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The Future of Colleges & Universities: Blueprint for a Revolution

NOTE: The following is the first in a four part series title: The Future of Colleges & Universities:  Blueprint for a Revolution

A recent article in the Washington Post began with the statement that today’s college students “may be part of the last generation for which ‘going to college’ means packing up, getting a dorm room and listening to tenured professors.”  By using these three aspects of college life – packing up, dorm rooms, and tenured professors – the writer was able to clearly illustrate the ritualized process of traditional university education, setting the stage for major changes coming in the very near future.

In 2007 I released a paper on the future of education, culminating an 18 month effort to probe the likely evolution of a system that has become emotionally linked with many of our country’s and the world’s deficiencies.

I talked about what I saw as the coming iTunes form of education where courses from anywhere in the world could be easily created through a templated process, sent to a central distribution site, and easily distributed to students around the world. At no time had it occurred to me that iTunes (Apple) may be one of the key players in making it happen.

While the paper generated huge amounts of interest, the predictions of massive change happening within the following two years proved to be a few years too optimistic. That said, a revolution is coming.

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