Why college?

[mindstalk]

Yglesias says college lectures started before the printing press, when books were expensive and being lectured at made sense. Why did lectures survive the printing press? Granted, there's often areas where key knowledge is mostly in people's heads, especially in advanced or in hands-on fields. But we use "some guy hired for his research ability drones on" for settled academic fields, too. He notes that learning calculus in school is socially accepted, while teaching it to yourself from a workbook is 'weird.'

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/26/books_and_moocs_lots_of_ways_to_learn.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/02/27/education_signaling_learning_and_credentials.html