Colleges forced to budget cut: Is innovation helpful or not?

Seth Reeves

In today's world, we have found ourselves in the age of technology. Many universities started using technology as a new way to educate students over the boring and overused ways of reading from textbooks and listenig to lectures. When the technology age began, colleges did not pay much attention to the cost of the technology because it seemed like it would pay off for how easier and more entertaining it could make education. However, now colleges are finding themselves struggling to survive in today's economy. Most colleges have been forced to make budget cuts in order to keep in good working order. The Chronicle of Higher Education makes the point, if budget cuts are necessary, why not cut some of the technology and go back to a little more "old school" teaching where "classroom engagement implied deep critical thinking and inspired commitment."

My take on this is split. On one hand, technology is what leads us to more innovation. Without innovation, we can not hope to find better ways to educate young adults in college. Without innovation, we can not improve and could be left in a rut of the same education being taught the same way for years and years to come. Here is a video that supports this claim.

On the other hand, another question exists that are there any more innovations to be made in finding better ways, for example using technology, to educate college students? Or is the best way of educating students is to hold lectures and recitation classes which have been used since the beginning of higher education?

What I believe would be a good solution for many colleges across the country who have to make budget cuts would be to cut off some of their technology expenses and experiment with having a little less technology in the classroom. By doing this they can either see if technology is an absolute must to better educate students, or that technology actually took away some of the human interaction part of education and now their is a good mixture of technology and old fashion education. This is a big issue that could still be going on after the economy rises, but it may just be fate that it has come up now when the economy had fallen and colleges were forced to cut some of their technology expenses.