Higher Ed's Moment?

Looking at higher education today, I find myself thinking again of Clayton Christensen’s 1997 ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’.  Yes it’s trite and dated but also - and to my point here - still relevant. Higher education is a highly regulated sector that is legally constrained, historically staid, and, true to Christensen’s definition, one that largely innovates on existing models rather than adopting disruptive practices not fully embraced (yet) by its traditional customers. 

Of course there are institutions that are innovating, are even innovative by design, but inertia in the sector is strong and reinforced by regulations. And while US higher education remains the envy of the world - many of the best new ideas and innovators originate here, the customers of our colleges and their expectations of them have changed faster than the institutions. The pace of change of the sector has not matched that of those it serves - communities, employers, learners. 

But the opportunity is right now to define this change. 

Many (something like 7K people) from the K12 and higher education sectors are in San Diego this week for the ASU-GSV summit. It is a terrific, if at times overwhelming, event that I’ve attended since way back when it was small and in Arizona. The summit has always put forward the promise of innovation in education. Transformative innovation even. It is an aspirational message and event, which is super important in a staid sector. But in terms of transformative innovations at scale, I, at least, am still waiting. 

Higher education is resilient (using the formal definition - able to spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed) - and that may no longer be a good thing. Existential threats of the past couple decades have done little to change the sector.  Technology has been used more to support existing processes than create new approaches (with notable exceptions, including those mentioned earlier). Neither MOOCs nor COVID dramatically altered the traditional model of postsecondary education. And the long-awaited ‘enrollment cliff’ is fast approaching, but many colleges seem to be doubling-down on recruitment strategies more than rethinking who their customers (working, older, not mobile, reflective of their community demographics) are or how they serve them.

Clearly there has been no shortage of pressure on higher education to change. But most colleges look largely as they have since I attended 35 years ago, if not since my parents attended 65 years ago. Aside from the Internet, the biggest change is probably the cost, which, it is well-reported, has increased far in excess of inflation and relative to income. Again, certainly some of this is because regulations from 1992 still guide much of what institutions can do and how they operate.

But this resilience or commitment to what could be seen as an outdated model, combined with high cost, have surely contributed to the public questioning the value of college. Everything else around us has changed, why not our colleges? And change is coming. Catalysts include AI, overlooked consumers who are increasingly needed in a world of declining enrollment (learners who are veterans, older, returning, rural, incarcerated), cost pressure (tight public budgets and consumer sticker shock), and yes - likely state and federal regulatory changes. This then is colleges’ opportunity (if also their ‘innovator’s dilemma’):  seize the moment and define the future of higher education. Better to be the driver than the passenger.

At a recent Future of Higher Ed gathering here in Seattle, Patrick Rossol-Allison talked about how ASU President Michael Crow has called ASU an anti-fragile institution. I love that. It doesn’t mean they lose their focus or purpose, if anything it forces them to be more explicit about their mission (to be an inclusive institution and serve everyone that meets their admission standards) and allows them to be opportunistic about the means to achieving their goal. 

Again, this is not to say that other institutions are not also doing tremendous work or innovation - surely they are. But it is also true that these efforts have not been enough – not visible enough, not resonant with key audiences, not scaled fast enough, etc – to either confront the external catalysts pushing for change or stem the growing distrust of the sector (the two are surely connected). I am only an observer and certainly don’t have the answers, but here I share a few ideas of how institutions could own this redefinition of their sector. 

Partner and Pair. Likely there is excess capacity in some areas and not enough in others (Romance Languages vs. Computer Science). Institutions in the same public system could partner and centralize those offerings with less consumer and/or workforce demand (creating a single, killer Romance Language department in a state). Or an institution - perhaps working with local employers - could design paired programs - think Spanish and PreMed, or French and Economics, offering students the opportunity to get the perceived ‘job-ready’ degree while also exploring other interests and acquiring additional critical skills. 

Lead with Data. Institutions have many constituents but likely the two most important (in terms of funding their bills) are consumers and state policymakers (the latter being most true for public institutions). Institutions should play to these audiences that both want to see ‘value’. For every degree program, they could surface the top skills that students should acquire in that program and the jobs demanding both that degree and those skills. And include the wages of those jobs. Institutions could localize it both to allow consumers to envision jobs in their communities and to show state policymakers how these degrees connect to the local workforce needs. 

And it shouldn’t be more complicated than it has to be. There are plenty of great EdTech companies offering this sort of skills-mapping (see AstrumU® ); NCES’ CIP-to-BLS’ SOC classifications crosswalk is invaluable for making these connections (see Lightcast 's work in this space); and AI has made it even DIY-possible. Perfect data cannot be the enemy of the available, accurate, and actionable data.

Be Transparent. Maybe this is covered above but it’s worth being explicit that one reason the public is skeptical about the value of higher education is that most things in higher education are opaque. That’s by choice. So institutions should choose differently - think of the car dealerships that are totally transparent with costs and don’t negotiate on price. Colleges need to be transparent not only on costs but on outcomes. People are clamoring to understand the worth of higher education credentials, and institutions should provide data both on how programs are structured and how each leads to economic opportunity. (This information is available from College Scorecard data and interpreted by various researchers - see Third Way, PSVC, and Georgetown's CEW). 

And I’d love to see this information at the ‘point of sale’ - when learners accept admission, register for class, declare a major. Show the true cost of attendance, the skills that program provides, the job pathways for that set of skills and degree, and the economic return of that degree. As for the regulatory constraints, they are real but there is little reason why institutions themselves can’t lead the effort to rewrite, scrap or re-envision those things that are holding them back.

Sometimes we need multiple forcing events to make a change. Perhaps that is where we are now - the pressures from technology, enrollment declines, regulatory frustrations, and public and policymaker distrust can be catalyzing triggers that positively disrupt the sector and force an accelerated pace of change. 

Now just may be the moment for institutions to be less resilient and more anti-fragile.