did have questions.

Maybe the lack of education is because the students don't mind rather prefer the shallow education because they would rather have the piece of paper than the actual understanding. Maybe it's because the teachers would rather push kids through a system, and collect a paycheck, with the least amount of effort; as opposed to sharing a wealth of knowledge. Either way, you are teaching yourself most of what you are learning...

Now, we're unschoolers, so there's no big problem with that per se, but when you go ahead and pay someone so you can teach yourself, that's pretty lame!