July 4, and the glass art shown on pages 812-816, remind us that freedom is fragile. Through their governments, citizens of democracies have traditionally made strong commitments to education on grounds that without it individuals would not be able to act responsibly and to make wise decisions in voting booths and public meetings. All citizens have a stake in everyone's education, because a better-educated citizenry benefits all of society. In this country such a commitment has produced a system of public schools and public universities that offers opportunities to many who otherwise could not afford a level of education commensurate with their talents. But there are signs that this commitment to public education is flagging.

Many students, teachers, and administrators view education as merely a way to enhance personal prosperity. How often have you heard the statistic that a college education pays for itself through increased earning power, even if it costs $20,000-30,000 per year? Investing in education pays off just as investing in the stock market does, provided you wait long enough. Attending a better school gets you a better job and a better income. In other words, a certified level of education is a commodity--something that is useful and can be turned to commercial advantage.

Viewing education as a commodity has several consequences. First, if education is a means to better employment rather than better citizenship, why should anyone pay for it other than the person who benefits? Why should I pay taxes to help someone else get a better job when I could be spending the money for my own benefit? Education as a commodity makes such attitudes reasonable, though not commendable, and the result is lessened support for public education.

Second, those who supply education as an economic good should be rewarded, and those who are much better at educating should be rewarded much more. Hence the fear of Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College, Columbia University (1), that a commercial firm will hire the best faculty from the most prestigious universities and offer an "all-star degree over the Internet". The Internet might do for education what television did for sports: eliminate a lot of minor-league players and make billionaires out of those at the very top of the profession.

Third, education as a commodity implies that faculty and/or institutions might be able to turn a profit by selling their wares in national and world markets (2). A Harvard law professor, for example, sells videotapes of his lectures to an online law school. Columbia, Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of Chicago form an academic partnership with UNext.com (3). As part of their normal duties, business-school faculty members contribute online courses and lessons, the academic-partner universities reap the benefits, and then the institutions compensate faculty accordingly. In the first example the individual owns the commodity and in the second the institution does, with faculty providing works for hire. At many colleges and universities a somewhat unseemly scramble is going on to define who has the rights to what. Some think that education is a sufficiently valuable commodity to serve as a marketing come-on (4). For example, notHarvard.com (5) develops Web-based courses that are offered free by other Web sites that want to attract customers. According to its founder, Michael Rosenfelt, "Education has always been at the basis of commerce. Sellers need to teach and buyers want to learn." In February of this year, Metrowerks, which markets software tools for programmers, began offering notHarvard.com courses on its CodeWarriorU site (6). One course requires purchase of Metrowerks Code Warrior software, which is the subject of the course. By the end of February the courses had attracted enrollment of more than 2000, though one student noted that the CodeWarriorU course carried no academic credit and would probably not be accepted by traditional colleges or universities.

If education is good, is free education better? If online education is perceived as a marketing tool, rather than an attempt to enable students to develop their own skills, expertise, perceptions, and philosophies, will that reduce the value of any kind of education? Is requiring my students to purchase a textbook written by myself or a friend less reprehensible than requiring them to view advertising or purchase a product to participate in a course? Will universities develop business plans to exploit their intellectual resources? Will they forfeit the education game to a knowledge industry and move in the direction of becoming research institutes?

These and many similar questions are being resolved by a flurry of activity involving business, government, venture capitalists, the Internet, educational institutions, and individual teachers. In the next few years there may be profound changes in how students are educated in this country and throughout the world. Only if we teachers commit ourselves to supporting the best possible education and to encouraging our students, colleagues, and administrators to do the same, are those changes likely to be in the best long-term interest of our society and ourselves. Education is extremely valuable, but it is much more than a commodity and certainly not a come-on. It is crucial that we renew our commitment to the ideal that education itself, not concomitant financial gain, rewards both individuals and our entire culture.

Literature Cited

1. Levine, A. New York Times, March 13, 2000, p A25.
2. Heterick, R.; Twigg, C. The Learning Marketspace, March 1, 2000 (http://www.center.rpi.edu/LForum/LdfLM.html; accessed May 2000).
3. http://Unext.com/unext-index.jsp (accessed May 2000)
4. Guernsey, L. New York Times, March 16, 2000, pD1.
5. http://notHarvard.com (accessed May 2000)
6. http://www.codewarrioru.com (accessed May 2000)