1. Administrators are optimizing for profit, not learning.

Tenured faculty are being slowly replaced by overworked adjuncts. Class sizes have ballooned. Students are paying more than ever for less individual attention. The people making these decisions are not educators—they're managers focused on cost reduction.

2. Failure is too expensive to risk.

At nearly $1,000 per classNational Center for Education Statistics, "Average Published Tuition and Fees at Public Four-Year Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions, by State: 2022-23 and 2023-24," IPEDS Data Feedback Report 2024, students cannot afford to struggle or retake classes. This creates a pass-or-perish mentality that is driving academic misconduct and grade management over sustainable learning.

3. Students learn best when studying what interests them.

But institutional requirements—distribution requirements, prerequisite chains, standardized curricula—push students away from following their curiosity and drive them toward treating learning opportunities as arbitrary hoops to jump through.

We Hold These Truths

The foundation for better educational models already exists.

1. Information is free.

High-quality literature, pre-recorded instruction, and open research are available online for free or at minimal cost. Students should not be paying hundreds for textbooks that repackage freely available knowledge.

2. Experts want to share their passions.

Academics and professionals regularly give free talks, write blogs, and respond to inquiries because they love their field. They should be paid for their expertise and enthusiasm—not buried teaching classes the bureaucracy has decided are important.

3. Expertise is demonstrated, not credentialed.

Rampant academic dishonesty—from students and institutions alike—has made degrees less valued than ever. Meanwhile, coding bootcamp graduates achieve 79% employment rates with 51% salary increasesCourse Report, "2020 Coding Bootcamp Outcomes & Demographics Study," surveying 3,043 bootcamp graduates. Major companies like IBM, Google, and Apple have dropped degree requirements entirelyHarvard Business Review, "Employers Are Eliminating College Degree Requirements," December 2021; IBM's "New Collar Jobs" initiative; Apple CEO Tim Cook's 2018 statement that "about half of Apple's US workforce doesn't have a four-year degree". The market is moving toward demonstrated skills over institutional credentials.

4. AI builds frameworks, humans provide wisdom.

AI excels at organizing information and creating learning structures, but it's a terrible teacher. Real learning happens through dialogue, challenge, and the irreplaceable human ability to recognize when you're missing the point. You need both: AI to map the territory, experts to guide the journey.

What We're Building

Owsla connects these principles:

• AI organizes free information into personalized curricula based on your actual interests and current understanding
• Direct access to passionate experts who want to share what they know, compensated fairly for their time and knowledge
• Learning driven by curiosity with no arbitrary prerequisites, pacing, or compliance measures
• Expertise through demonstration by explaining concepts, tackling problems, and showing your work

The Solution: Education without institution. Knowledge without gatekeeping. Expertise without bureaucracy.

Are you ready to learn something?