CollegeDAO

(Light Paper)

The university system in the United States is screwed. The costs are astronomical, and depending on your choice of career, your education may not prepare you for it at all, meaning employers are paying large amounts for on-the-job training. Every generation is saddled with more student debt than the last, and at some point this system will have to break. The internet gave us a novel option — the online degree. But the average ONLINE college degree still costs over $40,000 and also doesn’t offer that “on-campus experience,” which many will say, myself included, is just as important as the classroom education.

What if we turn the internet’s solution on its head? What if we could use Web3 tooling to offer the in-real-life college experience and let education be an emergent property of that environment?

I propose starting CollegeDAO for the purpose of buying and running a boarding house for students. These students can choose whatever education they want, whether that’s enrolling in community college courses, paying for an online degree, using Khan Academy or Crypto Zombies, or working directly on projects with recruiters, which I believe will flock to us in droves. This concept will initially probably appeal to Web3 students and recruiters, because never has there been an industry for which diplomas matter so little and community matters so much. But as the concept begins proving itself, the hope is to be a home for students with many kinds of career paths (so long as those paths don’t require use of expensive laboratories or close relationships with mentors).

We won’t hold a monopoly over our students’ lives and educational content like most universities do. “We” will be the students. We could charge a company like Polygon to come to campus and assemble a team of students to work on a project. The students receive an amazing experience/education, and Polygon gets some cheap help and to try out some potential candidates they may want to hire (and they won’t need to wait until graduation because neither we nor they care about diplomas.) Imagine a study hall where you have different teams each working together on a project. Some are working with established groups like Polygon or Aave, and others are working on unique projects and ideas, grown organically from their collaboration at CollegeDAO — what will essentially be a four-year hackathon for everyone involved.

To raise the initial funds to buy the building, we will sell x NFTs where x = the number of beds we will have. Owning an NFT and paying the semi-annual room-and-board fees (which start increasing after a student’s 5th year to encourage turnover) are the two requirements for becoming a resident. Since CollegeDAO will thrive or die along with the reputation of its students, there need to be long-term incentives to make sure serious students are attracted and retained. One such will be a future income for each student based on certain parameters. When Polygon paid in the previous paragraph for access to our students (companies currently spend $6,000 on college recruitment per new hire), a portion of that money will go to past students based on 3 criteria: 1) Time spent as a resident; 2) Their performance while at the school; and (3) THE PERFORMANCE OF THEIR SUCCESSOR [(2) and (3) being based on anonymous Coordinape-style voting among students each semester]. Since we are a DAO, a centralized applications committee would be tricky, so each “student” will be responsible for selecting who they want to sell their NFT to, knowing that selling it at a discount to a high-quality student may greatly increase their future income.

Running the DAO (including maintaining the building) will fall to DAO members. Colony will be used for this. I won’t rehash here how a Colony would handle HVAC repair bounties and how decisions will become more efficient over time as certain people settle into their roles and gain reputation, but I will note that native tokens earned by a student in the course of helping maintain the DAO will offset room-and-board fees for their following semester at a 1 token = $1 rate. This way, if it is already your last semester, there’s no incentive for you to help, so the batons of responsibility can be passed to the next leaders while the previous leaders are still around for 6 months to answer questions.

As far as the students are concerned, the concept should sell itself. It’s a school completely run by its students. As far as the companies are concerned, if we can foster an environment for talent to thrive, we’ll start growing in renown. This renown (and a track record of safety) is what will bring parents onboard.

I have a 4 year old and I’d rather buy him a home than pay for a university degree that only half-serves him. I personally bought two expensive degrees and didn’t use either one of them. I was in debt for years. It’s time to get out of this trap, and doing it as a DAO seems more efficient, more fun, and more preparative. Let’s take back control of our education.

CollegeDAO

(Light Paper)

The university system in the United States is screwed. The costs are astronomical, and depending on your choice of career, your education may not prepare you for it at all, meaning employers are paying large amounts for on-the-job training. Every generation is saddled with more student debt than the last, and at some point this system will have to break. The internet gave us a novel option — the online degree. But the average ONLINE college degree still costs over $40,000 and also doesn’t offer that “on-campus experience,” which many will say, myself included, is just as important as the classroom education.

What if we turn the internet’s solution on its head? What if we could use Web3 tooling to offer the in-real-life college experience and let education be an emergent property of that environment?

I propose starting CollegeDAO for the purpose of buying and running a boarding house for students. These students can choose whatever education they want, whether that’s enrolling in community college courses, paying for an online degree, using Khan Academy or Crypto Zombies, or working directly on projects with recruiters, which I believe will flock to us in droves. This concept will initially probably appeal to Web3 students and recruiters, because never has there been an industry for which diplomas matter so little and community matters so much. But as the concept begins proving itself, the hope is to be a home for students with many kinds of career paths (so long as those paths don’t require use of expensive laboratories or close relationships with mentors).

We won’t hold a monopoly over our students’ lives and educational content like most universities do. “We” will be the students. We could charge a company like Polygon to come to campus and assemble a team of students to work on a project. The students receive an amazing experience/education, and Polygon gets some cheap help and to try out some potential candidates they may want to hire (and they won’t need to wait until graduation because neither we nor they care about diplomas.) Imagine a study hall where you have different teams each working together on a project. Some are working with established groups like Polygon or Aave, and others are working on unique projects and ideas, grown organically from their collaboration at CollegeDAO — what will essentially be a four-year hackathon for everyone involved.

To raise the initial funds to buy the building, we will sell x NFTs where x = the number of beds we will have. Owning an NFT and paying the semi-annual room-and-board fees (which start increasing after a student’s 5th year to encourage turnover) are the two requirements for becoming a resident. Since CollegeDAO will thrive or die along with the reputation of its students, there need to be long-term incentives to make sure serious students are attracted and retained. One such will be a future income for each student based on certain parameters. When Polygon paid in the previous paragraph for access to our students (companies currently spend $6,000 on college recruitment per new hire), a portion of that money will go to past students based on 3 criteria: 1) Time spent as a resident; 2) Their performance while at the school; and (3) THE PERFORMANCE OF THEIR SUCCESSOR [(2) and (3) being based on anonymous Coordinape-style voting among students each semester]. Since we are a DAO, a centralized applications committee would be tricky, so each “student” will be responsible for selecting who they want to sell their NFT to, knowing that selling it at a discount to a high-quality student may greatly increase their future income.

Running the DAO (including maintaining the building) will fall to DAO members. Colony will be used for this. I won’t rehash here how a Colony would handle HVAC repair bounties and how decisions will become more efficient over time as certain people settle into their roles and gain reputation, but I will note that native tokens earned by a student in the course of helping maintain the DAO will offset room-and-board fees for their following semester at a 1 token = $1 rate. This way, if it is already your last semester, there’s no incentive for you to help, so the batons of responsibility can be passed to the next leaders while the previous leaders are still around for 6 months to answer questions.

As far as the students are concerned, the concept should sell itself. It’s a school completely run by its students. As far as the companies are concerned, if we can foster an environment for talent to thrive, we’ll start growing in renown. This renown (and a track record of safety) is what will bring parents onboard.

I have a 4 year old and I’d rather buy him a home than pay for a university degree that only half-serves him. I personally bought two expensive degrees and didn’t use either one of them. I was in debt for years. It’s time to get out of this trap, and doing it as a DAO seems more efficient, more fun, and more preparative. Let’s take back control of our education.