Dear Alex, the answer to your question about whether college is obsolete or not is, “Yes… it’ll just be a little time before the reality sinks in.”
Alex, there’s a guy by the name of Clayton Christensen out there who is a really sharp guy. Harvard prof sharp. And in the book The Innovator’s Solution, Professor Christensen proposes the following litmus test to determine if an idea represents disruptive change… which I’ve applied to the educational experience in italics:
- Is there a large population of people who historically have not had the money, equipment, or skill to do this thing for themselves, and as a result have gone without it altogether or have needed to pay someone with more expertise to do it for them?
Yes. The ability to afford college is a luxury to many.
- To use the product or service, do customers need to go to an inconvenient, centralized location?
Yes… though to be fair, some f those inconvenient locations are spectacularly beautiful. - Are there customers at the low end of the market who would be happy to purchase a product with less (but good enough) performance if they could get it at a lower price?
You mean I can take a course on some topic that’s pertinent to my job, focus exclusively on that, maybe even get credentialed in that area, and have it be orders of magnitude cheaper than college? Hella yeah, sign me up! - Can we create a business model that enables us to earn attractive profits at the discount prices required to win the business of these overserved customers at the low end?
Sure can… see http://www.foundyourcareer.com.
Hey, college: you’ve been put on notice. My kids will probably not experience you the way I did. My guess is, by the time they get there, a college education could have some of the following characteristics:
- College will be less about the four years that follow high school than about a lifelong commitment to a learning community.
- College degrees may be staged. One of the first areas of focus for many out of school will be basic professional skills, which in many cases will be taught in blended study/work environments. Northeastern and Drexel already use this model, where internships are part of the program. Some professional grad schools use this model, too. This will get students into the working world and earning an income quicker.
- Math and science will also get early billing in the curriculum. Not knowing how to divide isn’t cute, it’s dangerous. Our economy today requires incredible specialization, which in turn requires more detailed, and higher level thinking. That means math. From my experience, people are a lot better at math than they give themselves credit for. Their issues aren’t about manipulating numbers, they’re about the teachers they had. We’ll get over it.
- The liberal arts education will become a lifelong endeavor. People will take ongoing courses in English, the arts, history, and the humanities. Knowing something of the world around you will be a status symbol… and for businesses, these ongoing courses will provide tremendous networking opportunities.
This is just a taste of the vision I have for post-secondary education in the future… maybe I’m wrong. Who knows. But this is the picture I have in the back of my head as I help people plan to make the most of their “profersonal” lives…
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I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
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Jason, not that you care, but my friend @jessepalmer and I were talking about trendy words.
- Totes is over.
- Boss is back.
- Jacked is back.
Jesse said Hella is coming back. I was skeptical — but you used it, so Jesse is totally right.
@laurie I used a word your friend jesse said was back?! That’s dope. Totally. It’s crazy sick how boss that is.
Jason – thanks for the thought provoking post. I totally agree that college as we now know it needs to adapt to a much different world as does our existing K-12 schooling. Something I would add to the mix would be the US adopting the European model where young people are expected to travel a year after high school to see the world and figure out who they are before getting back in the grind of another 2-4 years of schooling. And definitely agree that the idea of staging a college degree makes much more sense then how it is designed today. Really…how many young people coming out of high school really know what they want to be when they grow up? Offering a mix of professional development and work experience after that year of travel would help ensure that more people end up in jobs by design rather than by default.
Cheers!
MJ
Hey, Jason — great post as usual. A Columbia prof.’s recent op-ed in the NYT makes a similar argument about ending the university as we know it: http://is.gd/AZMR.
This piece spent days atop the “most emailed” list, which I take as a positive sign that there’s a good deal of support for major structural changes like those you describe. What do you think is the best way to organize and channel that support?
To MJ’s point about a revival of the traditional European “grand tour” before entering university: I think our collectively straitened economic circumstances make that unlikely, but I can easily envision some kind of extended internship/apprenticeship arrangement along the lines you suggest, or perhaps a year devoted to public/national service (like a mashup of the old CCC, the Peace Corps and the Israeli army).
If college is becoming obsolete, why is President Obama encouraging it to become affordable to everyone, and to include at least two years of post-high school ed in the free public system? Weren’t we once told that marriage was going to become obsolete as well, and now gays are pushing for the right to be legally married. What, sadly, has become obsolete is the ability to work at one job for one company for, say, eighteen or more years, as was commonplace in the post-war years. Does anybody think we will ever see lifetime job security again?
@Brian—make no mistake, post-secondary ed is critical and will be around for a long, long time. I just think it’s form will change. Issues of this magnitude are subtle, and often contain intense dualities (think of the Hummer’s growing popularity around the same time as Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth).
As for job security, I think the answer is yes, but again, only after it’s been redefined. The corporate structure concentrates too much power in the hands of too few—who, as good as they may be, have proven time and again unable to wield that power responsibly—so the system is being dismantled a bit and changed. We’re living through a growing pain, and the world ain’t going back to the way it was. Is that good? bad? No… it just is.
@Ken—thanks, I hadn’t seen that, but I agree with the op/ed piece. Good luck creating “matrixed” departments, though: old battle lines fall hard, especially between haves (think b-schools) and have nots (think comparative lit). I’d leave the old guard alone and focus on new stuff, like certificate programs and online degrees (which is happening) and let the old guard institutions adapt or die on their own. Some will grow and morph, others will resist and maintain the 4 yr institution… and that duality will be good for all, because it will create even more choice.
sometimes i consider The main utility in attending the “right” college and for that matter the right high school has more to do with social capital than anything else.
@Rob—no doubt… that’s very expensive social capital, tho!
i wonder if i went to Taft instead of Holy Cross HS or Cornell instead of Ithaca College if the incremental investment would have had an effect in this area? Thx for the response btw
@Rob—Here’s the thing: yes, it can make a difference if you make the right connections… but in this country—in a *capitalist society*—you’re supposed to be able to unlock opportunity based on ability, not connections. When connections determine opportunity, that’s not capitalism anymore, that’s cronyism.