dangers of the status quo

From DSC:
Hmmm…many colleges and universities keep a close eye on their peers and often respond with similar strategies that their peers are pursuing. But who is an organization’s peer? The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s posting below — “How a College Decides Who Its Peers Are” — stated that “there is clearly no shared definition of what constitutes a peer institution.”

Plus, I found this item especially interesting:

Harvard University selected only three peer institutions: Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. But 22 institutions, including Bowdoin, named Harvard as a peer. Bowdoin, a small, liberal-arts college with about 1,800 undergraduate students and no graduate programs, chose 98 “peers,” including the entire Ivy League and many large universities, some of which enroll more than 10,000 students. Bowdoin itself was picked by 35 institutions as a peer. All of them were small, liberal-arts colleges or universities that primarily serve undergraduates.

I have often thought that colleges and universities should care far less about what their peers are doing. Rather, they should move forward with their own solid visions, bold actions, and well-thought-through strategies — as there can be a great deal of danger and risk in the status quo.

Too many alternatives have been appearing — and will likely continue to appear — on the lifelong learning landscapes. Most likely, these new organizations will offer in-demand credentials/skills as well as the capabilities of helping people constantly reinvent themselves — with far less expensive price tags associated with these types of offerings.

How a College Decides Who Its Peers Are — from chronicle.com by Susan Poser
Questions of institutional identity are at the core of the process.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The mismatch between whom an institution chose as peers, and the colleges that reciprocated, pervades the data set. It raises the question of how institutions designate peers, which is a mystery. In some cases it is likely to be decided by someone in the Office of Institutional Research or the provost’s office in response to the Ipeds survey, while in others perhaps some process leads to a consensus among administrators. Regardless, there is clearly no shared definition of what constitutes a peer institution.

Also relevant/see:

Who Does Your College Think Its Peers Are? — from chronicle.com by Jacquelyn Elias
‘An Art and a Science’: Colleges’ Tricky Task of Selecting Peers — from chronicle.com by Audrey Williams June

Reflections on “The University in Ruins” [Neem]

On 04/06/2022, in 21st century, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), business side of he, career development, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, history, innovation, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, pace of change, reinvent, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, surviving, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The University in Ruins — from chronicle.com by Johann N. Neem
The “innovations” that promise to save higher ed are a farce.

From DSC:
First of all, I appreciated Johann Neem mentioning and/or discussing several books in one posting:

Ronald G. Musto’s The Attack on Higher Education (2021)
Arthur Levine’s and Scott J. Van Pelt’s The Great Upheaval (2021)
Bill Readings’ The University in Ruins (1996)
Ronald J. Daniels’ What Universities Owe Democracy (2021)

And as a disclosure here, I have not read those books.

Below are excerpts with some of my comments:

It’s already happening. Today, we walk among the ruins of an institution that once had a larger purpose. It’s not clear what role universities should play in society, and to what or to whom they are accountable, other than their corporate interests.

To some, that’s not a problem, at least according to Arthur Levine and Scott J. Van Pelt in The Great Upheaval (2021). They see higher education undergoing the same transformation that reshaped the music, film, and newspaper industries. Rather than place-based education overseen by tenured professors, they anticipate “the rise of anytime, anyplace, consumer-driven content and source agnostic, unbundled, personalized education paid for by subscription.”

Between Musto’s existential fears of disruption and Levine and Van Pelt’s embrace of it lies a third path. It takes the form of a wager — outlined by Ronald J. Daniels in What Universities Owe Democracy (2021) — that universities can and should continue to matter because of their importance in civic democratic life.

The article covers how the learning ecosystems within higher education have morphed from their religious roots to being an apparatus of the nation-state to then becoming a relatively independent bureaucratic system to other things and to where we are today.

Along the journey discussing these things, one of the things that caught my eye was this statement:

Hopkins, in this sense, lived up to its founding president Daniel Coit Gilman’s 19th-century aspiration that universities be places that acquire, conserve, refine, and distribute knowledge.

From DSC:
While I completely agree with that aspiration, I think more institutions of higher education could follow what John Hopkins University did with their efforts concerning the Covid-19 situation, as Neem mentioned. Generally speaking, institutions of higher education are not distributing knowledge to the levels that Gilman envisioned years ago.

In fact, these days those working within K12 are doing a whole lot better at sharing information with society than those who work within higher education are. For example, when I search Twitter for K12 educators who share content on Twitter, they are out there all over the place — and many with tens of thousands of followers. They share information with parents, families, fellow educators, students, school boards, and others. Yet this is not the case for those working in higher education. Faculty members normally:

aren’t out on Twitter
don’t blog
don’t have a podcast
don’t write for society at large. Instead, their expertise is often locked up — existing behind paywalls in academic journals. In other words, they talk to each other.

Later on…

As Daniels intuits, without a larger purpose to hold them fast, there is nothing to prevent universities from being buffeted by winds until they have lost direction. That is what Readings foresaw: Globalization liberates universities from national fetters, but at the risk of ruin.

From DSC:
While globalization may have something to do with universities becoming unanchored from their original purposes, globalization isn’t at the top of my mind when I reflect upon what’s been happening with colleges and universities these last few decades.

To see but one area of massive change, let’s take a brief look at college sports. There are now multimillion-dollar stadium projects, enormous coaches’ salaries, and numerous situations where tax-paying citizens can’t even watch sporting events without tons of advertisements being thrown into their faces every few seconds. Personally speaking, on numerous occasions, I couldn’t even access the games at all — as I wasn’t paying for the subscriptions to the appropriate providers.

Also, as another example of becoming anchored — and going back to the 1980’s — I attended Northwestern University for my undergraduate degree in Economics. While I have several wonderful lifelong friends from that experience for whom I’m deeply grateful, even back then NU had already moved far away from its motto which is based on Philippians 4:8.

Instead, please allow me to tell you what that learning community taught me and strongly encouraged me to think about:

You are only successful if you have the corner office, drive the higher numbered BMW’s, and have many people reporting to you.
If you make a lot of money.
You are supposed to compete against others vs. being in relationships with others. As but one example here, our test scores were published — by our Social Security numbers — outside our professors’ offices for all to see how we measured up to our classmates.

In fact, I’m not even sure that I would use the word “community” at all when I reflect upon my years at Northwestern. Instead, a WIIFM approach was encouraged (i.e., What’s In It For Me? where you are supposed to look out for #1). It took me years to unlearn some of those “lessons” and “learnings.”

But I realize that that’s not the case with all learning communities.

As Neem alluded to, I love the idea that an institution of higher education can — and often does — impact students’ hearts as well as minds. That was the focus at Calvin College (now Calvin University). Our oldest daughter went there and she was profoundly and positively influenced by her experiences there. In that context, students were encouraged to be in relationships with one another. There was plenty of hugging, praying for one another, etc. going on in that setting. There truly was community there.

***

Neem doesn’t think much of Levine’s and Van Pelt’s perspectives. He claims there’s nothing new in their book. He seems to discard the arguments being made about the cost of higher ed and, like many others, clings to the intellectual roots/purpose of higher ed.

While I’m not against intellect or pursuing knowledge — in fact, I’m all for it — I just have a problem when the price of doing so continues to become out of reach for soooooo many people.

Personally, I’ve tried to lower the cost of obtaining a degree within higher education for many years…but I was/we were only successful in doing so for a few years (and that was during a pilot of online-based learning). Yohan Na and I created the graphic below in 2008 for example — as I was trying to raise awareness of the dangers of the status quo:
.

.

So from a cost/access perspective, Levine’s and Van Pelt’s perspectives here sound pretty good to me. It appears to be much more affordable and realistic for the masses. Otherwise, the image/reality of the ivory tower is maintained…allowing “intellectuals” to continue to live and operate within their own sphere/hive/tribe.

Also, we need an AI-backed system of presenting which skills are needed and then how to get them. The ways things are set up today, institutions of traditional higher education have not been able to deal with the current pace of change out there.

As a final comment here…
The changing directions/purposes of institutions of higher education present a good example of why I entitled this blog Learning Ecosystems — as the systems that we use to learn and grow in are constantly morphing:

People come and go
Tools and vendors come and go
Purposes, focuses, and/or mission statements change
Our sources of information (i.e., our streams of content) come and go
Etc.

Will Your College Survive the Demographic Cliff? [Boeckenstedt]

On 03/26/2022, in adjunct faculty, business side of he, colleges, community colleges, dangers of the status quo, faculty/staff, higher education, reinvent, staying relevant, surviving, trends, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Will Your College Survive the Demographic Cliff? — from chronicle.com by Jon Boeckenstedt
National trends are interesting — but enrolling students is a local challenge.

Excerpts:

We are at a critical moment: Declining enrollment even in one sector (say, community colleges) is troublesome because of downstream effects. Declining revenue and wavering state support, coupled with fewer high-school graduates, fewer families that don’t need financial help, and an increasingly negative attitude from the public toward higher education, may take us to a long-rumored tipping point.

If it’s true that all politics is local, then in some sense so is (almost) all college enrollment.

Rethinking the Faculty Role in Students’ Career Readiness — from insidehighered.com by Rachel Toor; with thanks to Ryan Craig for this solid, well-written resource
It’s time for all of us on campuses, not just the people in career services, to step up and help offer the competencies employers say they’re looking for, Rachel Toor writes.

Excerpts:

Career centers on campuses can offer students coaching, resources and connections. But, as Angle points out, they tend to be a just-in-time service. They are also, he says, “scary places for a lot of students.” Many young people don’t want to face the reality of life after graduation. Often, it’s a case of too little, too late.

Instead, they come to people they know—professors like me—for help with cover letters and résumés. And while I can comment on language, until recently I had no idea about how most résumés are read first by a version of R2-D2 and his little robot friends who make up automated tracking systems. If an applicant doesn’t include the right keywords in a résumé or cover letter, into the trash bin they go.

The truth is, I have not applied for a job in 15 years; for many of my colleagues it’s been even longer, and some of them have never worked outside academe. It’s not surprising that employers are seeing recent college grads—smart students, hard workers—who don’t know how to present themselves as potential employees.

From DSC:
I can relate to that part about R2-D2 reading the resumes first (i.e., trying to get by the Applicant Tracking Systems before one’s resume ever makes it in front of the eyes of a fellow human being). Many faculty/staff members and members of administrations haven’t been out interviewing in a long while. So it can be a rude awakening when they/we need to do that.

Also, I wanted to say that it’s not fair to assess the learners coming out of higher education using a different set of learning objectives:

That is, faculty members within higher ed have one set of learning objectives and their students work hard to learn and meet those learning objectives. Unfortunately, those students did what was asked of them, and then they…
…come to find out that the corporate/business/legal/etc. worlds have different ideas about what they should know and be able to do. That is, these other organizations and communities of practice are assessing them on different sets of learning objectives that these same students didn’t cover. Some (many?) of these graduates leave their interviews discouraged and think, “Well, it must be me.” Or they can leave frustrated and angry at their former institutions who didn’t prepare them for this new assessment.

As I’ve said on this blog before, this disconnect is not fair to the students/graduates. We need more mechanisms by which faculty and staff members within higher ed can work more collaboratively with those within the corporate world to better align the learning objectives and the curriculum being covered. If this doesn’t occur more frequently, the constant appearance and growth of new alternatives will likely continue to build further momentum (as they should, given the incredibly steep price of obtaining a degree these days!).

P.S. This disconnect of learning objectives can also be found in what happens with legal education — including having to pass today’s Bar Exams — and then these graduates get out into the real world to find employers who are frustrated that these graduates don’t have the “right”/necessary skills.

“The incentive structure is for law schools to teach students how to pass the bar exam, not necessarily to do the things that employers expect,” Gallini said.

A quote from this article, which I also
want to thank Ryan Craig for.

S&P raises view of higher ed sector for 2022, but colleges’ fortunes are diverging [Seltzer]

On 01/30/2022, in business side of he, colleges, dangers of the status quo, higher education, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, online learning, reinvent, skills, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

S&P raises view of higher ed sector for 2022, but colleges’ fortunes are diverging — from highereddive.com by Rick Seltzer

Excerpts:

S&P Global Ratings revised its view of the U.S. not-for-profit higher education sector to stable, ending four years of negative outlooks even as it said it is monitoring divergence in fortunes between strong and weak institutions in the market.

Some stressed institutions will be able to leverage high-value real estate, branding or strong programs into a merger or affiliation, according to the ratings agency. But with colleges competing for often-shrinking pools of students, S&P expects more closures — especially of small, regional, private liberal arts colleges.

Also see:

Breaking Down Online Postsecondary Enrollment Growth in the United States — from holoniq.com
Welcome to the multi-speed online enrollment economy. The highs and the lows of the top 20+ institutions.

Digital capability is arguably the number one priority for US universities and colleges. Postsecondary enrollments in the United States are in decline, institutions are bracing for a much bigger 2025 enrollment crash (due to a falling birthrate from the last recession) and a tight labor market is encouraging employers to drop requirements such as degrees and instead embrace faster, cheaper and higher ROI online up-skilling programs.

Surprised? Me neither. And that’s part of the problem. [Christian]

On 01/17/2022, in business side of he, career development, colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, higher education, parents/guardians, participation, society, sociology, student-related, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For those who work within higher education, my guess is that this phenomenon/message comes as no surprise. But for those outside of higher ed, can you blame young people — and their families — for giving up on a path because it appears too expensive?

Perceptions of Affordability — from insidehighered.com by Elizabeth Redden
High school juniors who believe they can’t afford higher education are about 20 percentage points less likely to attend college within the first three years after high school than peers who don’t think affordability is a barrier.

14 Predictions for Higher Education in 2022 [Schaffhauser]

On 01/10/2022, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Alternatives, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), blended learning, Blockchain, business side of he, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, copyright/ownership/NFTs, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, law schools, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning spaces, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, surviving, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, workplace, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

14 Predictions for Higher Education in 2022 — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

Ask people working in higher education what they expect will happen in the new year, and the outlook is filled with visions that build on what we’ve been experiencing on college and university campuses for the last two years: a major focus on learning formats; continued exploitation of new technology; and the use of new digital models that move users “beyond Zoom.” Here we present the collective predictions of 14 IT leaders, instructional folks and a student about what they anticipate seeing in 2022. As one put it, “Let’s go, 2022! We have work to do!”

From DSC:
I’d like to thank Dian Schaffhauser, Rhea Kelly, and Mary Grush for letting me contribute some thoughts to the various conversations that Campus Technology Magazine hosts and/or initiates. I inserted some reflections into the above article and I hope that you’ll take a moment to read my and others’ thoughts out there.

From DSC:
As I looked at the article below, I couldn’t help but wonder…what is the role of the American Bar Association (ABA) in this type situation? How can the ABA help the United States deal with the impact/place of emerging technologies?

Clearview AI will get a US patent for its facial recognition tech — from engadget.com by J. Fingas
Critics are worried the company is patenting invasive tech.

Excerpt:

Clearview AI is about to get formal acknowledgment for its controversial facial recognition technology. Politico reports Clearview has received a US Patent and Trademark Office “notice of allowance” indicating officials will approve a filing for its system, which scans faces across public internet data to find people from government lists and security camera footage. The company just has to pay administrative fees to secure the patent.

In a Politico interview, Clearview founder Hoan Ton-That claimed this was the first facial recognition patent involving “large-scale internet data.” The firm sells its tool to government clients (including law enforcement) hoping to accelerate searches.

As you might imagine, there’s a concern the USPTO is effectively blessing Clearview’s technology and giving the company a chance to grow despite widespread objections to its technology’s very existence.

Privacy, news, facial recognition, USPTO, internet, patent,
Clearview AI, surveillance, tomorrow, AI, artificial intelligence

Reflections on “EDUCAUSE’s 2022 Top 10 IT Issues” [Christian]

On 12/08/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, culture, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, IT in HE, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, lifelong learning, new business models, pace of change, platforms, skills, strategy, student-related, technology (general), traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

EDUCAUSE 2022 Top 10 IT Issues — from educause.edu

EDUCAUSE's 2022 Top 10 IT Issues

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The EDUCAUSE 2022 Top 10 IT Issues take an optimistic view of how technology can help create the higher education we deserve —through a shared transformational vision and strategy for the institution, a recognition of the need to place student success at the center, and a sustainable business model that redefines “the campus.”

See the 2022 Top 10 IT Issues

Almost two years into a global pandemic, it’s clear the higher education we knew will never return and now we can focus on getting the higher education we deserve.

From DSC:
I’m assuming that the we in the we deserve (as highlighted above) includes the students, as *the students* are the ones who most need for things to change.

That said, I’m doubtful such profound change will occur within higher education as it stands today. The existing cultures may prevent such significant and necessary change from occurring — and higher ed isn’t used to dealing with the current exponential pace of change that we’re experiencing. Plus, the downward spirals that many institutions are in don’t always allow for the new investments, programs, and/or experiments to occur. But who knows? When institutions of traditional higher education have their backs pressed up against the walls, perhaps such institutions and the people within them will be forced to change. There are innovative individuals and institutions out there. (I’m just not sure how much they’ve been listened to in many cases.)

To help students truly succeed means to change one’s core products/services — one’s story. But higher ed loves to play around the edges…rarely letting the core products/services get touched.

To me, student success includes having students pay far less and, while still getting a solid liberal arts education/foundation, can get solid jobs immediately upon graduation. At least that’s my hope as we head into 2022.

But what student success looks like may be different in the future.

Perhaps in 5 years, we will have moved much more towards a lifelong learning situation. Individuals may have joined a global, next-generation learning platform whereby one teaches for X minutes of the day, and learns for Y minutes of that same day. AI-based dashboards let people know which skills are in high demand, and then offer a menu of choices for how to acquire those skills.

A couple of lasts comments:

Being data-driven won’t save an institution. Vision might. But being data-driven has its limits.
The digital transformations being talked about within institutions of traditional higher education may be too little, too late. This conversation should have taken place a decade or more ago. (I think I just heard an “Amen!” from some folks who used to work at Blockbuster. They didn’t think a transformation was necessary either….but they learned their lesson the hard way. We should have learned from their situation…a long time ago. And I’m sure that you can think of other examples as well.)

From DSC:
From my perspective, both of the items below are highly-related to each other:

Let’s Teach Computer Science Majors to Be Good Citizens. The Whole World Depends on It. — from edsurge.com by Anne-Marie Núñez, Matthew J. Mayhew, Musbah Shaheen and Laura S. Dahl

Excerpt:

Change may need to start earlier in the workforce development pipeline. Undergraduate education offers a key opportunity for recruiting students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic, gender, and disability groups into computing. Yet even broadened participation in college computer science courses may not shift the tech workforce and block bias from seeping into tech tools if students aren’t taught that diversity and ethics are essential to their field of study and future careers.

Computer Science Majors Lack Citizenship Preparation
Unfortunately, those lessons seem to be missing from many computer science programs.

…and an excerpt from Why AI can’t really filter out “hate news” — with thanks to Sam DeBrule for this resource (emphasis DSC):

The incomprehensibility and unexplainability of huge algorithms
Michael Egnor: What terrifies me about artificial intelligence — and I don’t think one can overstate this danger — is that artificial intelligence has two properties that make it particularly deadly in human civilization. One is concealment. Even though every single purpose in artificial intelligence is human, it’s concealed. We don’t really understand it. We don’t understand Google’s algorithms.

There may even be a situation where Google doesn’t understand Google’s algorithms. But all of it comes from the people who run Google. So the concealment is very dangerous. We don’t know what these programs are doing to our culture. And it may be that no one knows, but they are doing things.

Note:Roman Yampolskiy has written about the incomprehensibility and unexplainability of AI: “Human beings are finite in our abilities. For example, our short term memory is about 7 units on average. In contrast, an AI can remember billions of items and AI capacity to do so is growing exponentially. While never infinite in a true mathematical sense, machine capabilities can be considered such in comparison with ours. This is true for memory, compute speed, and communication abilities.” So we have built-in bias and incomprehensibility at the same time.

From DSC:
That part about concealment reminds me that our society depends upon the state of the hearts of the tech leaders. We don’t like to admit that, but it’s true. The legal realm is too far behind to stop the Wild West of technological change. The legal realm is trying to catch up, but they’re coming onto the race track with no cars…just as pedestrians walking or running as fast as they can….all the while, the technological cars are whizzing by.

The net effect of all of this is that we are more dependent upon the ethics, morals, and care for their fellow humankind (or not) of the C-Suites out there (especially Facebook/Meta Platforms, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple) than we care to admit. Are they producing products and services that aim to help our societies move forward, or are they just trying to make some more bucks? Who — or what — is being served?

The software engineers and software architects are involved here big time as well. “Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.” But that perspective is sometimes in short supply.

“Why Aren’t Professors Taught to Teach?” [Ofgang] — and what are the growing ramifications of that? [Christian]

On 11/12/2021, in 21st century, accreditation, Alternatives, business side of he, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education reform, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, marketplaces, new business models, platforms, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, using teams, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Why Aren’t Professors Taught to Teach? — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Professors are experts in their subject matters but many have limited training in actually teaching their students.

Excerpt:

“A lot of faculty are just modeling their instruction after the instruction they’ve received as an undergraduate or graduate student,” says Tanya Joosten, senior scientist and director of digital learning at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the lead of the National Research Center for Distance Education and Technological Advancements.

As a perpetually short-on-time adjunct professor, I understand those who worry about mandatory training and required course reviews, but Pelletier stresses that she’s advocating for a more organic shift and that a top-down approach isn’t best. “That’s not as collaborative and generative as really just embracing that we have these two different kinds of experts, one type of expert is an expert in their subject, and the other expert is an expert in teaching and learning,” she says. More attention is needed to meld these two kinds of expertise.

From DSC:
It’s not just that colleges and universities are big business — if you have any remaining doubts about that perspective, take a moment to look at this new, interactive database to see what I mean. But it’s also that this type of business often rewards research, not teaching. And yet the students over the last several decades have continued to pay ever-increasing prices for skilled researchers, instead of increasingly skilled teachers.

Image from Inside Higher Ed

Would people put up with this with other types of purchases? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want to…would you? Would we like to pay for something that we aren’t getting — like paying for all the extra options on a new car, but not getting them?

What goes around, comes around.
But by allowing this to have occurred, a backlash against the value of higher education has been building for years now. In many learners’ minds, they are questioning whether it’s worth taking on (potentially) decades’ worth of debt. At a minimum, the higher the price of obtaining degrees and/or other credentials becomes, the less Return on Investment (ROI) is realized by the learners (i.e., the purchasers of these goods and services). So while getting a degree is often still worth it, the ROI is going down. And this doesn’t address how relevant/up-to-date the educations are that these learners are receiving, which the employers out there will take issue with.

From an Instructional Designer’s perspective, it isn’t just time that’s the issue here. There continues to exist a tiered hierarchy within higher education. Faculty see themselves as more knowledgeable because they are teaching and because they are the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). But they are not expert teachers. Many full-time faculty members don’t listen to people who are knowledgeable in the learning science world, and they often don’t value that expertise. (This can be true of administrators as well.) But when a fellow faculty member (i.e., their “true peer” from their perspective) suggests the same idea that Instructional Designers have been recommending for years, they suddenly open their eyes and ears to see and hear this seemingly new, wonderful approach.

Some possible scenarios
Thus, a wave has been building against traditional institutions of higher education — readers of this blog will have picked up on this years ago. Once alternatives significantly hit the radar — ones that get the learners solid, good-paying jobs — there could be a mass exodus out of what we think of as traditional higher education. At least that’s one potential scenario.

For example, if a next-generation learning platform comes along that offers teams and individuals the ability to deliver lifelong learning at 50% or more off the price of an average degree, then be on the lookout for massive change. If professors and/or teams of specialists — those who are skilled in instructional design and teaching — can go directly to their learners — it could be an interesting world indeed. (Outschool is like this, by the way.) In that scenario, below are two potential methods of providing what accreditation agencies used to provide:

Obtaining the skills and competencies being requested from the workplace to “pass the tests” (whatever those assessments turn out to be)
Voting a course up or down (i.e., providing crowd-sourced rating systems)

Other possible scenarios
Another scenario is that traditional institutions of higher education really kick their innovation efforts into high gear. They reward teaching. They develop less expensive methods of obtaining degrees. They truly begin delivering more cost-effective means of obtaining lifelong learning and development “channels” for educating people.

And there are other possible scenarios, some of which I could think of and many I would likely miss. But to even ask the solid and highly-relevant question as plainly stated in the article above — Why Aren’t Professors Taught to Teach? — that is something that must be dealt with. Those organizations that use a team-based approach are likely to be able to better answer and address that question.

College costs have increased by 169% since 1980—but pay for young workers is up by just 19%: Georgetown report — from cnbc.com by Abigail Johnson Hess

Excerpt:

The report, titled “If Not Now, When? The Urgent Need for an All-One-System Approach to Youth Policy,” breaks down seven trends that have made it difficult for workers to transition from education to the workforce since 1980.

“Postsecondary education policy has failed to keep higher education affordable even as formal education beyond high school has become more essential,” reads the report. “Today, two out of three jobs require postsecondary education and training, while three out of four jobs in the 1970s required a high school diploma or less. Yet while young people today need more education than ever to compete in the labor market, a college education is more expensive than in the past.”

Also see:

Infographic: What Really Happens to Our Students? — from eab.com by Ed Venit; with thanks to Bryan Alexander for this resource out on LinkedIn
Constructing an Estimate of Outcomes for 100 Students Who Start a Bachelor Degree

2022 Top 10 IT Issues — from Educause

On 11/01/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, business side of he, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, creativity, culture, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, IT in HE, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, new business models, online learning, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, technology (general), traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

2022 Top 10 IT Issues

From DSC:
Time will tell which institutions have the prerequisite culture of innovation that will help reinvent themselves, stay relevant, and survive.

And for people (who have worked in higher education for years) who don’t like to see learners as customers…well…when those learners are often paying $100,000-$250,000 or more for a four-year degree, those folks don’t have much say or credibility any longer. The price increases that they never stepped in to stop from occurring have forever changed the learning ecosystems within higher education. The idea of supporting the perspective that says:

Well, we’re proud (and content) that our institution will have the lowest price increase in X (where X is a city, state, or geographic region)
or
We’re proud that our institution will have the lowest price increase within our group of similar/comparative institutions.

…well, that type of perspective hasn’t cut it for years now. But the danger of that status quo perspective is only becoming apparent to many now that one’s very survival is at stake.

Addendum/also see:

Embracing Innovation, Technology and Culture Change for the Sake of Access — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly & Co.

Americans Need a Bill of Rights for an AI-Powered World — from wired.com by Eric Lander & Alondra Nelson
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is developing principles to guard against powerful technologies—with input from the public.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Soon after ratifying our Constitution, Americans adopted a Bill of Rights to guard against the powerful government we had just created—enumerating guarantees such as freedom of expression and assembly, rights to due process and fair trials, and protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Throughout our history we have had to reinterpret, reaffirm, and periodically expand these rights. In the 21st century, we need a “bill of rights” to guard against the powerful technologies we have created.

Our country should clarify the rights and freedoms we expect data-driven technologies to respect. What exactly those are will require discussion, but here are some possibilities: your right to know when and how AI is influencing a decision that affects your civil rights and civil liberties; your freedom from being subjected to AI that hasn’t been carefully audited to ensure that it’s accurate, unbiased, and has been trained on sufficiently representative data sets; your freedom from pervasive or discriminatory surveillance and monitoring in your home, community, and workplace; and your right to meaningful recourse if the use of an algorithm harms you.

In the coming months, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (which we lead) will be developing such a bill of rights, working with partners and experts across the federal government, in academia, civil society, the private sector, and communities all over the country.

Technology can only work for everyone if everyone is included, so we want to hear from and engage with everyone. You can email us directly at ai-equity@ostp.eop.gov.

Why inexperienced workers can’t get entry-level jobs — from bbc.com by Kate Morgan; with thanks to Ryan Craig for this resource

Excerpt:

As anyone who’s graduated from university or applied for their first job in recent years can attest to, something new – and alarming – has happened to entry-level jobs: they’ve disappeared.

A recent analysis of close to 4 million jobs posted on LinkedIn since late 2017 showed that 35% of postings for “entry-level” positions asked for years of prior relevant work experience. That requirement was even more common in certain industries. More than 60% of listings for entry-level software and IT Services jobs, for instance, required three or more years of experience. In short, it seems entry-level jobs aren’t for people just entering the workforce at all.

“Internships are now the entry level,” he says. “Most of the students in college are doing or trying to do internships, and now it’s increasingly common to do more than one.”

From DSC:
I love the idea of internships. (In my days in college, internships were reserved mainly for engineers; few of us had them back then.)

But with an eye on the cost of obtaining a degree, internships should be PAID internships. That is, interns should receive decent/proper compensation. I’m concerned that businesses will take advantage of free labor here (though that’s less likely given the tight labor market I suppose). But businesses have taken advantage of free labor in the past. “It takes a village…”

Also see:

Virtual work is here to stay. Here’s how colleges can help students land remote internships. — from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz
The pandemic disrupted the world of work — and internships. But colleges and employers responded by trying new strategies online.

Learning Ecosystems

Hmmm…many colleges & universities keep a close eye on their peers…but who is a peer? [Christian]

Will Your College Survive the Demographic Cliff? [Boeckenstedt]

Reflections on “Rethinking the Faculty Role in Students’ Career Readiness” [Toor]

S&P raises view of higher ed sector for 2022, but colleges’ fortunes are diverging [Seltzer]

College costs have increased by 169% since 1980—but pay for young workers is up by just 19%: Georgetown report [Johnson Hess]

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