Is Higher Ed Broken?

"During the recent government shutdown, I bravely traveled to Philadelphia for the annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities' annual meeting. Then I hung out at Bryn Mawr College, where Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, gave a fantastic talk about curriculum to a big group (that included not that many faculty). Finally, I Amtraked up to a conference at Drew University in New Jersey."

"In my role as creator of Inside Higher Ed's wacky weekly newsletter The Sandbox, I go to plenty of higher ed conferences. The Drew gathering was a horse of another color. It convened 150 people from various sectors of learning-tech gurus, mentorship experts, K-12 educators, innovators in experiential learning, those who have started new organizations and institutions-to talk about the future of higher ed."

"The Drew convening opened with a talk by Michael Horn of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As a reminder, in 2013, he and Clayton Christensen predicted in a New York Times op-ed that online education was going to disrupt our sector and that 25 percent of struggling colleges and universities were going to close. He presented new research that shows dozens of brand-name schools in New England could now be in deep financial doo doo."

Conferences in Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr College, and Drew University brought together traditional campus leaders and innovators from learning technology, mentorship, K-12, and experiential learning. A curriculum-focused presentation at Bryn Mawr attracted a large audience, though relatively few faculty members. The Drew convening gathered about 150 participants to consider the future of higher education. New research presented referenced a 2013 prediction that online education would disrupt the sector and warned that many well-known New England colleges may face serious financial difficulty. Conversations probed the purpose of higher education, with faculty ideals emphasizing openness, curiosity, civic formation, and economic opportunity. Students expressed desires for challenge, diverse peers, new perspectives, and discipline.

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