Outsourcing College Education (Or Parts Of It). What’s Next?

The Toronto Star (thestar.com) had an article on April 30th, about Profs now outsourcing marking to India. This would have made it into a comic strip had it not been true. The overall theme of the article is, pretty much, indicative to what has been happening in the US in the last few decades: we have outsourced just about everything. And while the service sector (still) covers about 70-80 percent of the US economy, the article proves that these jobs could be in question too.

Are we, as a society, benefiting from outsourcing? Well, outsourcing does not necessarily mean sending things off-shore. For example, we have outsourced our kids’ education to kindergartens, schools and colleges. We have outsourced our tax filing to accountants. Some of the better-off folks have outsourced their house cleaning. The list goes on. So, in general, we outsource things to people who are either better at it than we are, or, alternatively, who are cheaper (we have a certain price tag associated with our own time).

Should it come as a surprise, then, that even college professors can be outsourced? If they can do the same job cheaper and at least as well (if not better) than their stateside counterparts, why not? After all, we all do bargain hunting. We shop around for better deals on cars, on produce, on electronics, on services – so why not education? Why not everything?

If somebody in this world is willing to do the job for less money – and we need to have this job done – by all means, let them have our business. The issue becomes apparent when we outsource everything. At that point, we will have outsourced ourselves completely, our jobs, our lives, everything.

This is the benefit of the global economy – getting things as cheap as possible. But, of course, at a price. The price to pay, in our case, is unemployment, our inability to produce, our sense of entitlement, and our reluctance to change things. Until we get to the point outside of our comfort zone, things will remain the same.

Our economy is driven by  spending. And yet, consumers do not need to spend right now. With so much debt, with eroded pension plans, with nonexistent savings, and with home prices below mortgage levels, we need to stay competitive – and do so by competing with the rest of the world. This can only be done by bringing the jobs back, by willing to work at rates that the rest of the world charges. This will drive down salaries, but also prices. We just need to be more realistic about expectations going forward. Being a superpower means being super-adjustable when times call for it.

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