7 Trends Disrupting College
College and universities need to adapt or risk irrelevance
1. Increasing cost
The cost of college is increasing faster than housing prices and hourly wages. Institutions keep raising the sticker price to cover costs and price discriminate between potential students. The escalating price is actually starting a cycle of more individuals balking during enrollment, which leads to the next trend.
2. Decreasing Enrollment
The number of students going to college has decreased every year for the past 5 years totaling 812,069 fewer students (GOV, NSC). Most of these students are from community colleges and low income backgrounds. While this represents only 4% of the total student population at the peak of enrollment in 2010, it signals a shift. An undercurrent exists of those choosing alternative paths, whether due the unclear value of college all together or foregoing for other life responsibilities. As enrollment drops, colleges counter by raising prices to cover costs, which leads less students to enroll, perpetuating the cycle.
3. Shifting funding
Funding on average has decreased over time when adjusted for inflation. It has fluctuated between state and federal sources. State funding for higher education has decreased steadily from 2000–2012 (by 20.3% on average) and increased slightly from 2015–2016. Over 2015–2016, federal funding has increased. The decreases in funding continue to put pressure on schools to cut cost and increase tuition as they seek to stabilize institutions.
4. Virtual experiences
The virtual university is coming. While higher education’s fear of MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) replacing campuses has waned — VR (virtual reality) classrooms hold a different promise. While a few startups are creating virtual tools to transform classroom learning others like HBX Live are taking the classroom virtual all together. With the $10 billion fund formed to advance the field of virtual reality, the medium has the potential to lower the cost of providing the community and connections that universities hold as the only true advantage between in-person and online degree programs.
5. Rise of tech and hybrid jobs
As technology continues to proliferate our world, information technology jobs increased by 200K in 2015 totaling to 6.7M jobs. accounting for 7.1% of the U.S. GDP. Simultaneously the skills within technology and other fields are not being isolated to one ‘job type’ or ‘major’. According to a recent study, 71% of in-demand skills are required across two or more job categories. Roles are becoming more hybrid, requiring skills typically ‘siloed’ within individual programs. New ‘growth hacking’ roles require marketing and technical skills. Product manager roles require business, management, in addition to technical skills. The future needs polymath workers — and these workers need the flexibility and power to customize their learning.
6. Evolving economy
The average lifespan of a company is falling. The lifespan of leading companies listed on the S&P 500 has decreased by more than 50 years in the last century, from 67 years in 1920 to just 15 years today, according to Professor Richard Foster from Yale University. The shortening company life span signals an increasing pace in the evolution of our economy. New companies are being formed and demanding new roles and skills from employees — which is driving the need for hybrid roles.
Most two and four year programs, are out of date upon arrival and are not built to keep pace with the job needs of the future.
7. Changing consumer preferences
While consumer choice and on-demand services have proliferated every aspect of consumer society, higher education has yet to follow. In the aspect of consumer choice, we can download over 30 million songs on iTunes and choose from 200 million products on Amazon. For on-demand services, we can request a ride from our phones in over 76 countries, stream a movie from Netflix, and get almost any consumer good delivered to our doorstep with Instacart.
Today’s consumers expect choice, immediacy, and short term gratification in most of the products and services they engage in.
The Future
We need a more adaptable learning system to help people train, retrain, and meet the needs of the workforce of the future. Our startup Caila aims to serve this purpose. Join us in changing higher education to meet the needs of our future workforce. Visit us or email us with feedback at hello@getcaila.com.
We can bring the higher education system forward so everyone has accessible to learning that will change their lives, without debilitating debt. Help us make that happen.
