{"id":66446,"date":"2019-03-20T05:00:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T09:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=66446"},"modified":"2019-03-20T08:53:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T12:53:29","slug":"is-thomas-frey-right-by-2030-the-largest-company-on-the-internet-is-going-to-be-an-education-based-company-that-we-havent-heard-of-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2019\/03\/20\/is-thomas-frey-right-by-2030-the-largest-company-on-the-internet-is-going-to-be-an-education-based-company-that-we-havent-heard-of-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Thomas Frey right? “…by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a fairly recent e-newsletter from edsurge.com — though I don’t recall the exact date\u00a0(emphasis DSC):<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

New England is home to some of the most famous universities in the world. But the region has also become ground zero for the demographic shifts that promise to disrupt higher education.<\/p>\n

This week saw two developments that fit the narrative. On Monday, Southern Vermont College announced that it would shut its doors, becoming the latest small rural private college to do so. Later that same day, the University of Massachusetts said it would start a new online college aimed at a national audience, noting that it expects campus enrollments to erode as the number of traditional college-age students declines in the coming years.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake\u2014this is an existential threat to entire sectors of higher education,\u201d<\/strong> <\/span>said UMass president Marty Meehan in\u00a0announcing the online effort<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The approach seems to parallel the U.S. retail sector, where, as a\u00a0New York Times piece<\/a>\u00a0outlines this week, stores like Target and WalMart have thrived by building online strategies aimed at competing with Amazon, while stores like Gap and Payless, which did little to move online, are closing stores. Of course, college is not like any other product or service, and plenty of campuses are touting the richness of the experience that students get by actually coming to a campus. And it\u2019s not clear how many colleges can grow online to a scale that makes their investments pay off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s predicted that over the next several years, four to five major national players with strong regional footholds will be established. We intend to be one of them.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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From DSC:<\/span><\/em>
\nThat last quote from UMass President Marty Meehan made me reflect upon the idea of having one or more enormous entities that will provide “higher education” in the future. I wonder if things will turn out to be that we’ll have more lifelong learning providers and platforms in the future — with the idea of a 60-year curriculum being an interesting idea that may come into fruition. <\/span><\/p>\n

Long have I predicted that such an enormous entity would come to pass. Back in 2008, I named it the<\/span> Forthcoming Walmart of Education<\/a><\/em>. But then as the years went by, I got bumbed out on some things that Walmart was doing, and re-branded it the Forthcoming Amazon.com of Higher Education. <\/em>We’ll see how long that updated title lasts — but you get the point. In fact, the point aligns very nicely with what futurist Thomas Frey has been predicting for years as well:<\/span><\/p>\n

“I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Frey, the senior futurist at the\u00a0DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider. (source<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I realize that education doesn’t always scale well…but I’m thinking that how people learn in the future may be different than how we did things in the past…communities of practice comes to mind…as does new forms of credentialing…as does cloud-based learner profiles…as does the need for highly efficient, cost-effective, and constant opportunities\/means to reinvent oneself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also see:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n