Transformation of Higher Education - New Books in 2015

The transformation of higher education is a hot topic for authors.  Two new books will be released this spring by Kevin Carey from the New America Institute and Ryan Craig from University Ventures. While the authors have very different professional backgrounds - a policy analyst versus a professional venture capital manager -- they derive at similar conclusions and insights about the future of higher education.  Higher education as we know it will not be sustainable according to the authors and a great deal of disruption and change will be upon future student generations.  

Both books have a remarkable optimism that sees the future of education with greater access, more innovation, better outcomes and lower costs.   Yet change will not happen without pain for many existing institutions. 

And here is the famous recommendation, which your expected, right? I believe that both books are a must read if you want to understand the dynamic process and the players involved in the current transformation. Enjoy and let me know what you think.  

Please check out the podcast I recorded with Ryan Craig, author of College Disrupted. 

The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere

The Amazon promotion says:

From a renowned education writer comes a paradigm-shifting examination of the rapidly changing world of college that every parent, student, educator, and investor needs to understand.

Over the span of just nine months in 2011 and 2012, the world’s most famous universities and high-powered technology entrepreneurs began a race to revolutionize higher education. College courses that had been kept for centuries from all but an elite few were released to millions of students throughout the world—for free.

Exploding college prices and a flagging global economy, combined with the daring-do of a few intrepid innovators, have created a dynamic climate for a total rethinking of an industry that has remained virtually unchanged for a hundred years. In The End of College, Kevin Carey, an education researcher and writer, draws on years of in-depth reporting and cutting-edge research to paint a vivid and surprising portrait of the future of education. Carey explains how two trends—the skyrocketing cost of college and the revolution in information technology—are converging in ways that will radically alter the college experience, upend the traditional meritocracy, and emancipate hundreds of millions of people around the world. 

Insightful, innovative, and accessible, The End of College is a must-read, and an important contribution to the developing conversation about education in this country.

College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education

The Amazon promotion states: 

For nearly two decades, pundits have been predicting the demise of higher education in the United States. Our colleges and universities will soon find themselves competing for students with universities from around the world. With the advent of massive open online courses ("MOOCS") over the past two years, predictions that higher education will be the next industry to undergo "disruption" have become more frequent and fervent. Currently a university's reputation relies heavily on the "four Rs" in which the most elite schools thrive—rankings, research, real estate, and rah! (i.e. sports). But for the majority of students who are not attending these elite institutions, the "four Rs" offer poor value for the expense of a college education.

Craig sees the future of higher education in online degrees that unbundle course offerings to offer a true bottom line return for the majority of students in terms of graduation, employment, and wages. <i>College Disrupted</i> details the changes that American higher education will undergo, including the transformation from packaged courses and degrees to truly unbundled course offerings, along with those that it will not. Written by a professional at the only investment firm focused on the higher education market,<i> College Disrupted</i> takes a creative view of the forces roiling higher education and the likely outcome, including light-hearted, real-life anecdotes that illustrate the author's points

Here is again the link the podcast with the author Ryan Craig. 

A similar analysis was published by Jeff Selingo in 2013 (just in case you missed it):

What is the value of a college degree?

The four-year college experience is as American as apple pie. So is the belief that education offers a ticket to a better life. But with student-loan debt surpassing the $1 trillion mark and unemployment on the rise, people are beginning to question that value. Is a college diploma still worth pursuing at any price?

College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students, Jeffrey J. Selingo, editor at large for The Chronicle for Higher Education, argues that America’s higher education system is broken. The great credential race has turned universities into big business and fostered an environment where middle tier colleges can command elite university-level tuition while concealing staggeringly low graduation rates and churning out students with few hard skills into the job market.