Changing circumstances mandate that we shift the focus of higher education policy away from how to enable more students to afford higher education to how we can make a quality postsecondary education affordable. The challenge before the country also mandates a new definition of quality from the perspective of students–so that the education is valuable to them and that through it they improve their lives and thus improve the country’s fortunes, too. And if a postsecondary education is fundamentally affordable, this will also answer the question of how to extend access by enabling students to afford a higher education.
This report, by Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, Louis Soares and Louis Caldera of the Center for American Progress and Innosite Institute, tackles these questions by treating the industry’s challenges, at their core, as problems of managing innovation effectively. It examines the industry of higher education through the lenses of the disruptive innovation of online learning and the challenges being levied by for-profit institutions who are more equipped to cultivate innovation.
This is a fascinating read — one that should be considered by anyone in higher education today.
http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2011/02/disrupting.html
