Stephen Downes

I agree with Alex Usher rarely enough that it's worth highlighting this moment of agreement. Usher writes, "since it's quite clear that this overall plateauing of participation is happening entirely by way of freezing educational inequality at substantial levels, being OK with the present situation means being OK with major inequalities, and in any democracy which wishes to remain a democracy, that's not really OK." Quite right. Now, he's wrong when he says "no one phrases their case in terms of access anymore. We don't care about outcomes. And I do mean no one. Not students, not governments, not institutions." No one, maybe, except me. I'm always talked about access. But otherwise, yeah, it hasn't been a priority for people. Usher also makes the usual case that "countries with free tuition don't have noticeably narrower part(icipation) rate gaps," to which I add that while tuition cuts may not be sufficient to improve access, they are most likely necessary.