Wonder how to reconcile the description of almost-negligible admin overhead with this description of a similar effort that warns, "We wanted to keep costs extremely low, so we had parent volunteers do all admin for the school. It's going really well, but it's an insane amount of work."
From my experience both teaching kids and organizing things, that seems like a much more likely outcome.
FractalU isn't a school. It doesn't need to keep records, comply with miles of state regulations (employee and volunteer background checks, record keeping, mandatory exams, ...). It doesn't need to be able to demonstrate to other schools (or universities) what the students achieved. It doesn't need to demonstrate to the state that it's actually teaching the students something. It doesn't handle any money, so it doesn't need an accountant. It doesn't employ anyone. It doesn't need to worry about firing anyone.
My kids attended a small co-op school when they were young--5 employees (4 teachers + "director" who was mostly a floating assistant/substitute), everything else handled by parent volunteers. There's really an enormous amount of administrative overhead.
FractalU doesn't have any of that because it's not actually a school.
As a note, they do handle money. They charge $600 for a course on how to replicate their community elsewhere. I don’t know about tuition for other courses because the links are broken.
Some skepticism for me creeps in the more I peruse the fractal sites. Course links for the summer semester are broken, and a lot of the working content seems to be somewhat self-indulgent, reading more like a normal unremarkable friend group.
The MLM/cult vibes I’m getting are that the main purpose and monetary incentive seems to be in the mere existence of the “community” itself, and selling that aspiration as a $600 course. The website for the course (fractalcampus.com) is a bog-standard tech startup marketing landing page including “as seen on…”, testimonials, and other calls to action to buy this $600 course.
Notable with that course, we are talking about a paid course being sold where the only person with a true success story is the person selling the course. The Boston iteration seems to only consist of a weekly dinner so far.
Doesn’t that sound familiar, like every other influencer selling a self-help course we’ve ever seen?
I think if the paid course and stated analogy to YCombinator wasn’t a part of it I would be more enthusiastic, like, “yeah this thing is awesome, a real community that goes deeper than small talk, you’re all getting together and learning from each other and truly engaging.” But then the more I think about what they’re actually doing as actions rather than words, the more I feel like this whole thing isn’t 100% honest.
The founders’ biographies support the idea that they are a tech couple who exited with lucrative equity and are now landlords as their main job and that this is a glorified real estate course. “Co-living” is just a drop-in word for “landlord.”
“FractalU isn't a business or a nonprofit. In fact, it's not a formal organization at all.”
I’d put five bucks down that there’s an LLC or trust involved somewhere.
Idk, maybe I’m reading too deep into this, but there are a lot of scams in this world and I think this might be one of them.
your definition of "actually a school" seems to arbitrarily include a lot of reporting and paperwork and commerce that have nothing to do with the bit where you teach people stuff
It sounds like this approach is more like home school pods whereas the person you quoted was trying to actually form a "school" and keep the state happy? If the focus is just on teaching, what kind of admin work is there to do? Since she says parents volunteered, I assume this is for kids, and operating under a homeschool model (i.e. the parents just tell the state they're the instructor) would be a viable way to avoid regulatory burden even if you hire an outside tutor/instructor.
I’ve been intrigued by recurse for a long time because the alums I’ve met are all very impressive.
But when I think about applying, I worry that it’s just tapping into my addiction to external validation and credential-seeking rather than just learning something on my own.
Or… that’s what I tell myself because I’m not nearly as bright as the recursers I’ve met
I always wondered why no one creates new universities in the US. It seems like in the 1800s every rich guy started their own university, many with unique missions.
The existing university model in the US seems like it's ripe for disruption so I'm surprised no one has tried to create their own.
I'm guessing it's at least partially too high risk from a students perspective.
Much of the point of an established university is credentials, a new one cannot give the same recognition.
This means that to attract new students, and build a reputation, you have to have some other draw; either some world renowned experts, or cheap (even free or scholarships) tuition. Probably both.
And if you want your graduates to be outstanding, then you need to offer the best incoming candidates a reason to choose your school, because the truth is the school has less impact than the individual.
You’re spot on. Bootstrapping a reputation is really hard (and expensive), and the very painful accreditation process makes it much harder (need students to get accredited, can’t offer degree to students without accreditation).
Two good colleges who’ve overcome the challenges recently are Olin (engineering school in Boston) and Minerva (globally distributed college).
I forget his name or even when an where it was or how it ended but some kid wanted to start his own school. People were skeptical to say the least but he put in the work.
It turned out more than a few professional teachers were more than a little bit tired of how things work in the usual institutions. You can't even call it new ideas I think, they knew exactly what was wrong. The funny part was that that automatically became the main selling point.
These are the sorts of hurdles that a wealthy, powerful, amd/or famous person could overcome. If Buffett University or Gates University opened tomorrow you'd have people clamoring to support it and attend it.
As for a draw, the US jniversity system is so flawed at this point that it wouldn't be hard to come up with something better.
Also in the 1800s it was primarily other rich guys going in as part of their social upbringing, so it would be more like friends setting up a new social club.
There's a bunch of new "universities" but they don't follow the old model, all those online learning platforms are the new wave of "universities". Khan academy, udemy, etc, for a while everyone was starting another platform like that. So I'd say we did already have a second wave of it. Probably a third wave with practically fully AI tutoring / coursework already starting.
Learning isn't really a virtue of the culture. Most people go to school to get ahead of others. As such, there's two prongs that determine the worth of an education: is the institution accredited, and how prestigious is the institution/degree? The answer to these questions for FractalU is "no" and "not prestigious at all."
Not that that's a bad thing for FractalU. They seem like they know what they want it to be, and they're happy with it in its current state. I certainly think it's a great idea, though admittedly it does only really cater to a specific niche of people. In a better culture that values education I could see this almost being a universally enjoyed activity.
They weren't all started in the 1800s, they were all started in the past and you're squishing 300 years of history into a single chunk of time, ignoring that there were decades-long gaps between foundings.
In my state there were four waves of foundings: colonial pre-USA land grant institutions, rich guy vanity projects a century later, post-WWII expansions 80 years after that, and biotech/health care market growth in the 2000s.
The university accreditation system is a cartel. You can't gain accreditation until you have already graduated students! So basically you have to find a group of students who are willing to risk studying at an unofficial university, then operate the university for several years before you can even apply for the stupid credential that allows you to issue degrees that anybody else recognizes. It clearly should be illegal, but like in so many other areas, the university system gets special treatment while continuing to suck up more and more resources for an ever diminishing return.
Here's the question: who cares about accreditation?
I'm not trying to be flippant, this is an actual question.
Sure, getting a higher degree at another institution will have that requirement, as would a professional certification (medicine, law, professional engineering), but those are relatively narrow scopes.
Isn't it true that in most cases nobody is going to care or even know enough to check accreditation?
It’s easier to give to an existing one or start a parallel organization (e.g., think tank, the Thiel Fellowship, or Y Combinator).
If you think undergrad education should move in a certain direction, it’s probably easier to find a university on the way there and give them a donation to do more of what you like.
Would the world be a better or worse place if all university business programs were shut down tomorrow? Follow the thought regarding advertising, marketing and psychology.
Trump created one. And he was not the only one. You just do not hear about them on the news all that often. Edit: I am not saying Trump created a good university. I am saying they exist and are created. They are not culturally important and often frauds.
Good teachers are expensive, but on top of that, so are all the facilities. Being accredited is required for Pell Grants and student loans. Can’t be accredited without a lot of horse shit like fully staffed research libraries loaded with books no one will ever read. Yet another higher ed racket
This is such a refreshing inversion of the ‘edtech’ trend—rather than trying to scale education through software, FractalU scales motivation through community. Makes me wonder: instead of designing better UIs for MOOCs or LLM tutors, maybe the real unlock is designing better social containers for learning.
> the real unlock is designing better social containers
FTFY.
Note - a lot of the classic social containers have been systematically disappearing since the 1970s in anything but rural areas for a variety of reasons. I'm not qualified to hypothesize the causes, but I do see the effects.
I do find it a bit funny how all of these "democratized" and "decentralized" things always seem to come out the most centralized places, mostly New York. Of course, that's where the people are, so you know, it makes sense. Just funny.
Readit News
Wonder how to reconcile the description of almost-negligible admin overhead with this description of a similar effort that warns, "We wanted to keep costs extremely low, so we had parent volunteers do all admin for the school. It's going really well, but it's an insane amount of work."
From my experience both teaching kids and organizing things, that seems like a much more likely outcome.
https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1917287461027459239
My kids attended a small co-op school when they were young--5 employees (4 teachers + "director" who was mostly a floating assistant/substitute), everything else handled by parent volunteers. There's really an enormous amount of administrative overhead.
FractalU doesn't have any of that because it's not actually a school.
Some skepticism for me creeps in the more I peruse the fractal sites. Course links for the summer semester are broken, and a lot of the working content seems to be somewhat self-indulgent, reading more like a normal unremarkable friend group.
The MLM/cult vibes I’m getting are that the main purpose and monetary incentive seems to be in the mere existence of the “community” itself, and selling that aspiration as a $600 course. The website for the course (fractalcampus.com) is a bog-standard tech startup marketing landing page including “as seen on…”, testimonials, and other calls to action to buy this $600 course.
Notable with that course, we are talking about a paid course being sold where the only person with a true success story is the person selling the course. The Boston iteration seems to only consist of a weekly dinner so far.
Doesn’t that sound familiar, like every other influencer selling a self-help course we’ve ever seen?
I think if the paid course and stated analogy to YCombinator wasn’t a part of it I would be more enthusiastic, like, “yeah this thing is awesome, a real community that goes deeper than small talk, you’re all getting together and learning from each other and truly engaging.” But then the more I think about what they’re actually doing as actions rather than words, the more I feel like this whole thing isn’t 100% honest.
The founders’ biographies support the idea that they are a tech couple who exited with lucrative equity and are now landlords as their main job and that this is a glorified real estate course. “Co-living” is just a drop-in word for “landlord.”
“FractalU isn't a business or a nonprofit. In fact, it's not a formal organization at all.”
I’d put five bucks down that there’s an LLC or trust involved somewhere.
Idk, maybe I’m reading too deep into this, but there are a lot of scams in this world and I think this might be one of them.
What kind of work does this administrative overhead in particular consist of?
your definition of "actually a school" seems to arbitrarily include a lot of reporting and paperwork and commerce that have nothing to do with the bit where you teach people stuff
[1] http://recurse.com/
But when I think about applying, I worry that it’s just tapping into my addiction to external validation and credential-seeking rather than just learning something on my own.
Or… that’s what I tell myself because I’m not nearly as bright as the recursers I’ve met
The existing university model in the US seems like it's ripe for disruption so I'm surprised no one has tried to create their own.
Much of the point of an established university is credentials, a new one cannot give the same recognition.
This means that to attract new students, and build a reputation, you have to have some other draw; either some world renowned experts, or cheap (even free or scholarships) tuition. Probably both.
And if you want your graduates to be outstanding, then you need to offer the best incoming candidates a reason to choose your school, because the truth is the school has less impact than the individual.
Two good colleges who’ve overcome the challenges recently are Olin (engineering school in Boston) and Minerva (globally distributed college).
It turned out more than a few professional teachers were more than a little bit tired of how things work in the usual institutions. You can't even call it new ideas I think, they knew exactly what was wrong. The funny part was that that automatically became the main selling point.
As for a draw, the US jniversity system is so flawed at this point that it wouldn't be hard to come up with something better.
They get created if there is specific market pressures I.e visa fraud. Then suddenly every ceramic and pottery class becomes a university.
Not that that's a bad thing for FractalU. They seem like they know what they want it to be, and they're happy with it in its current state. I certainly think it's a great idea, though admittedly it does only really cater to a specific niche of people. In a better culture that values education I could see this almost being a universally enjoyed activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit...
And then sort by year.
They weren't all started in the 1800s, they were all started in the past and you're squishing 300 years of history into a single chunk of time, ignoring that there were decades-long gaps between foundings.
In my state there were four waves of foundings: colonial pre-USA land grant institutions, rich guy vanity projects a century later, post-WWII expansions 80 years after that, and biotech/health care market growth in the 2000s.
I'm not trying to be flippant, this is an actual question.
Sure, getting a higher degree at another institution will have that requirement, as would a professional certification (medicine, law, professional engineering), but those are relatively narrow scopes.
Isn't it true that in most cases nobody is going to care or even know enough to check accreditation?
If you think undergrad education should move in a certain direction, it’s probably easier to find a university on the way there and give them a donation to do more of what you like.
You should ask why we don't close them instead.
Would the world be a better or worse place if all university business programs were shut down tomorrow? Follow the thought regarding advertising, marketing and psychology.
It would be interesting to look at the impact, success, and failure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_University
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Austin
Also, are employers really looking into if a prospect's school was accredited or not?
As someone that has given a number of classes and seminars, it gets fairly discouraging, how few folks want to learn.
I think that establishing a learning-focused community (like this) would probably really get a lot of people engaged.
Geeks like learning. Many others don't. It's always fairly demoralizing, when I encounter it.
FTFY.
Note - a lot of the classic social containers have been systematically disappearing since the 1970s in anything but rural areas for a variety of reasons. I'm not qualified to hypothesize the causes, but I do see the effects.