Connecting the Dots: The Changing Higher Education Landscape

At Distance-Educator.com we strive to keep you abreast of the latest news and developments in higher education and its relation with the world of work. New ideas in news items, however, may prop up at any time and very often not in chronological order. In “Connecting the Dots” we try to bring together recent news items from various sources to highlight the trends in education and its social, and technological environment. Some of these items may be a year or two old, but they are important for your decision making purposes.

The article by Lucie Lapovsky Published in Forbes magazine in February 2018 is a good example. It is a year old, yet it presents a weeping review of how the business model for some higher education institutions has changed. The author stated that “There are some schools which have made very large changes to their business models and have recreated themselves as very different institutions from the way they began.” But along the changing landscape in how a college or a university may be managed,  the world of adult learns is changing too. Earlier in September 11, 2019 Goldie Blumenstyk in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled Why One Advocate Believes the Phrase ‘Go Back to School’ Needs to Go  provided an overview of how various institutions are changing their strategies to understand the needs of the adult learners better, and respond to such needs more appropriately. Among these changes were offering micro credentials to bridge the knowledge and skill gap between  higher education and the world of work. However, despite recent moves towards electronic badges and news about parents and students questioning the value of a traditional degree, Sean Gallagher in Harvard Business Review argued that “…by many measures, the value of a traditional degree today is as strong as ever in the job market. Innovation in degree delivery is occurring, but it is often being led by traditional, incumbent institutions, often in partnership with technology firms.” This is while the world of work is rapidly evolving as well and a major question in front of any CEO of major or even a minor corporation is to what extent a business can rely on higher education institutions to provide them with their necessary workforce, and to what degree they should invest in training their own employees. In another article in EdSurge Gallagher brought to our attention that “70 percent of Americans indicated that in the event that their current education or skills became outdated, they’d prefer on-the-job or other training offered by their employer.” Thus, The Future of Learning and Work will remain to be an important topic in the foreseeable future; a subject that is discussed in a podcast presented by the Association for Talent Development.  But perhaps as importantly, if an overwhelming majority of employees prefer to be retrained by their employer, how this trend would impact continuing and extended studies departments of colleges and universities?