Report: Higher education in Michigan hurting — from The Detroit News by Kim Kozlowski

Michigan’s declining investment in higher education is among the worst in the nation — making it difficult for students to get degrees and the state to recover from the poor economy, according to a report released Monday.

The first report of its kind by the Michigan League for Human Services found state aid and financial aid programs to Michigan’s 15 public universities declined by nearly 17 percent from 2002 to 2010. Meanwhile, undergraduate tuition for in-state residents during that same time period jumped 88 percent.

Funding for the state’s 28 community colleges, meanwhile, decreased 7 percent between 2002 and 2010 as tuition increased 40 percent — from an average of $54 to $76 a credit hour, the report showed.

The trends occurred as Michigan’s job market is moving away from manufacturing to a knowledge-based sector, and must be reversed, officials said.

Online-Only Western Governors University could be new model for education — from govtech.com by Jessica B. Mulholland [via Ray Schroeder]

The need for affordable and flexible education rings truer today than ever before. According to the College Board’s 2009 Trends in College Pricing report, the cost of higher education is rising: Tuition for in-state residents at public four-year institutions was about $7,020 for the 2009-2010 academic year, bringing the total cost for one academic year to more than $19,000 when books and living expenses are included. This means a four-year degree at a public university costs nearly $80,000, and according to the same report, a private four-year degree costs twice that — $160,000.

And governors will continue cutting higher education budgets, which will drive further increases in tuition costs, said John Thomasian, director of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. The lack of affordability combined with the complexity of student financial aid threatens higher education’s accessibility, said David Breneman, the Newton and Rita Meyers professor in economics of education at the University of Virginia. “To find out what the actual price of college is going to be is not trivial in this country,” he said. “The kids who are coached know how to run the financial aid system if they are eligible, while the kids from less sophisticated families — I think a number of us worry that they sort of get lost at the starting gate.”

The future of colleges and universities -- from the spring of 2010 by futurist Thomas Frey

From Spring 2010

From DSC:

If you are even remotely connected to higher education, then you *need* to read this one!


Most certainly, not everything that Thomas Frey says will take place…but I’ll bet you he’s right on a number of accounts. Whether he’s right or not, the potential scenarios he brings up ought to give us pause to reflect on ways to respond to these situations…on ways to spot and take advantage of the various opportunities that arise (which will only happen to those organizations who are alert and looking for them).


Education as we know it is finished — from forbes.com by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B. Horn (emphasis below from DSC)
Classrooms are giving way to online learning–forever.

School budgets are continuing to tighten, as the drop in state and local revenues has not abated and there likely will not be another $100 billion in federal stimulus funds coming any time soon. Even if the economy rebounds, the situation for public education will remain bleak. With baby boomers set to retire en masse, state and local governments, which provide the majority of school funds, will face mounting retiree health care and nonpension benefit obligations for which they haven’t made proper allowances. And local districts haven’t yet felt the full pain of the housing crisis in reducing revenue from property taxes. In other words, we have only seen the beginning of the red ink.

But others are seeing the hardship of the moment as an opportunity to transform what they do with the implementation of online learning. Pressured by not only widespread cuts but also increasing demands for accountability, these innovative leaders recognize that online learning is a key reform for doing more with less.

For example, the people who run many schools realize that they can save considerably by cutting back on traditional classroom versions of non-core courses–advanced placement, foreign language, economics and so forth–and instead offer them online, thereby aggregating demand across many school districts. Likewise they can cut back on the number of periods during which they offer certain classroom courses and still affordably meet student demand by offering those courses online.

The adoption of online learning is much more than just a cost-saving move for school districts. It has the potential to transform schooling more broadly by allowing students access to a wide range of high-quality offerings and teachers, regardless of where they live. Some students whose classroom courses have been replaced with online versions will be thrilled to find out that they now have access to not just one provider’s online courses but a whole marketplace of high-quality options, in a naturally technology-rich environment quite compatible for them.

Online learning also allows students to study unburdened by the usual constraints of time, proceeding at a pace that works best for them. The current system forces all students to learn the same material within the same time frame. That stalls the progress of advanced students while leaving others behind. This is one of the reasons online learning has been shown to produce better results overall than traditional face-to-face instruction.

From DSC:
Consistent readers of this blog and my former website will know that I’ve been saying we are in a game-changing environment for some time now — K-12 and higher education will never be going back to “business as usual.”


Virtual schooling: Disrupting the status quo -- from May 2010

Future of Education (video)

Future of Education (video) -- from the Higher Education Management Group

…and ends with, “Are you?”

About the Reinventing Higher Education Conference
A conference organized by IE University, Segovia (Spain), 4th May 2010.

The field of Higher Education is experiencing one of the most fascinating and challenging transformations since the foundation of the first universities eight centuries ago (emphasis here and below by DSC):

New actors are entering and are supplementing the traditional role of the State and other grand institutions in setting the agenda of education institutions.

New technologies are reshaping the way knowledge is generated and distributed, including the learning methodologies, the forms of delivery and even the role of professors.

A new profile of students is entering higher education. The web generation brings new skills and attitudes into class. At the same time, continuous education is becoming a fast-growing segment for many universities.

The internationalization of education stakeholders and cross-border mobility are key features of the new higher education environment.

Transnational accreditation and ranking systems may play key role in constructing and signaling the quality of the diverse institutions

The governance and funding of higher education centers will vary and universities and governments may seek alternative sources of income.

Universities may become catalysts of innovation and more accountable to society in a number of ways: how research is applied in development and innovation, the connections between university departments and companies as well as the relevance of education for graduates’ careers.

2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition

Executive Summary

  • Key Trends
  • Critical Challenges
  • Technologies to Watch
  • The Horizon Project

Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less

  • Cloud Computing
  • Collaborative Environments

Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years

  • Game-Based Learning
  • Mobiles

Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years

  • Augmented Reality
  • Flexible Displays

Why the ’system’ won’t change quickly — by Tony Bates and Trent Batson

Batson, T. (2010) Let faculty off the hook Campus Technology, March 17

“I liked this article very much. Trent Batson lays out a whole host of compelling reasons why it is so difficult to get faculty to change and use technology more and better. His main argument is that the whole ecology of higher educational institutions reinforces the status quo.”

From DSC:
Most institutions won’t change…not until the writing is on the wall. As a related example, Blockbuster now gets it and has been scrambling to make the necessary changes to stay in the game — they now offer movies-on-demand and will deliver movies directly to you. However, they were very late to the game and nearly lost their shirt because of it (they still might). They didn’t change until Apple and Netflix came along with some seriously-attractive alternatives to the “traditional way” of renting movies — and were either forced to change or to file for bankruptcy.

When someone gets it right within higher education (see below), such an organization will be copied over and over again (witness what happens every time to Apple and their innovations). Such a trend will issue in a new system that will leave the traditional institutions scrambling to catch up. The faculty members alone won’t be able to make the changes.

To me “getting it right” means:

  • We need TEAMS of specialists to create and deliver multimedia-based, rich, interactive content (much like those in healthcare-related fields did long ago — they specialized. The for-profit organizations out there already are doing this and are enjoying very healthy growth rates.)
  • Such content will be offered in 2-5 different ways (audio only, audio/video, simulations, games, text/graphics)
  • We need administrations that are visionary in their approaches and will get the faculty members and the rest of the specialists the support and resources that they need to make the necessary transitions
  • We need to turn the control over to students to pursue their passions
  • We need to let students’ passions drive their learning
  • We need to guide the students, while letting them create more of the content themselves — i.e. allowing for more active, participatory types of learning
  • Such offerings will be extremely affordable — due to the volume of learning that occurs and/or due to developing stronger consortiums and repositories of content (which spread out the costs)
  • We need CULTURES that are OPEN/WILLING to make changes.

That’s my 2 cents here.

Business Schools Beware: Gen Y is at the Door — from BusinessWeek.com by Matt Symonds
In a few years, Generation Y will storm the gates of MBA programs that are ill-equipped to teach them on their technology-focused terms (emphasis DSC). It’s time for B-schools to embrace the future.

From DSC:
This same concept extends way beyond just business schools. I believe that all colleges and universities need to be on a constant lookout for changes in students‘ expectations.
If I used Blackboard in my K-12 years, will I not come into my college days expecting to be able to use Blackboard — or something like it? This idea of expectations is one of the parts I attempted to address in the graphic I created a year ago.  It is a part of

Daniel S. Christian: My concerns with just maintaining the status quo


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