Today’s Kernel piece is a deep dive by Bianca Aguilar into edtech programs like MOOCs and bootcamps, and how their empowerment of students can often be masqueraded exploitation. Fast Food Education By Bianca Aguilar (she/her) Speed and scale are redefining industries: fast food changes what we eat, fast fashion changes what we wear, and now, fast food education is changing how and what we learn. Powered by technology, fast food education is capable of disrupting the ancient higher education sector, allowing more people than ever to pursue learning — a worthy goal. But what is being marketed as empowerment is often instead masqueraded exploitation. What is fast food education, and why is it attractive? "The true value proposition of education is employment." - Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun Fast food education is education influenced by what sociologist George Ritzer calls "McDonaldization": a process where principles of the fast food industry, driven by “rationality,” are dominating other sectors of society (Willis, n.d.). In the education sector, this is expressed through vocational education, which is known for a short timeframe, accessible costs, and a practical curriculum. This essay focuses on programs that are prominent in the edtech industry: compressed courses like massive open online courses (MOOCs), and skills-based intensives such as bootcamps. Four characteristics define McDonaldization: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. Efficiency is about choosing the fastest and cheapest (in expenditure and effort) way to achieve a goal. This is usually advertised as a benefit to the consumer — for instance, even if MOOCs are cheap, students are “paying” for the privilege of handling pacing and grading by themselves, which are tasks that are usually done by the teacher. Calculability is about making objectives based on what can be calculated, counted, quantified. Under McDonaldization, quantity equals quality: the high number of people enrolled in MOOCs seems to make up for a low three to six percent completion rate (Reich & Ruipérez-Valiente, 2019). Predictability is about minimizing the possibility of surprise. Consumers expect to receive the same product and service no matter where they go: all coding bootcamps offer nearly identical curriculums. Finally, control is about replacing people — the biggest source of uncertainty and unpredictability in a “rational” system — with nonhuman technology. Everything is pre-packaged, pre-measured, and automatically controlled. MOOCs themselves are pre-packaged systems (Ritzer, 2013); they’re often designed to have short pre-recorded lectures and embedded questions that give automatic feedback. The McDonaldization of fast food education makes sense when one considers that it’s designed to benefit the system, not the student. Writer and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom (2018) calls this phenomenon Lower Ed, a term she coined to describe the increasing emphasis on credentialism, especially among marginalized communities, as the path to financial stability. She argues that this was created by changes in the way we work, unequal access to liberal education programs, and the risk shift of job training from institutions to individuals for profit. These broad structural patterns tie into fast food education’s rise in popularity; it’s part of the third education revolution, which is about continual training throughout a person's lifetime (Selingo, 2018). People are compelled to enroll in such programs because of very real fears: being left behind by digitalization, losing jobs to automation, and becoming irrelevant in a fluctuating talent economy. They have also lost faith in traditional institutions; due to expensive costs, long timeframes, and slow adaptation, they believe that these institutions aren’t suited to prepare them for their careers (International Consultants for Education and Fairs, 2019). These fears are even more pronounce